Report: Fetal stem cells trigger tumors in ill boy

Breitbart ^ | 02/17/2009 | LAURAN NEERGAARD

[autumnraine]

WASHINGTON (AP) - A family desperate to save a child from a lethal brain disease sought highly experimental injections of fetal stem cells—injections that triggered tumors in the boy's brain and spinal cord, Israeli scientists reported Tuesday. Scientists are furiously trying to harness different types of stem cells—the building blocks for other cells in the body—to regrow damaged tissues and thus treat devastating diseases. But for all the promise, researchers have long warned that they must learn to control newly injected stem cells so they don't grow where they shouldn't, and small studies in people are only just beginning.

Tuesday's report in the journal PLoS Medicine is the first documented case of a human brain tumor—albeit a benign, slow-growing one—after fetal stem cell therapy, and hammers home the need for careful research. The journal is published by the Public Library of Science.

"Patients, please beware," said Dr. John Gearhart, a stem cell scientist at the University of Pennsylvania who wasn't involved in the Israeli boy's care but who sees similarly desperate U.S. patients head abroad to clinics that offer unproven stem cell injections.

"Cells are not drugs. They can misbehave in so many different ways, it just is going to take a good deal of time" to prove how best to pursue the potential therapy, Gearhart said.

[autumnraine]

But Obama's going to throw $17 billion into seeing if it works.

[George from New England]

The curse is unraveling. We cannot play god.

[Jim Robinson]

Dr. Mengele, I presume.

[ClearCase_guy]

As I understand it, this is what fetal stem cells do best. It’s not a good thing.

[bahblahbah]

Do fetal stem cells come from aborted fetus’?

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

Adult stem cells are showing promise all over. But they don’t cause the death of a person to make, so they aren’t politically correct.

[autumnraine]

No, I think they come from embryos that were unused in artificial insemination that because the couple was successful, or got divorced or whatever, didn’t have implanted.

[wombtotomb]

no evil, no matter how small, should be used to gain even the greatest good. The ends do not justify the means.

Paraphrased- Mother Teresa......

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

No, they create a fetus (person) and then harvest cells from her. Then they destroy her.

[Sender]

Thank you, Doctor Obama. So glad you have resurrected science after all these years of ignorance.

[bahblahbah]

Wait, I just read something that said that embryonic stem cells were different that fetal stem cells... and embryonic stem cells come from the left over IVF embryos... so do they purposely develop the embryos a few stages to get the fetal cells or do they come from abortions? I swear I remember reading something about aborted babies being used in beauty treatments...

[RobbyS]

Fetal stem cell research is a bit like fusion research: there is too much there beyond our control.

[Raster Man]

All based on junk science.

[nyconse]

Embryonic cells increase in numbers very rapidly and are quite similar to cancer cells in this respect...it doesn’t surprise me.

[denydenydeny]

As I understand it, this is what fetal stem cells do best.

It's pretty much all they do. And yet we still go on with this idiotic pantomime of insisting that ESCs "show great promise" when they show nothing of the kind. The emperor's been naked for some time now, but no one is allowed to mention it.

[RobbyS]

And the other way is based on a lack of hard evidence. I am not saying they are wrong, but, really, it is science fiction.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

BTTT

[count-your-change]

Adult stem cells on the other hand are being used to successfully treat Parkinson’s disease. On Monday there was an article posted with the latest news.

Fetal or embryonic cells have failed again while adult stem cells produce success, again and again.

[Coleus]

Click sign

   

 

you shouldn't put aborted baby cells/embryos/embryonic stem cells inside a person's brain. When you put fetal neural cells in a person's brain, those cells grow rapidly because they're programmed to grow a brain in 9 months. Also, there is also the probability that the body's immune system will reject the foreign body in it just like in kidney and other body organ transplants - the donated organ must be matched with the patient.

Using fetal cells have been used before to treat Parkinson's patients with a result of death to the patient. The cells grew teratomas containing skin, nails and bone.

[MountainFlower]

WOW!