New Site for Adult Stem Cell Resources

www.stemcellresearchfacts.org is part of a campaign to educate and spread awareness about the potentials and successes of adult stem cell therapies. H/T Zenit

11 embryonic stem-cell research arguments refuted

I had drill this week-end. As a member of the Air National Guard I have a military obligation one week-end a month. As an active duty member of the Guard, I wear the uniform full time so when I have drill it means that I am in the middle of a 12 day work week. While 12 day work weeks pale in comparison to 120 day work weeks we did in Iraq, I am old and whiney and tired tonight and will use the fact as an excuse for picking out some good stuff at other blogs and using the "autopilot" buttons and posting.

Over at bioethike I have found a couple of posts worth sharing.

11 embryonic stem-cell research arguments–refuted

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The Oprah Winfrey Show – A Platform to Advocate the Use of Adult Stem Cells?

Nice to see the show being used for something good for a change...

From STR:
...Wouldn't it be great to use Oprah Winfrey's TV show to explain how adult stem cells are superior to embryonic stem cells for potentially treating Parkinson’s disease?
Ask and you shall receive.

Check out how Dr. Oz explains to Oprah, her audience, and Michael J. Fox (an ardent embryonic stem cell supporter) that "the stem cell debate is dead." The reason? He says embryonic stem cells aren't as desirable because they can become cancerous. Adult stem cells, on the other hand, can be induced to become as flexible as embryonic stem cells without the cancerous side effects. I think Dr. Oz even hints (although he doesn’t spell it out) that cloning won’t be necessary since adult stem cells have the same genes as the patient. (more)

Too Tired to Blog-Regulating IVF and Creation and Care of Embryos

I had to get up early this morning (before 4 early) and drive to San Antonio to fire weapons. I'm old and this stuff doesn't sit well with anymore. I'm tired and cranky. Go read Euripides, or And Sometimes Tea, or Beetle or anybody else on the right side of the blog. Or try a new one on the state of "a new phase of a very old war, " at Gates of Vienna.
I'll be back tomorrow or Monday after a good nights sleep...


But before I head to bed...

Are we inconsistant in our opposition to embryonic stem cell research and abortion while we remain largely silent on IVF?

Define embryos as human
from USAToday.

Now is the time for pro-lifers to introduce legislation in their states regulating IVF and, with it, the creation and care of embryos. A bill introduced in the Georgia Senate this month had perfect model language. It would have limited the number of embryos implanted to the same number fertilized, up to a maximum of three. That would stop the practice of freezing human embryos and would curtail "selective reductions," the abortion of some.

Though that language did not survive, it remains a model for other states. The bill still importantly defines embryos outside the uterus as human beings, so court disputes must be decided in the best interest of the embryo, not either parent fighting over the embryo.

A movement in this direction is gathering force. Louisiana has had a law since 1986 defining ex-utero embryos as human beings with inherent rights. Embryos cannot be destroyed for research. Court disputes over abandoned embryos must be decided in the best interest of the embryo. At least five other states are considering legislation defining an embryo as a person. (more)

"aborted fetuses offer 'at least a temporary solution' to the shortage of available organs for people in need of transplants."

It worked for Embryos so... A frighteningly accurate post by STR. Folks we need to wake up and fight...


Let's apply the same reasoning to unwanted fetuses. At least, that's what Oxford professor Richard Gardner is advocating, saying that "aborted fetuses offer 'at least a temporary solution' to the shortage of available organs for people in need of transplants."

From a Slate article:
Two arguments have persuaded the United States to fund stem-cell research using destroyed embryos. One is that the research will save lives. The other is that the embryos, left over from fertility treatments, will otherwise be wasted. Both arguments are now being applied to fetuses.

