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Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Bush Morals on Stem Cell Research…


Cross posted at Bring IT ON!
Where President Bush failed to act then the States and the Governors have taken up the charge where it concerns Stem Cell Research. Once more on yet another critical issue to our nation the President and his lack of vision are being trampled on by yet one more Governor that knows where the future of science is. President Bush claims to be against embryonic stem cell research for moral reasons and yet he would have no problem incinerating those same embryos as medical waste that is at the very heart of this heated discussion. Donated embryos without a womb or hope of a womb will degrade over time and when that time comes they simply light a match and thus end the discussion and his argument of higher principles and personal morals on life being sacred.

What simply amazes me to no end is that the states and the Governors of our nation are showing what true leadership is when it comes to medical science. The few Governors that have chosen to take on stem cell research are truly the people that deserve our nations and the world’s gratitude. George Bush is the oxymoron President that will protect and embryo in a cellular state with no chance of survival outside of a womb and yet he will send our young men and woman to fight a war that his administration made up? If that doesn’t make you go Hmmm then I don’t know what will?

Over at the New York Times they have this great piece on Governor Deval Patrick and his commitment to medical science …

Massachusetts Proposes Stem Cell Research Grants
By PAM BELLUCK
Published: May 9, 2007

BOSTON, May 8 — Gov. Deval Patrick on Tuesday unveiled a $1.25 billion proposal intended to help the state maintain its status as a pre-eminent place for stem cell research and other life sciences.

The money would provide grants for university and hospital scientists, establish special research centers to make their work faster and more efficient, and train workers for biotechnology businesses.

It would also establish the first stem cell bank, a repository of all the stem cell lines created in Massachusetts laboratories, which would serve as a kind of stem cell lending library to scientists around the world.

“In many ways the health of this industry and the health of our society are very closely linked,” Mr. Patrick said at an international biotechnology convention here, where he announced the plan. “That’s why we will not rest on our laurels.”

Mr. Patrick’s plan involves $1 billion in state money over 10 years, some borrowed through bond issues, plus $250 million in matching money from private business.

Massachusetts is home to some of the most advanced research in stem cells and other life sciences, including the work of Craig C. Mello, a University of Massachusetts scientist who shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on silencing the effect of certain genes, which could lead to treatment of diabetes, AIDS and Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists at Harvard and other Massachusetts research centers have created more than 30 new lines of embryonic stem cells, more than researchers in other states.

Other states have proposed committing money to the field. Among them are California, which approved a $3 billion program; New Jersey, which has proposed $270 million; and New York, where Gov. Eliot Spitzer has proposed $1 billion for stem cell research.

These states are all seeking ways to get around the Bush administration’s restrictions on federal financing for embryonic stem cell research, which were imposed because President Bush objects to the necessity of destroying human embryos in order to create the stem cells.
– New York Times

America has to continue reaching for the outer limits of science and beyond not simply because we can but that we have to if we are going to continue as the leaders of the free world. We can not sit idly by while our families are suffering and dying from diseases that could possibly be cured if the research is simply started today. This research that could take decades may not save you from your terminal illness today but it just might save your grand child or great grand child.

There is another thought that was running through my head while reading this article and that was the sense of vision and long term job growth that this technology will bring to the states that dare to dream and fund it now. Back in the early seventies and eighties Massachusetts was the hub of computer technology companies and an industry leader in computer sciences. Companies like Wang, Digital, Data General, Prime One were just a few of the big players in that market and yet today they are all gone. Computer systems and parts and everything to do with building computers for the most part are now feeding families overseas now. Then you have to think about Detroit and what the people there are going to do now that their future is in question? Just knowing that the world’s largest auto maker is now in Japan has to send a shiver up your spine.

Embracing stem cell research will ensure America and Massachusetts is a player in the higher paid job markets ten, twenty and thirty years down the road. Some folks call it Progressive Government. I just call it smart government.

Governors like Deval Patrick know that you have to keep moving forward and embracing new ideas and new sciences to keep the good paying jobs in his state and help emerging opportunities to reach a bountiful potential. It is the job of the Governor of every state to make sure that the jobs that pay well will be there if not in his or her term then ten or twenty years down the road.

I’m trying to think of any science or technology that would promote a future of great jobs at descent salaries other than big oil that this President has embraced. Nope, I got nothing. Can you think of one?

Papamoka
Cross Posted at Bring It ON!

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Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Stem Cell Research Damages Bush Argument Against It!


Picture courtesy of Children with Diabetes

Everyone reading this piece raise your hands if you know someone with Type 1 Diabetes. Counting hands, okay the numbers are adding up. You in the back, are you raising your hand or itching your armpit? He doesn’t count. Over to my right, the guy half raising his hand, do you or do you not know someone with Type 1 Diabetes? Look it up here if you are not sure. How about that rambunctious three year old over there in the picture to your left. Look it up folks. It’s called Google.

This piece isn’t about Type 1 Diabetes but then again it is if you think that Stem Cell research is an act against humanity from a biblical sense. God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. With that being said he left the rest of the job up to us to do with it as we please. That pesky free will thing ran amok for a while and we as his children managed hundreds and thousands of wars and atrocities against one another that even today make some scholars of history wonder what the hell people were thinking.

Medical science and progress in it takes years of research. Years of studies where some of the results are fatal and become a direct part of that science and the ultimate result being that some will benefit in the future. These medical researchers are not Adolph Hitler and his bastards destroying lives simply because they can. They are not Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte sending thousands to their deaths for the sake of national pride.

They are researchers in the study and cure of human illness. Which leads me to this piece on stem cell research over at The LA Times…

Stem cell success in Type 1 diabetes

By Karen Kaplan, Times Staff Writer

2:28 PM PDT, April 10, 2007

Researchers have demonstrated for the first time that the progression of Type 1 diabetes can be halted — and possibly reversed — by a stem cell transplant that preserves the body's diminishing ability to make insulin, according to a study published today.

The experimental therapy eliminated the need for insulin injections for months or even years in 14 of 15 patients who were recently diagnosed with the disease. One subject, a 30-year-old male, hasn't taken insulin since his stem cell transplant more than three years ago, according to the study in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

The study suggests a new avenue for treating the intractable disease, in which the immune system destroys insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. Without insulin, patients can't metabolize sugar and run the risk of developing nerve damage, cardiovascular disease, kidney failure and blindness.

Patients with Type 1 diabetes typically compensate by monitoring their blood sugar levels every few hours and injecting themselves with insulin as many as five times a day.

After the stem cell treatment, "patients are absolutely medication-free — they're off insulin," said Dr. Richard Burt, chief of the division of immunotherapy at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago and senior author of the study.

The strategy is similar to an approach that has shown some success in treating other immune system disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and multiple sclerosis.
– The LA Times

I understand the President and his overly zealous opinion against embryonic stem cell research but his actions also limit further studies in this field using other stem cell lines that offer benefits that the countries greatest minds have yet to explore.

With this post there is a catch 22 dilemma. While opposing the research in any possible medical advances that could come from embryonic stem cell research the President also knows that the subject embryos of that research will be flushed down a toilet or incinerated as medical waste.

This is one of those discussions that leap in and out of the religions of the nation and the fact based life of science. How do you decide who wins the argument?

Papamoka Poll:

Are you in favor of Stem Cell Research at any level? Post a Yes or no answer in the comments. Feel free to discuss and make your point heard.

Whom do you trust with overseeing medical research from a government perspective? Democrats or Republicans or neither? Post a D or R answer in the comments. Feel free to discuss and make your point heard.

I’m very interested on what my readers think on these matters.

Papamoka


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