Posted on 08/04/2005 11:45:45 AM PDT by skeptoid
The space shuttle program would seem to have nothing to do Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist’s call for dramatically expanded federal aid for embryonic stem cell research, but there are striking parallels.....
......Yet if the shuttle has had little use, ESCs so far have had none. They’ve never been tested on humans. And like the shuttle, there are far superior alternatives. Culled from numerous body tissues, these are generally called “adult stem cells.” Yet ASCs are routinely downplayed or ignored precisely because ESCs, like the shuttle, are of little value to the human race but are tremendously valuable for individual reputations and budgets.......
.......Oddly, although Frist is a heart transplant physician he seems clueless that some of the most exciting ASC work directly involves his field. ASCs have induced either muscle or vessel growth in human hearts in hundreds of patients worldwide.
......that makes him as much a specialist on stem cells as a plumber is on aquatic chemistry.
Michael Fumento is a bona fide authority on many subjects. His style is journalistic; he deals in facts; he is a diligent fellow and if you would have followed any of my recommendations, (e.g. read the source document and/or visit his site), you would have found he answers all his hate mail. I encourage you to send him some.
And while you're there, view his Review of Michael Fumento's Hate Mail (right at the end of the thirty-nine volumes of hate mail) It includes this line:
The aptly named Fumento has set himself the impressive, if not admirable, goal of being the most irritating human being on the planet, and he follows a shrewd principle: If you're going to be an asshole, be a really meticulous asshole. His writings dissect, in thorough, well sourced detail, various public "myths" of heterosexual AIDS, of Gulf War Syndrome, of domestic abuse, etc.
I await your next uninformed response.,
Mr. Fumento would likely respond, as well.
No sane person, much less a professional scientist, decides what potential any field of research holds, based solely on results to date. The technology available to study things this small is way ahead of where it was even 5 years ago.
If you look into the pace of developments in the closely related field of assisted reproductive technologies, you'll get a good idea of how fast things are moving. A few years ago, an 8-cell stage IVF embryo with significant fragmentation of its cells had no hope of continuing to develop into a baby, nor would the same embryo have had any hope of becoming a baby if it had been conceived naturally and remained inside its mother's uterus. It was biological waste -- whether you left it in the petri dish a bit longer, or transferred it back into the mother, it simply ceased to develop. But now, embryologists are able to remove the fragmented cells -- essentially performing surgery on 3 day old embryos -- and have found that with these defective cells removed, some of these embryos can go on to develop normally. This was just flat-out impossible 10 years ago, as the technology to perform such "surgery" simply didn't exist. No one had any way to find out whether this idea could actually work, and enable some women who are unable to produce embryos without a lot of fragmentation, to have babies of their own.
NOBODY knows what the relative potentials of embryonic stem cells vs. adult stem cells will be, nor to what extent research on embryonic stem cells might hasten the discovery of important new treatments using adult stem cells, or vice versa. Anyone who claims to know is making a fool of him/herself. Which is why there are no researchers in this field making such claims. Fumento is a JOURNALIST, who is claiming to know better than all the top researchers in this extraordinarily complex field, what the potential for the various avenues of research is. He is a buffoon.
Here's the article; about 600-700 words. See the Another myth paragraph about half-way through.
townhall.com Printer-friendly version With Stem Cells, Frist Backs a Loser Michael Fumento (back to web version) | Recommend to a friend August 4, 2005
The space shuttle program would seem to have nothing to do Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist’s call for dramatically expanded federal aid for embryonic stem cell research, but there are striking parallels.
Whatever NASA may claim, there’s little the shuttle can do that unmanned spaceships cannot – at much lower costs. But NASA knows what sci-fi writers always have, that we’re enamored of manned space flight. The shuttle’s main mission is maintaining the Agency’s prestige and budget.
Yet if the shuttle has had little use, ESCs so far have had none. They’ve never been tested on humans. And like the shuttle, there are far superior alternatives. Culled from numerous body tissues, these are generally called “adult stem cells.” Yet ASCs are routinely downplayed or ignored precisely because ESCs, like the shuttle, are of little value to the human race but are tremendously valuable for individual reputations and budgets.
Which brings us to Bill Frist’s break with the Bush administration, regarding more federal ESC funding (Note: one of the myths surrounding ESC research is that it currently receives no federal support, while another even claims research is illegal.)
Frist’s position is compelling, we’re told, not just because he’s the highest-ranking Senate Republican but also a physician. Actually, that makes him as much a specialist on stem cells as a plumber is on aquatic chemistry. A bit of reading will give you more knowledge about these cells than the average doctor possesses. You might learn that ASCs are CURRENTLY used in over 250 human clinical trials and are treating over 80 different diseases.