Apparently, "it is a shame to waste their organs," since they're going to die anyway.
We have reached a seemingly impassable great divide in Western culture--the divide at the root of conflict after conflict between the two sides. One side sees human life as intrinsically valuable, the other does not. One side has an unshakable grounding for human rights in a Creator, ensuring that no mere human or group of humans will be granted the authority to pick and choose which human beings are worthy or unworthy of rights based on whichever characteristics they happen to favor. The other pays lip service to the idea of human rights and dignity because the idea still feels good, but little by little lets those rights slip away when pressed by expediency. In the end, on their side, there is no real human value. Instead, the value lies in what a human can do, either alive or dead. And we get to decide in which of these two categories a human being will do the most good. This kind of value is not objective, but subjective, based on the preference of others. And since rights are granted by other humans, they can be taken away for a "good cause."

And that side will take away. I guarantee you this is only the beginning. (more)

Obama's Concerning Lack of Principle

From VersusPolitics. A good article on the lack of principle in Obama's administration:

While we’re still very early in President Obama’s first term, one stark difference between the current President and the previous one is becoming clear. While President Bush was painted as an ideologue, President Obama has shown a concerning lack of principle in his first few weeks by endorsing contradicting ideas in multiple policy arenas.

I praised the President this week for his support of teacher merit pay and school vouchers. In the budget bill signed this week, however, is a provision to hamper the school voucher program in D.C. Does the President support school choice and competition? Does he realize that the omnibus budget sends a contradictory message?

The President says he wants to create jobs, but he supports tax proposals that will hurt businesses, and he’s supporting increased regulations in various sectors. The first act he signed in office was the Fair Pay Act, which makes employers more vulnerable to lawsuits. He’s also promising the unions support for Card Check.

He wants to protect struggling manufacturing sectors like the automobile industry, but he’s supporting environmental restrictions and requirements that only make manufacturing more expensive, and the idea of outsourcing more attractive.

In foreign policy, he wants to restore alliances with other nations, but he has been ambiguous in supporting trade protectionism. He has criticized the war in Iraq, but he’s basically carrying out the same strategy, and is calling for a counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan.

Perhaps the most clear example of contradiction was the President’s executive order this week to overturn the embryonic stem cell ban. The omnibus budget, which the President signed, contains a provision that bans federal spending for research of destructive human embryonic stem cells. Essentially, the President’s announcement this week was a publicity stunt.

Charles Krauthammer, a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics, criticized the President for a lack of seriousness on the issue. Krauthammer’s view of President Obama’s approach creates a contrast with an account I heard from another member of the Council on Bioethics, who remembered meeting with President Bush to discuss the issue of embryonic stem cell research. This Council member said that President Bush had spent significant time considering the issue, and that the President spoke articulately in a way that demonstrated an understanding for the science and ethical questions surrounding it. Quite a difference....(More)

Obama Signs Law Banning Federal Embryo Research Two Days After Signing Executive Order to OK It

So, is it ignorance (did the president not know about the Dickey-Wicker amendment) or is he playing politics again- (throwing red-meat to teh left but hiding behind the law) Anybody like toventure a guess? While it appears that this is some good news at first glance (continuing a sound Bush policy) one thing for sure is you probably won't see this news as a headline anytime soon...

CNSNews.com) - On Wednesday, only two days after he lifted President Bush’s executive order banning federal funding of stem cell research that requires the destruction of human embryos, President Barack Obama signed a law that explicilty bans federal funding of any "research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.

"The provision was buried in the 465-page omnibus appropriations bill that Obama signed Wednesday. Known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment, it has been included in the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services every fiscal year since 1996.

The amendment says, in part: "None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for—(1) the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes; or (2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death." (more)

Found in Section 509 of Title V of the omnibus bill (at page 280 of the 465-page document), the federal funding ban not only prohibits the government from providing tax dollars to support research that kills or risks injury to a human embryo, it also mandates that the government use an all-inclusive definition of “human embryo” that encompasses any nascent human life from the moment that life comes into being, even if created in a laboratory through cloning, in vitro fertilization or any other means.

“For the purposes of this section,” says the law, “the term ‘human embryo or embryos’ includes any organism … that is derived by fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means from one or more human gametes or human diploid cells.” (The entire verbatim text of Section 509 of the omnibus spending law is reprinted at the bottom of this article.)

