Ann Coulter on Embryonic Stem-Cell Research

Ann Coulter ^ | Ann Coulter

[TBP]

bttt

[mfulstone]

[hocndoc]

Just this week, we've learned about functional liver cells that form tissue masses about the size of pennies, derived from cells from umbilical cord stem cells, functional lung cells that make surfactant derived from cells from umbilical cord cells, improvement after heart attacks with cells from the patient's own bone marrow.

Have you seen any of these in the MSM? And I wonder why?

Then there's the request from researchers in the UK ( where such is actually regulated, unlike in the US), who want to make embryos from somatic cell nuclear transfer techniques -- only that want to use cow eggs and human nuclear DNA. Now, why would they decide to go and do such a horrible thing? It could be because although NO ONE has been able to clone a human embryo using human eggs and DNA long enough and far enough to produce a blastocyst that might contain human embryonic stem cells, one Chinese lab *did* report that they had done so using rabbit eggs and human DNA. It's not the shortage of eggs - although that would be a big hurdle if cloning ever became possible - it's the fact that human SCNT has not proven possible.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Coulter: "Tellingly, liberals' one example of the The Republican War on Science, as one book title puts it, is the Christian objection to Nazi experimentation on human embryos. As with other "sciences" admired by liberals, their enthusiasm for embryonic stem-cell research is based on lies. Liberals lie about the science on stem-cell research because they warm to the idea of destroying human embryos. If they can desensitize Americans to the idea of harvesting human embryos for imaginary medical cures, liberals believe it will advance the cause of killing the unborn."

[Conservative Coulter Fan]

Michael J. Fox Is Not Infallible; He's Just the Latest Victim Used by the Democrat

The Wrong Tree Embryonic stem cells are not all that.

[cpforlife.org]

Pro-Life PING

Please FreepMail me if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.

[Conservative Coulter Fan]

Stem Cell Surgery In S. Korea (First paralyzed American has stem cell treatment)

Stem-Cell Sense - Clear thinking on a stem-cell anniversary.

Exciting Strides Being Made in Stem Cell Research (Adult stem cells)

[Conservative Coulter Fan]

Shifting to stem-cell research, which you cover in Chapter 9, why is it that more private businesses don’t take on this research? Why is there so much pressure on the government to fund it?

Bethell: The fact is, some biotech companies have been looking into this, and there’s one in particular whose stock price rose rapidly when it discovered stem cells in 1998. And then, in 2003, the stock price collapsed. I think they realized at that point, it was going to be a lot harder scientifically to do this than they had imagined. Then, you started to see all the ethical and religious objections being played up. When I was reading all these articles, I asked myself, why are they always focusing on the religious aspect and not the scientific issues? And I came to the conclusion that it was being played up deliberately to disguise the lack of scientific advance and the difficulties involved in coaxing embryonic stem cells into becoming pancreatic stem cells or whatever is needed to cure diabetes. They were nowhere near being able to do it, and they still are not.

Exclusive Human Events Interview: Journalist Busts Science Myths

[Conservative Coulter Fan]

No doubt the remaining federal restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research will soon be swept aside. Federal funding is limited to pre-existing cell lines, but with private money, everything is permitted. Meanwhile the California initiative seems set to provide $3 billion for embryo research, so the states may soon take their turn digging into taxpayers' pockets. The issue was boosted during the Democratic convention, when Nancy Reagan's son spoke to an admiring audience, saying that embryonic stem cell research was "like magic." It may be "the greatest medical breakthrough in our or in any lifetime." In Newsweek, Nancy's daughter Patti Davis called stem cells "the miracle that can cure not only Alzheimer's but many other diseases." Ron Reagan omitted Alzheimer's but said stem cells "could cure" Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, lymphoma spinal cord injuries "and much more."

When the funding restriction breaks down, as I predict it will, reports of stem-cell miracles will rapidly fade. "Breakthroughs" will be reported on schedule, as always, but actual cures are unlikely to ensue. That's what happened with the Human Genome Project. (Remember that?) It was wholly hyped, fully funded, and given its own employment center at the National Institutes of Health. Once that was accomplished, little more was heard of the disease-curing potential of the genome sequence. The reason is clear enough. That potential has turned out to be little more than zero. A similar scenario will probably unfold with embryonic stem cells.

