A tarnished gold standard

Michael Cook
The last-ditch defence for experimenting with human embryonic stem cells is that they are a “gold standard” for stem cell research. Nonsense.

Heard much about human embryonic stem cell research lately? Whether or not embryos could be destroyed in the search for medical breakthroughs was one of the most controversial topics in the last US presidential election. It sparked bitter debates over the ethics of creating and dissecting nascent humans in Australia, Canada and the UK.

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/a_tarnished_gold_standard/

Adult stem-cell research sees another success

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow -

Chinese scientists are producing live mice from adult stem cells, and experts call it an exciting discovery. It represents another breakthrough for adult stem-cell research, according to Ben Kinchlow of the Adult Stem Cells Information Coalition.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=625300

Welcome to the genetic supermarket

Michael Cook

The good news is that the male of the species will not be placed on the endangered species list. It’s amazing how a simple press release can instantly capture the imagination of media around the globe. A few weeks ago British scientists announced that they had created human sperm cells from embryonic stem cells for the first time. This provoked snickers everywhere about a future when men are no longer needed to propagate the species.

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/welcome_to_the_genetic_supermarket/

When they say ‘stem cell research’…

Sheila Liaugminas
…..first ask ‘which kind?’, to clarify if the topic is embryonic or adult or cord blood (or other) stem cells. If it’s embryonic research, says bioethics expert Wesley J. Smith, look further into what the ultimate goal of that science actually is. http://www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/when_they_say_stem_cell_research/

Public ignored; full steam ahead for embryonic sacrifice

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow -
The National Institutes of Health has issued guidelines for research on human embryos. One pro-family spokesman accuses NIH of ignoring the public on the matter.

The guidelines, which are based on a presidential executive order, open the door for research that pro-life groups have fought against for years. Dr. David Prentice of the Family Research Council tells OneNewsNow those guidelines set up a system that creates an incentive for embryonic sacrifice. He goes on to say NIH simply did not listen to the public.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=594934

A failure of ethical imagination

Margaret Somerville

Some scientists cannot understand that our most treasured values are at stake in research on human embryos.
Human embryo stem cell (hESC) research has been making front-page news in both the United States and Canada for some time. This spring U.S. President Barack Obama lifted restrictions on this research so pluripotent stem cells, which can form all of the tissues and organs in the human body, can now be taken from embryos "left over" from in vitro fertilization. This kills the embryos.
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/a_failure_of_ethical_imagination/

Destroying life for science

Journalist Charles Kraut-hammer quotes Dr. James Thomson, discoverer of embryonic stem cells as saying, "If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, then you have not thought about it enough." I'd add, or there's something wrong with your sense of ethics.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/Destroying+life+science/1719495/story.html

New York May Use Taxpayer Money to Buy Human Eggs

New York's Empire State Stem Cell Board is expected to vote Thursday on a plan that would use state money to pay women for their eggs, which would be used for research. It would make New York the only state to tacitly endorse a cash-for-eggs scheme.Jennifer Lahl, founder and national director of The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, said called the plan a "twisted sort of logic.""The egg donation process has well-documented risks associated with the dangerous drugs taken," she said in a statement. "Added to these dangers are the longer-term risks associated with cancers and damage to the donors' future fertility."

http://www.citizenlink.org/CLNews/A000010210.cfm

'Eye for an eye' principle proves beneficial

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow -
Researchers "down under" are reporting exciting developments for the blind using stem-cell research.
At the University of New South Wales in Australia, researchers treated three people who were blind in one eye, using stem cells from the good eye. Dr. David Prentice of the Family Research Council explains the procedure.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=559134

Texans rally support for adult stem-cell research

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

The Texas legislature is working on a bill that could make it a leader in research using adult stem cells, rather than research that involves killing human embryos.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=538298

Skepticism over announced embryonic stem-cell 'cure'

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

British scientists want to begin experiments using stem cells from human embryos who are then killed to treat a serious eye problem. The process would be used to treat macular degeneration, a common cause of blindness among older people. According to a Times report in London, the team of British researchers have demonstrated that stem cells can prevent blindness in rats with a similar disease, and also successfully tested elements of the technology in pigs.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=501262

'Poor science' undergirds new stem-cell regs

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

The Obama administration has announced new guidelines for government-sponsored embryonic stem-cell research. The guidelines, issued by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), stop short of permitting scientists to create human embryos for research or pursuing techniques for cloning, but they do open the door for greatly expanding research involving human embryos. Critics argue the proposed regulations ignore gains made in adult stem-cell research, and create an incentive to "cannibalize" embryos from couples who do not wish to have any more children.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=496888

More on Embryonic Stem Cells (For the not-so-dummies)

E. Christian Brugger, Ph.D., Senior Fellow in Ethics

Because of heightened interest in my last piece, Stem Cells for Dummies, I decided to pursue further questions pertaining to scientific interest in embryonic stem cells (ESCs).