Some Final Thoughts on Stem Cells

A few articles to put some further perspective on the so-called stem cell good news:

First, over at MereComments they highlight some actual truth telling at the NY Times:

However, the president’s support of embryonic stem cell research comes at a time when many advances have been made with other sorts of stem cells. The Japanese biologist Shinya Yamanaka found in 2007 that adult cells could be reprogrammed to an embryonic state with surprising ease. This technology “may eventually eclipse the embryonic stem cell lines for therapeutic as well as diagnostics applications,” Dr. Kriegstein said. For researchers, reprogramming an adult cell can be much more convenient, and there have never been any restrictions on working with adult stem cells.

For therapy, far off as that is, treating patients with their own cells would avoid the problem of immune rejection.

Some perspective on the truth of Obama's decision over at WSJ:

..."Moderate" Mr. Obama's policy is not. It will promote a whole new industry of embryo creation and destruction, including the creation of human embryos by cloning for research in which they are destroyed. It forces American taxpayers, including those who see the deliberate taking of human life in the embryonic stage as profoundly unjust, to be complicit in this practice.

Mr. Obama made a big point in his speech of claiming to bring integrity back to science policy, and his desire to remove the previous administration's ideological agenda from scientific decision-making. This claim of taking science out of politics is false and misguided on two counts.

First, the Obama policy is itself blatantly political. It is red meat to his Bush-hating base, yet pays no more than lip service to recent scientific breakthroughs that make possible the production of cells that are biologically equivalent to embryonic stem cells without the need to create or kill human embryos. Inexplicably -- apart from political motivations -- Mr. Obama revoked not only the Bush restrictions on embryo destructive research funding, but also the 2007 executive order that encourages the National Institutes of Health to explore non-embryo-destructive sources of stem cells.

Second and more fundamentally, the claim about taking politics out of science is in the deepest sense antidemocratic. The question of whether to destroy human embryos for research purposes is not fundamentally a scientific question; it is a moral and civic question about the proper uses, ambitions and limits of science. It is a question about how we will treat members of the human family at the very dawn of life; about our willingness to seek alternative paths to medical progress that respect human dignity.... (more)


And from NRO some badly needed perspective on the implications of Obama's shortsighted decsion:

...Unlike the bills Bush vetoed, however, Obama’s action did not replace the existing policy with another set of boundaries grounded in a different ethical calculus.

Instead, Obama eliminated the Bush policy and then took the unusual and provocative step of also rescinding Bush’s 2007 executive order providing support for alternative sources of stem cells — an order that in no way limited embryonic stem-cell research and need not have been retracted.

Having lifted these restrictions, Obama put no rules or boundaries of any kind in their place, instructing the scientists at the National Institutes of Health to do so on his behalf over the next few months.

Obama’s executive order makes no mention of any moral qualm about the destruction of human embryos — whether left over from fertility treatments or created especially for experimentation, including human embryos created by cloning.

The last time NIH scientists were tasked with developing rules for embryo research, in 1994, they returned with proposals so permissive that Bill Clinton felt compelled to reject them. There is no reason to think the NIH will be any more circumspect this time, but President Obama unfortunately has given us considerable reason to think he will not reject even the broadest possible mandate for the exploitation of nascent human lives. With this week’s executive order, Obama has not so much staked out a position in the embryo debate as dismissed the debate itself as unnecessary.

The embryo debate is among the first real tests of our commitment to the equal protection of every human life in the age of biotechnology. The quandaries of this age will only grow more vexing and complicated. But scientific advances in recent years — especially the development of alternative sources of embryonic-like cells that do not necessitate the destruction of human organisms — appear to offer us a way around the test.

President Obama has turned his back on those advances. He has needlessly and clumsily forced a choice between the promise of progress and the respect for life, and has gone out of his way to ensure that we fail the moral test put before us. Let us hope this failure proves reversible in time and does not set the tone for science policy in the years to come.

Who Will Shield Us From Science?

Obama Aims to Shield Science From Politics

thus reads the headline over at the Washington Post

the first paragraph seems to continue this train of thought..