The stem-cell campaign was bolstered by the familiar hostility to religious sentiment. It has not been difficult for the propagandists to represent opposition to government-financed embryo research as obstructionism borne of bigotry -- fundamentalism standing in the path of progress as always. Religion, so the argument goes, has been up to its old tricks: thwarting science and enlightenment.

In a good essay in the Weekly Standard, Eric Cohen and William Kristol commented that embryo research is "potentially more corrupting than abortion." It is "a fruit we seek, not a transgression we tolerate. It is a premeditated project, not a decision made in crisis." Conservatives have held the line against the moral horrors of embryo research -- Mengele Medicine, it might be called -- but they have been too disposed to take the scientific claims of biotech at face value. Such claims are always greatly exaggerated, and always with the same goal in mind: attracting government funding, private investment, or both.

We get miracles in the headlines, but the fine print tells a different story. As to the prospects of a cure for Alzheimer's, for example, the Wall Street Journal told us (on an inside page): "With some conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease, science has yet to understand what goes wrong. Simply replacing damaged brain cells with new ones grown in the lab from stem cells isn't yet feasible and may not be for decades, researchers say."

A miracle cure -- in a few decades' time. Maybe. Why is this nonsense tolerated by the editorial high command of magazines like Newsweek?

Rick Weiss of the Washington Post did blow the whistle in this instance, pointing out that Alzheimer's was an implausible candidate for stem-cell treatment. But the newspaper is inclined to treat the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, Maryland, as an important segment of its subscriber base, not as a lavishly funded government agency that constantly promotes its own expansion. Perhaps one day the Post will be as suspicious of the NIH as it is of the Pentagon and the CIA.

DIABETES HAS ALSO FEATURED prominently in the stem-cell hype. In juvenile-onset diabetes (the serious kind), the cells that make insulin, called islet cells, are erroneously destroyed by the body's own immune system. The hope is that replacements can be created out of stem cells. I spoke to Scott King, a friend of mine who both has this form of diabetes and runs a biotech company, Cerco Medical, that is looking for an effective treatment for diabetes. Researchers have not yet succeeded in turning one stem cell into an islet cell, he said. In fact, they don't even know where in the embryo to look for a plausible candidate cell. Early promise soon faded. Stem cells, in one account, have been unwilling to "respond to the scientists' commands." They have proved to be "extraordinarily difficult to manipulate."

It's beginning to look as though the vaunted potential of stem cells to be transformed into specialized cells is little more than a tautology. The fully-grown body starts life as two cells, a sperm and an egg. The cells of the embryo then multiply, and it is true by definition that those early cells have the "potential" to turn into all the cells of the body, numbering literally in the trillions. We know that because they do so in fact. The fully grown body must have originated from cells that were present in the embryonic phase. They certainly didn't come from outside the body. But how far does this get us?

What it overlooks is that the specialized cells develop their differentiated functions as a result of interactions with other cells in the growing body. The assumption that the cell can be removed from this environment and then "coaxed" in the lab dish to evolve in the direction that experimenters desire is mere hubris. It is comparable to believing that pupils can be removed from a school that produces successful scholars, in the belief that even more students can be prepared by giving them special tutoring. The problem is that they don't know which students to isolate, or what their special training should be. And all along it was the school itself that created the indispensable conditions for learning.

Genetic engineering is turning out to be as hard to achieve in our day as social engineering was in the Communist era. Curiously, the opposite error seems to be involved. Social engineering was (rightly) derided as unattainable because "nature" was overlooked. Genes were disregarded as unimportant. Genetic engineering in contrast has omitted to consider the role of "nurture," or the environment of the cell. Genes are now thought to be autonomous and all important -- wrong again.

STEVE MILLOY OF THE CATO Institute believes that stem cell hype began with researchers and investors who were counting on taxpayer funding to increase the value of their stakes in biotech companies. They could then "cash out at a hefty profit, leaving the taxpayers holding the bag of fruitless research." When Bush failed to cooperate they "were enraged and began a campaign to pressure the President into opening the taxpayer spigots … on the basis of a wild-eyed hope that cures are near at hand."

