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Desperate for success
The U.S. government has approved a research study in which Geron, a California biotech company, will use experimental therapies to treat patients with severe spinal cord injuries, the Washington Post reported Saturday.
The company will use cells from leftover embryos at fertility clinics derived before former President George W. Bush prohibited federal funding of such research. Advocates in the field see the Geron approval as a mere first step in more embryonic stem cell, anticipating that President Obama will lift the funding prohibition.
Given mounting successes in the use of adult stem cells, I found interesting a quote from the Post article:
Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass., which plans to ask the FDA to approve a study using embryonic stem cells to treat blindness. “The field desperately needs a big clinical success. It’s very important to show the naysayers that this is very real, and hopefully it will start helping people.”
Shouldn’t a “big clinical success” precede the notion that the medical efficacy of embryonic stem cells is “very real”?
back to top28 Comments to “Desperate for success”
Cool!
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Quite apart from the very real ethical issues, considering the very bad results from some embryonic stem cell research, and the positive results from adult stem cells, I wouldn’t want a relative of mine in this study. But then, add in the ethical factors, and this really begins to seem like a moral game–we’ll do it just because the Christians believe it’s wrong, even though we’ve had no good results so far.
One wonders if its lack of success is that God simply will not let this evil idea work, especially when He has given us a similar method that DOES work without killing babies or harvesting their cells after they die.
RPN, your one-word reply gave me chills.
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It’s not me.
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“Shouldn’t a “big clinical success” precede the notion that the medical efficacy of embryonic stem cells is “very real”?”
But of course Lynn, but then that sort of thinking was scientifically required pre-BO or would that be “BB” or perhaps “BBE”.
In this Era, in which all our problems will be solved because he said they would, the need for clinical success isn’t necessary because he said all our problems will be solved. This is Change We Can Believe In” and since we believe, we can ignore what actually works.
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Any purported gains (which as others have noted have NOT been forthcoming) from embryonic stem cell experimentation would have to be called what we all know it to be: a bargain with the Devil.
I dont care if embryonic stem cells could be used to defeat cancer or even if they had restored Ronald Reagan to the man he had been in the 70s, to accept
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Why don’t we just grow some fully developed babies in case someone needs a transplant? They could be designed to have rare blood types and such. Or design some with diseases we are trying to cure and use them as guinea pigs for possible cures. That would help a lot of people.
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KBells, did you see that film “The Island”??!
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RPN, you repeated it.
My friend/lawyer whose mother had Parkinson’s and I, whose mother had Alzheimers, sent a letter to President Bush 8 years ago advising him that neither mother would have wanted their lives extended at the expense of a child. I think we were right, and I think this sort of thing can lead to something such as KBells envisions in her post #6.
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&. Yes, good movie.
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Way to go NJLawyer! No more lawyer jokes for me.
Just so I don’t have to type the whole thing again, see my comments here:
http://brushforkbanner.blogspot.com/2009/01/stem-cell-millstone.html
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Oh, no Pastor Jim! A good lawyer joke is always appreciated!
I read and your post. May I add that in addition to the selfishness aspect, there’s got to be buck made somewhere in this?
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I read and enjoyed your post. Sorry.
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You probably appreciate good lawyer jokes like I appreciate good preacher jokes–the problem is when either the lawyer or the preacher is the joke.
As far as the money aspect, that only adds layers to the selfishness. Abortionists, fertility clinics, and researchers bring in billions. So i guess it would be accurate to say that they are selfishly profiting from the selfishness of others.
Selfishness, greed and murder seem to go hand-in-hand.
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The question that I can not wrap my mind around is- Why are these people so strongly in favor of using embrionic cells, when adult and umbilical cord cells are already working?
Why the absolute stubornness to destroy human life?
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See Romans 1:28-32 for your answer.
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As Pastor Jim says: “Selfishness, greed and murder seem to go hand-in-hand.
The human life has no meaning for them, the grant money does. The old judge I used to work for always said “it all comes down to money.”
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I did a lot of research on embryonic stem cell research in nursing school and came to the disturbing conclusion that there is a little too much science fiction mixed in with this type of scientific research. I am concerned that the public thinks that embryonic stem cells are some sort of miracle cure. That is simply not true. There are much better and much cheaper alternatives available.
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There seems to be a need to experiment with embryos in order to “prove” that they are not worthy o protection and that there is nothing sacred about human life. To use the suffering of other people as an excuse to play god (and thus defy God) is about as sick and digusting as it gets.
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Killing kids has just gotta be the way to a new cure! It’s just gotta! And by gum we’re gonna keep killing babies until we figure it out!