When President Obama lifts restrictions on funding for human embryonic stem cell research today, he will also issue a presidential memorandum aimed at insulating scientific decisions across the federal government from political influence, officials said yesterday.

And I think to myself, would that it were true. Then we could have both sides of the so-called global warming argument. We might hear of the hundreds of other scientists who doubt its cause or its existence and thus save ourselves the billions of dollars proposed to fight this windmill.

Or perhaps we would hear that there is not one scientific study that conclusively indicates that anyone is "born" a homosexual. and then I wake up...

The second paragraph goes on:

"The president believes that it's particularly important to sign this memorandum so that we can put science and technology back at the heart of pursuing a broad range of national goals," Melody C. Barnes, director of Obama's Domestic Policy Council, told reporters during a telephone briefing yesterday. ..

Who makes those national goals? The government. Science and technology are firmly ensconced in pursuing national (political) goals and will always do so when offered money (grants) to do so.

And then I went back to the headline: Obama Aims to Shield Science From Politics

And I wonder, who will shield us from science?

Excellent article over at And Sometimes Tea about this. Stop in and have a read.

Fallacy of Mean- A Response to the "Ethical Middle Ground" of Embryonic Research

Earlier I posted the article from the LA Times on the Obama Administration's plan to reverse the Bush Policy on embryonic stem cell research and a couple of responses from CMR and Georgetown blog.

Over at In the Light of the Law there is another response on the "fallacy of the mean," i.e. that when faced with choosing between two opposed options, a middle course is best. H/T Insight Scoop.

..."Sure, if I'm trying to decide between having two scoops of ice cream, and having none, I might choose to have just one. But that's about as far as "the mean" approach gets a bloke.

Example, some folks believed that no Jews should be gassed. Hitler thought that they all should be gassed. Should one offer to split the difference, and gas just half of them? Don't like Nazi analogies? Okay. . .

Some Founding Fathers thought slavery should be protected throughout the country, others thought it should be made illegal everywhere. So they compromised, and made half the States slave, half free. We all know how that one turned out, don't we?

I believe that no embryonic human being should be experimented upon, let alone killed. The Obama administration believes that they all can be treated so. Reese suggests we settle our differences by only experimenting on and killing "the extra ones". How one squares Reese's compromise with the absolute prohibition against deliberately taking an innocent human life (Evangelium vitae, 57) I have no idea.

And yes, I know they're (almost certainly) "going to die anyway", and not like you or I are "going to die anyway." But that does not mean that these tiny people should die by my hand, or with my dollars.As we look for a way out of Complication No. 658 that follows in the wake of separating sex from procreation, we're going to need better options than 'just-kill-some-of-them'.

Politics With A Body Count

On the heels of the LA times article here on the Obama Administration's plan to reverse the Bush Policy on embryonic stem cell research Creative Minority Report: has a nice piece on why this makes so little sense...

Also this article from the Georgetown blog via the Washington Post on an "ethical middle ground" (is there such a thing?). Among the suggestions:

...Granted that the administration is going to allow the use of embryonic stem cells, how can the decision be made less ethically repugnant to those who find their use objectionable? Are their limits that can be put on embryonic stem cell research that most people, even their supporters, would recognize as appropriate? Here are some suggestions.

1. Embryos for research cannot be bought and sold. Embryos should not be created for the sole purpose of research. They should only come from excess embryos produced at fertility clinics that are scheduled to be destroyed anyway.

2. Before using human embryonic stem cells, researchers should show that the research they are doing cannot be done with non-embryonic stem cells.

3. Research using embryonic stem cells should aim at advancing toward the goal of using only non-embryonic stem cells in regenerative medicine. In other words, once the process of developing adult stem cells for treatments has been shown to be safe and reliable, any research in embryonic stem cells should be able to move seamlessly into the use of adult stem cells leaving the ethical problems behind.

These rules will not satisfy those who find any use of embryos ethically objectionable, but it will indicate that the Obama administration is trying to find some middle ground that gives some respect to the many Americans who find such research repugnant. In short, if science shows a way out of this ethical dilemma, we should follow it. (read it all here)

Well it would be a start and we all know how the Obama Administration seeks that middle ground...ahem.