It's an interesting theory, and one would like to see more of this skepticism from the mainstream media. There may be some truth to it, too, although I would like to see more in the way of specifics. Who was behind California's Proposition 71, for example?

Meanwhile, there is another motive that is more universal and probably more destructive than greed: the search for security and comfort. Scientists no doubt believe their own wild predictions of biotech cures, but it is not important whether they do or not. What is at stake is a cushy life for science. Once that is attained, and scientists get their funding, their lifetime tenure, their extra lab assistants, and their up-to-date equipment, little of medical value will emerge from their labs.

What changes in science when the most important consideration becomes sustaining a political consensus in favor of funding it by taxation? It's a question that isn't even asked. Soviet science didn't exactly flourish. What happened to the hundred-billion odd that has been spent on the War on Cancer? My guess is that our notion of what science is undergoes a subtle but fatal change once it is obliged to meet a political test, and consensus replaces competition. But that is another story. Mengele Medicine

[Conservative Coulter Fan]

Stumping for Stem Cells by Steve Milloy

[Conservative Coulter Fan]

Emergency heart attack patients will be injected with their own stem cells in a dramatic new treatment.

The procedure, being pioneered by British doctors, holds out hope of a 'cure' as the stem cells repair damaged heart muscles.

The low-cost treatment, which involves removing stem cells from the patient's bone marrow, could be given within a few hours of a heart attack.

It is intended to stop patients suffering further attacks and developing heart failure, something existing treatments fail to do in many cases.

If the initial trials in London are successful, the treatment is likely to be extended to NHS hospitals across the country.

Researchers have called the project - the first of its kind in the world - "very exciting" and say it could have a significant impact on the annual toll of deaths from heart disease.

As well as saving lives, it would also reduce the £7billion-a-year burden of heart attacks on the economy through hospital admissions, drug prescriptions and lost working days. Stem cell cure for heart attacks by Julie Wheldon (11-7-06)

[betsyross1776]

If she would have shut her big mouth we would not be sitting here as losers tonight. She did more damage then help , she should be happy . What they will do to her now?It is going to be fun to see. Word of advise .if you want to ever win again , put a mussle on that witch.

[Future Snake Eater]

If she would have shut her big mouth we would not be sitting here as losers tonight. She did more damage then help , she should be happy . What they will do to her now?It is going to be fun to see. Word of advise .if you want to ever win again , put a mussle on that witch.

LOL! Yeah, Ann Coulter lost Repubs the election...

[betsyross1776]

Not exactly but she sure did help now didn't she.

[Conservative Coulter Fan]

What a brillant analysis...let's dump Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and every other self-identified conservative because a GOP Congress and White House that outspent Clinton/Gore is losing ground in the House and Senate. I'm with ya! Let's promise tens...no...hundreds of billions in embryonic stem cell research, promise surrender to Islamo-fascism in Iraq, nationalize healthcare, and let's just roll left till we fall off the deep end. Conservatism is so passe and it loses elections...or maybe we can put the blame where it really belongs on clowns running the GOP.

[betsyross1776]

Hey , don't blame me I voted rep. But if the shoe fits wear it. You don't have to dump Hannity and Levin the fairness doctrune will do that for you, I am telling you the only one who will survive will be Rush , just hide behind Annes skirt and watch.

[betsyross1776]

Going to bed now tomorrow is another day!

[Future Snake Eater]

I can't possibly imagine how she hurt us. She has no equal in exposing the insanity and outright lies of the left. You can't put a price tag on that. Repubs lost this election due to their banal wait-and-see approach to every issue under the sun, not from firebrands like Ann.

[skeptoid]

"1Repubs lost this election due to their banal wait-and-see approach to every issue under the sun...."

That and the creeping arrogance that leads to all sorts of bad habits (mainly obscene distribution of PORK).
Ann is one reason I've voted Rep till now.
Bridge to Nowhere Con(gress)-men make me hold my nose while voting.