Pluripotent stem cells: elixirs of lifeRecall we said that ESCs possess the quality of pluripotency, that is, the ability to develop themselves from an undifferentiated cellular state into most any differentiated cell type in the human body. This wide-ranging capacity for differentiation—this pluripotency—is the coveted property of ESCs. Defenders of the research dream of a day when the powers of ES cell pluripotency have been fully harnessed. They reason: since degenerative diseases (such as Parkinson’s, Leukemia, Alzheimer’s, cardiac, liver and kidney disease, Lou Gering’s Disease … you name it) are caused by various kinds of tissue failure; if we can just control the regeneration of tissue by controlling the differentiation mechanisms of ESCs, we can definitively conquer degenerative disease! The lame shall walk, the blind shall see, and all sick persons know the good news. But we need embryos, lots of embryos.

http://culture-of-life.org//content/view/554/1/

Trickery alleged among ESCR proponents

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

The National Right to Life Committee is warning members of the House that they believe there's a bait-and-switch operation in the works. Douglas Johnson, spokesperson for the National Right to Life Committee, tells OneNewsNow that for years the advocates of embryonic stem-cell research have been giving assurances to the public that they only want to use the so-called "leftover" human embryos for infertile couples that are no longer needed. However, he disagrees.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=477038

Stem cells may help hearing loss

Stem cells may help deaf people hear again, according to early stage research by British scientists reported in the journal Stem Cell. A team at the University of Sheffield has discovered how to turn stem cells into ones that behave like sensory hair cells or auditory neurons. It may be possible to surgically insert these into the ear to restore lost hearing.

http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/bioethics_article/8543/

Good video clip on Stem Cells with Oprah, Dr. Oz, Michael J Fox

http://www.oprah.com/media/20090319-tows-dr-oz-brain

The Big One

Sheila Liaugminas

No, not the California earthquake. The one on the deniers-of-life landscape. The shock waves are being felt far and wide. Within the last month, former president Bill Clinton has done two jaw-dropping interviews at CNN on the subject of embryonic stem-cell research — one with Larry King and one with Sanjay Gupta — that indicate a stunning level of confusion on the basic biological facts of what an embryo is, what stem cells are, what “fertilization” in reproductive biology refers to, and even what can be fertilized or used to fertilize something.

http://www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/the_big_one/

Light at the end of a stem cell tunnel

Michaela Kingston

There was good news and bad news about human embryo research last week. As usual, everyone ignored the good news.

Last week, scientists from a small Massachusetts company, Advanced Cell Technology, divulged a new technique for the derivation of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). They described it enthusiatically in their press release as an ethically acceptable way to obtain hESCs since it theoretically leaves embryos unharmed.

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/light_at_the_end_of_a_stem_cell_tunnel/

Pardon me, your ideology is showing

Michaela Kingston

Not all barriers to stem cell science are bad, Mr President. And the biggest ones, like greed, one-upmanship, exploitation and hype, cannot be removed by executive order.

"Removing Barriers To Responsible Scientific Research Involving Human Stem Cells" is the title of the Executive Order signed on Monday by President Obama. The alleged barriers are "Presidential actions" that limited the authority of the Department of Health and Human Services over the past eight years. As a stem cell scientist and an American citizen, several things about Obama’s order and his accompanying remarks disturb me.

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/pardon_me_your_ideology_is_showing/

A closer look at that stem cell order

Sheila Liaugminas

….and the reporting on it. It’s all so Orwellian.

This Reuters article is just one random example of the general tenor or news coverage on President Obama’s executive order yesterday to expand embryo destructive research for unsuccessful stem cell applications. But they didn’t put it quite that way…

President Barack Obama lifted restrictions on federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research on Monday, angering abortion opponents but cheering those who believe the study could produce treatments for many diseases.

Pause and look at the language here.

http://www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/a_closer_look_at_that_stem_cell_order/

Adult stem-cell use proves successful again

Charlie Butts and Marty Cooper - OneNewsNow

UCLA researchers report a major breakthrough using adult stem cells to treat Parkinson's disease. LifeNews.com reports the results were published in the February issue of the Bentham Open Stem Cell Journal. Dr. David Prentice, a fellow with the Family Research Council, says the research features only one patient.

Continue...

Stem cells - a cure for AIDS?

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow - 1/30/2009

At the Stem Cell World Congress, research has been presented that could mean a cure for AIDS at some point in the future. In Palm Springs, California, adult stem-cell research experts met to discuss how AIDS could be treated by using stem cells from the infected patient's own body. Details of the research come from Dr. David Stevens of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations.

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Merck to focus on 'non-ethical' vaccines

Charlie Butts and Marty Cooper - OneNewsNow - 1/13/2009

Pharmaceutical giant Merck has decided to produce vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella that only use cells from aborted babies.

According to LifeNews.com, Merck & Co., Inc. has halted production of its monovalent vaccines, which only accounts for two percent of the total sales but are also important to pro-lifers because they are made from animal cells instead of aborted baby cells. The company announced it will focus instead on MMR11 vaccines, which account for 98 percent of the sales but are produced from "aborted fetal cell lines."

Continue...

Protecting pocketbooks from embryo research

Missourians are fighting back against passage of a November ballot issue providing state tax dollars for research on human embryos. Ed Martin of Missouri Roundtable for Life says the measure, which would result in killing tiny human beings, won passage with only a fraction-of-one-percent majority.

"It was passed after almost $35 million were spent by pro-cloning proponents to pass it -- and the opposition obviously was much less than that," he shares. Martin's organization has launched a petition drive to put the issue back on the ballot in 2010 in an effort to reverse the 2006 vote.

"It became clear that one of the impacts -- and a major one, at that -- was the creation of law and policy that made it possible for tax dollars to be used for human cloning as well as for abortion services actually," the activist explains.

Martin points out that someone wanting to start a business must go to banks for financing. But in this case, he adds, clone research businesses want taxpayers to hand them the money.

Missouri Roundtable for Life has also filed lawsuits to block $21 million in state funds from going to the research. One of those suits was dismissed last month.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=352034