Obama to reverse Bush policy on embryonic stem cell research

More on the emerging tragedy that is the Obama Administration..

From the LA Times:
White House sources say key restrictions on federal funding will be lifted Monday. Social conservatives protest that the move will 'aid the destruction of innocent human life.'...

...In changing the policy, Obama may further anger social conservatives who believe that the research is immoral because human embryos are destroyed in the course of obtaining stem cells. Many are already upset at Obama for reversing Bush administration policies that restricted abortion services.

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said federal funding should be directed to research on stem cells not derived from embryos."The question is whether taxpayer dollars should be used to subsidize the destruction of precious human life," Boehner said in a statement Friday. "Millions of Americans strongly oppose that, and rightfully so. Taxpayer dollars should not aid the destruction of innocent human life."Administration officials did not provide much detail Friday about the order that Obama plans to sign at a White House ceremony Monday. One official said the president would emphasize "a return to sound science," a theme that Obama and other Democratic candidates talked about often during last year's presidential campaign....(more)

Is that the best question we can come up with? .."Whether 'taxpayer dollars should be used to subsidize the destruction of precious human life'.." If that is the best we can do then perhaps we are too far gone. The president would emphasize "a return to sound science," without reference to the sacredness of life or the ethical and moral implications of research and sacrifice on the weakest. This is not sound. This is diabolical.

Adult Stem Cells May Cure Blindness, while Embryo Researchers Complain of Funding Cuts

LifeSite bears witness to the truth highlighted in the Embryo Farming article below:
"The dirty little secret liberals don't want you to know is that stem cell science has moved beyond the use of embryonic stem cells. George Bush, as Charles Krauthammer has pointed out, was right. There was a better way. "

LONDON, January 19, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – At the same time that Britain’s embryo researchers are complaining of budget cuts to their research, experiments with adult stem cells continue to bear fruit, with a possible cure for blindness on the near horizon.
The UK Stem Cell Foundation and Scottish Enterprise, in partnership with the Chief Scientist Office, have been given the green light to begin trials this month using adult stem cells that could potentially restore vision to patients with corneal blindness. The planned clinical trial with around 20 patients represents a major step forward for stem cell therapies that often take years of animal testing to bring to human trials.

The treatment involves the transplantation of stem cells on to the surface of the cornea to replace diseased cells in the eye of a patient with chronic corneal disease. Lead researcher Professor Bal Dhillon, consultant ophthalmic surgeon at the Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion in Edinburgh, said, “This study is the first of its kind in Scotland and it is exciting to be involved in such ground-breaking work.

“Piloting the use of limbal stem-cell transplantation is a great landmark in the treatment of patients suffering from corneal blindness.”

At the same time, other researchers are complaining that after years of lobbying the government for laws allowing it, embryonic research, including the creation and use of human/animal hybrid clones, is having its funding cut. Some scientists are accusing funding bodies of holding vestigial moral objections to the idea of creating cow/human or rabbit/human chimeras in their funding decisions.

Ya Think?? (more)

Obama's Embryo Farm

From American Spectator:

...It's not just the prospect of embryo farming that should concern conservatives. The redirection of research monies into embryonic stem cell research will impede progress into truly important stem cell therapies. The dirty little secret liberals don't want you to know is that stem cell science has moved beyond the use of embryonic stem cells. George Bush, as Charles Krauthammer has pointed out, was right. There was a better way.

The really exciting stem cell research in the last year or so has centered on the transformation of adult cells into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Right now, researchers can take adult skin or blood cells and turn them into iPS cells as powerful as embryonic SCs. These cells have the potential to reverse heart disease, diabetes, paralysis and a host of other diseases. The benefit to individuals and our economy will be enormous.

The respect-for-life issues aside, it probably isn't a good sign that this new administration is falling back on antiquated policies and approaches to embryonic stem cell research. It surely will keep President-elect Obama's constituencey, the abortionists, happy, but it isn't good that tax dollars will be wasted on research that is now obsolete. (more)