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So, you are a pastor, making his sick calls, sitting in a hospital room at the bedside of Janet, a ventilator-dependant 26 year old mother of 3. She was in perfect health until the tree branch crashed through the car windshield six months ago. Her husband and kids are there, swabbing her lips and massaging her limbs.
You say to them–”they’ve got this little treatment they’ve worked up that has a good chance of allowing Janet to walk again and have a pretty normal life. But, in order to do this they have to use a blastocyst which has been in cold storage for 5 years and will certainly remain that way for the next hundred years or so.
Now I have this book, which I believe in very strongly. I believe that this book says it would be gravely wrong to use that blastocyst to enable Janet to breathe and walk. Others who believe in this book, disagree with me about what it says. And many, many others believe in other similar books which have nothing to say about this situation.
But, I am not going to let the hospital offer this chance to Janet and the rest of you. Not only that, but I am going to Washington to try to prevent ANYONE from offering your boy this chance.
I know that this sounds hard, but as you know, my god is a kind and loving god and I am sure that it knows best.”
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Two points: 1. Embryonic stem cells have different properties than adult stem cells. Success with adult stem cells does not mean there’s not need for embryonic.
2. Embryos are created and destroyed in fertility clinics every day. For some reason, Christians never latched onto that as a moral issue until people started suggesting that rather than being merely destroyed, some of the embryos could be destroyed as part of an effort to find cures for previously incurable fatal or disabling conditions.
Given the above, particulary #2, condemnations like #18 and #19 seem particularly vapid. How come you’re ok with having them destroyed for no reason but opposed to having them destroyed as part of an effort to do good for people?
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Steve G., we’re not OK with having them destroyed. Never have been. If you’d read anything written by Christians about infertility treatments, it has always been said that no one should fertilize more eggs than they’ll implant, nor plant more than they’re willing to see born.
Arcadia, there has been no success with these cells, so your hypothetical story is meaningless. And if we ever do get to such a point where there’s sucess, it will be after the death of hundreds or thousands of babies. Is that really acceptable in today’s culture? Any pro-life hospitalized patient would refuse such treatment even if it meant her own death, just as a Christian would refuse cannibalization for nourishment, even if the person was already dead and even if refusing such “meat” meant her own death. We simply have no moral right to profit from human death in order to survive (except in cases of self-defense).
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Arcadia, what makes this womans life more important than the baby’s? Is it that she is known and loved. In that case would it be acceptable if she could be saved with a transplant from a homeless bum or an unwanted Down’s Syndrome baby. Is it because the baby will die anyway? Than would it be acceptable to save this woman with organs from a terminal AIDS patient or a death row inmate? IS is because the child won’t feel anything? Then let’s be sure to put the bum, the prisoner or the dying patient out before we rip their insides out to save this loved one.
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One property embryonic stem cells have is that they tend to metastatize. We can cure you of your problem, so what if cancer then kills you!
Arcadia, no such treatment for your patient is remotely on the horizon. It is at least as likely that a treatment using pluripotent adult stem cells could be developed without the ethical problems of killing humans.
Let’s move from the hypothetical to the real. I have insulin dependent diabetes, diagnosed in 1982. It has restricted my life and I have suffered some side effects. It will likely remove years from my life. If I could cure it by a treatment that involves the death of other humans, I would refuse the treatment.
STEVEG:
The prolife movement has always regarded the destruction of embryos created for fertility treatments as morally reprehensible. The use of the “morning after” pill and some forms of contraception were opposed for the same reason. This is not new. Your point 2 is absurdly wrong.
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Isn’t it wonderful how some here oppose the research and then triumphally proclaim that “see, there’s no proof that it works”?
Ken, who the heck are you to say what is “remotely on the horizon” when you won’t let anybody peek over the the top of your bunker.
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I just read an article on the BBC web site about a medical researcher who was able to save a patient’s life by growing a new windpipe for her out of her own stem cells. Here’s the Tiny URL, if anyone’s interested: http://tinyurl.com/c3d5sr
Researchers at the University of Vermont College of Medicine (UVMCOM) have been working on a couple of different projects using stem cells from adults and/or cord blood, with some impressive results, although to my knowledge nothing is quite ready yet for clinical trials.
The successful projects I’ve been hearing about have utilized non-embryonic stem cells. Have there been similarly successful things attempted with embryonic stem cells that I’ve just missed?
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MMacmurray,
The only cases I’ve heard using embryonic stem cells have been spectacular failures (Alzheimer’s patients with growths and twitching and no positive effects).
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Thanks, Cheryl D. I’ve heard the same reports you have. I was wondering if any of the people who commented above who support the use of embryonic stem cells had other information.
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