Posted on 01/07/2009 4:03:07 PM PST by wagglebee
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- In just a matter of weeks, Barack Obama may force Americans to spend millions for unproven embryonic stem cell research. Yet, scientists admit they are having significant problems overcoming one of the major hurdles that may prevent the cells from every helping human patients.
While adult stem cells have helped patients with a wide range of dozens of diseases and conditions, embryonic stem cells have yet to help one patient and have had problems in animals.
One major problem is that they tend to form cancerous cells or tumors after they are injected -- and scientists have yet to stop that from happening.
A new article in Nature Reports Stem Cells highlights the work of Mickie Bhatia and colleagues at McMaster University that shows that the embryonic stem cells that look the best may perform the worst.
"When it comes to embryonic stem cells, the very qualities researchers use to pick out a robust cell line may in fact be bestowed by precancerous transformations," the article suggests.
“Current measurements are not capable of distinguishing the difference between great stem cells and cancer stem cells in vitro,” Bhatia explains.
The researchers say the problem is and can't be determined before they transform into specific body tissues through the process called differentiation. As a result, solving the problem of tumors from embryonic stem cell injections may be difficult, if not impossible.
"Ultimately it may be difficult or impossible to rule out with certainty that a given culture is totally free of abnormal cells," Martin Pera who studies embryonic stem cells at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, admits in the Nature article.
Bioethicist Wesley J. Smith said that, if that is true, embryonic stem cells may never yield cures for patients.
"Scientists have been working on this for nearly a decade now on making embryonic stem cells capable of being used directly in therapies," he said.
"They have been stymied by three primary problems; the potential for tissue rejection the cells' propensity to form tumors called teratomas, and the problem of some embryonic stem cells appearing to be pre-cancerous making them very risky to inject into a living patient," Smith explained.
"With regard to the latter issue, it turns out that the healthiest appearing embryonic stem cells may be the most dangerous," he said.
He said this latest news "could mean that the potential cancer threat -- which is in addition to the teratoma tumor issue -- may be very hard to solve."
Smith said this is another reason to look to ethical and more effective alternatives like adult stem cells.
"Umbilical cord blood stem cells can be tissue typed more readily than bone marrow and so far as I have seen, have no tumor issues," he said. "Adult stem cells do not exhibit tissue rejection (since they are the patient's own cells), tumor formation, or cancer, and are in many early human trials for a variety of ailments."
And the left will NEVER admit this because they consider embryonic stem cell research to be a safeguard for abortion.
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because they covet the killing of the unborn above all else....
They still haven’t proven global warming either...
What people don’t seem to realize is that if ESC research had ANY promise biotech and pharmaceutical firms would be spending billions on R&D (as they are with adult and umbilical stem cell research). The public is totally unaware that there is NO BAN on privately funded ESC research, but nobody is willing to put their own money into it because they realize they will never see a return on their investment.
The average person has also been kept in the dark about the fact that adult/umbilical stem cells have successfully treated over SIX DOZEN conditions.
Only the federal government has sufficient hubris and a large enough printing press to make the money to finance this scheme. The next promise will be using stem cell research to make wind mills to provide clean energy.
Be careful what you ask for...There's always the "unknown" in the small print.
I have a good friend who is an adult stem cell survivor.......she speaks and gives interviews across the country informing people on this issue. She met with Pres Bush in the Oval office once. She grateful to be alive and is spreading the word.
It is just a liberal head-fake to justify abortions, pure and simple.
The reality is that biotech and pharmaceutical firms ARE spending billions on adult and umbilical cord stem cell research and it is paying off for them (over six dozen conditions have been SUCCESSFULLY treated), the ONLY consistent results with embryonic stem cells have been tumors.
And I'm sure the mainstream media is fine to either pretend she doesn't exist or to generically describe her treatment as "stem cells" which will lead many to conclude that she owes her treatment to embryos.
you may be right.......EWTN was eager to interview her....I suspect the msm wouldn’t make the effort.
Is there anything that embryonic stem cell research has accomplished?
They have a great record for producing tumors in lab mice.
I predict nothing good long term will ever come from embryonic stem cells. You cannot violate God’s laws without paying the consequence.
Very true. Also, they are UNNECESSARY because adult and umbilical cord cells are yielding incredible breakthroughs.
That, too. Ain’t gonna work.
Grapeseed extract looks promising to kill cancer cells in mice (if I recall correctly). Hope so! Why aren’t we praying that God will show us with what to kill cancer cells to show Zero and his gang that embryonic stem cell research is not the answer? They look foolish to leave God out!
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