ESC researchers sniff that this is only because their field is newer, but research on both types of cell dates back to the 1950s. ESCs aren’t playing catch-up; they’re falling behind.
Oddly, although Frist is a heart transplant physician he seems clueless that some of the most exciting ASC work directly involves his field. ASCs have induced either muscle or vessel growth in human hearts in hundreds of patients worldwide. Next month, Brazil begins heart ASC experiments involving 1,200 persons.
Another myth that Frist propagated in his “breakaway” speech is that “embryonic stem cells uniquely hold specific promise for some therapies and potential cures that adult stem cells cannot provide.” In fact, ALL that ESCs have is promise. That’s why advocates feel obliged to claim they’ll eventually cure every disease from Alzheimer’s to acne. But again, had Frist done his homework he’d know that three years ago scientists began changing ASCs into ALL three types of cells the body produces.
Since then, countless labs have used various forms of ASCs to make all those cell types, but ESC advocates insist you not know this. They also go bonkers if you mention at least four different methods of creating ESCs without destroying embryos are being developed, as the June issue of Wired documents. They want that money NOW!
Ironically, the clamor for massively-increased public funding for ESCs is precisely because their practical applications, if any, lie many years in the future while those of ASCs are here and now. The media may go gaga over ESC researchers’ pie-in-the-sky claims but private investors know better. (Except when the government injects funding into ESC research, such as happened with California’s Proposition 71; huge fortunes were made or – in the case of Bill Gates – simply expanded.)
This isn’t to say ASC research NEEDS public funding either. But they could easily handle far more federal support without using it to gold-plate the operating instruments. As I’ve earlier written, prominent Harvard researcher Dr. Denise Faustman may well have found a cure for type 1 diabetes involving ASCs but cannot proceed with testing for lack of money.
Meanwhile, the federal medical research budget has virtually stopped expanding so that more spending for anything means less for other things; more for ESCs means less for ASCs. Why rob Producing Peter to pay Potential Paul?
Discussions of the morality of ESC usage are not irrelevant, but science alone makes the case against ESCs. If the technology has a fraction of the true potential its backers claim, the market will fund it. But if you’re an investor who really believes the hype, I’ve got a space shuttle to sell you.
Michael Fumento (mfumento[at]pobox.com) is author of BioEvolution: How Biotechnology Is Changing our World , a fellow at Hudson Institute, and a nationally syndicated columnist with Scripps Howard News Service.
©2005 Michael Fumento
(the article has over 20 links) Frist says ESC's hold specific promise.
Fumento says the track record favors ASC's and points out the widely censored success ASC's continue to have. He is not saying ESC's have no promise; only that they haven't shown any success. It's all about the money. Frist's course will now divert funds from research such as the possible diabetes cure. It's waiting for the same funds.
Research loves gummint munney. The promising stuff they will pursue themselves. The pie-in-the-sky miracle cure-all work needs fedfunds.
What say ye?
I hope I live to see the day when the federal government stops funding any medical research that isn't directly related to real PUBLIC health issues (i.e. airborne communicable diseases, bioterrorism, etc.). Until then, I want it making funding decisions based on science, not ideology or religion. The opposition to embryonic stem cell research is strictly ideological/religious. Nobody is forcing people who are opposed to embryonic stem cell research to donate their own embryos, or to use any treatments which may derived from this research. But my tax money is being confiscated to fund all sorts of garbage I don't agree with, so opponents of embryonic stem cell research shouldn't be exempt from paying into the general coffer that pays for all the stuff the government shouldn't be involved in.
Only if you believe science doesn't depend on empiricism and observed results of disciplined experiments. That is a hackneyed line if there ever was one. The main opposition is Fey clearly stated in the article's title. The loser is the lack of results in the quest for ESC therapies.
"But my tax money is being confiscated to fund all sorts of garbage I don't agree with, so opponents of embryonic stem cell research shouldn't be exempt from paying into the general coffer that pays for all the stuff the government shouldn't be involved in."
What are you saying???
I' not going to give you the argument you're fishing for. My opposition to federal funding of ESC research is not only because of the totally superior results of ASC, but also in the shocking proclamation that says:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--
Of course, you must accept that while the human embryo is not a "MAN", it is in fact, ....HUMAN, and you must know that the embryo needs only a cozy place to stay with regular meals to be born. This individual is the living being who has the unalienable Rights acknowledged, not granted, by the "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America" (ibid)
This is not just "stuff the government shouldn't be involved in." This is the government refuting its charter in a very literal sense.
If the dead could see us, the Founders would be "Spinning".
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