Posted on 03/09/2009 7:51:07 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
New York, NY (AHN) - President Barack Obama's expected lifting of the ban on stem cell research Monday is good news for those with Type 1 juvenile diabetes and their parents.
That's because researchers think that embryonic stem cells could be capable of replicating the pancreatic cells that produce insulin. When pancreatic cells are transplanted they effectively cure Type 1 diabetics. But with donor organs in short supply there are not enough donor pancreases to meet demand.
About 1.5 million Americans have Type 1 diabetes, but there are only about 6,000 donor pancreases each year.
Although there is a debate about the ethics of embryonic stem cell research, some proponents argue that it is unethical not to use stem cell research in an attempt to find cures for diseases such as Type 1 juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's disease and others.
Embryonic stem cells have not cured or successfully treated a single patient. Contrast that with the more than 70 conditions that are treatable using non-embryonic stem cell therapies.
Note: Conditions treatable using non-embryonic stem cells are listed in this article.
Adult Stem Cells: It's Not Pie-in-the-Sky
Though embryonic stem cell research advocates euphemistically refer to the current state of research as an “early stage”, the unfortunate reality is the goal of embryonic stem cell therapies is, at this point, more accurately described as a pipe dream. No researcher is anywhere close to significant progress in developing practical embryonic stem cell therapies.
The only thing certain is that the cost of that research will be high. If embryonic stem cell research had real and imminent possibilities, private investors would be pouring capital into research hoping for real and imminent profits. Instead, venture capital firms are contributing to political efforts to get taxpayers to fund research. What the venture capitalists seem to be hoping for is that taxpayer funding of stem cell research will increase the value of their stakes in biotech companies. The venture capitalists can then cash out at a hefty profit, leaving taxpayers holding the bag of fruitless research.
Ron Reagan Wrong on Stem Cells
"Using embryonic stem cells, researchers at Stanford University who are working on a cure for Type I diabetes are producing new pancreatic islet cells that could be used in human transplants and could herald a cure for this devastating illness."
Actually, the latest research findings regarding embryonic stem cells are that they do not actually produce insulin in response to glucose changes in their environment and are NOT the pancreatic beta cells needed to treat diabetes. When placed in animals, the cells did not reverse diabetes; instead, they formed tumors.
"A Korean research team recently made history by using human embryonic stem cells to cure Parkinson's disease in rats."
That is what they claim, but the research is a long way from producing a safe and effective treatment for humans. On the one known occasion when earlier-stage (before 6 weeks) fetal tissue was used to try to treat a human Parkinson's patient, the tissue killed the patient by forming clumps of bone, skin and hair in the middle of his brain.
Moreover, animal trials with embryonic stem cells repeatedly kill many of the animals because of formation of brain tumors.
Meanwhile, the first clinical trial using a patient's own adult brain stem cells to treat Parkinson's has produced a lasting 80% reversal of symptoms, and wider human trials are being planned.
A more recent article…Why Embrionic Stem Cells are Obsolete, shows nothing has changed:
A report from Israel published in PLoS Medicine in late February that shows embryonic stem cells injected into patients can cause disabling if not deadly tumors.
The report describes a young boy with a fatal neuromuscular disease called ataxia telangiectasia, who was treated with embryonic stem cells. Within four years, he developed headaches and was found to have multiple tumors in his brain and spinal cord that genetically matched the female embryos used in his therapy.His experience is neither an anomaly nor a surprise, but one feared by many scientists.
Even as the future of embryonic stem cells has dimmed, adult stem cell research has scored major wins evident just in the past few months. These advances involve human stem cells that are not derived from human embryos. In fact, adult stem cells, which occur in small quantities in organs throughout the body for natural growth and repair, have become stars despite great skepticism early on. Though this is a more difficult task, scientists have learned to coax them to mature into many cell types, like brain and heart cells, in the laboratory.
The more ethically charged decision—less understood by the public and one Congress has avoided—involves the ban on creating human embryos in the laboratory solely for research purposes.
“What the hell did America do?”
Turned our back on the One who gave us this nation.
From a people with deep reverence for our Creator; to wicked, materialistic hedonistists who despise and mock God!
The events going on in the entire world these past few months are NOT financial in origin!!
What we need is something to PRODUCE new beta cells faster than our systems can kill them off.
I watch the developments very closely and haven't seen anyone except a mind numbed MSM reporter say that ESC has anything to do with beta cell production.
What happened to the $300 million that the State of California gave to emryonic research? What happened to the billions that liberal donors* gave to it?
Where are the “breakthroughs”? Where are the
results.......?????
* ...oh,that’s right, liberals don’t want to give...they want to take....especially from people for whom it is an issue on conscience.
Since when did the Federal Government BAN this research? All along I thought it was a BAN on the federal FUNDING of this research. If embryonic stem cell research is so promising, wouldn’t private capital be currently very heavily researching it?
I think I read something about this in Atlas Shrugged....
I agree to have more eyes on this thread, but not because mothers are the “ones with skin in this game!”
ANY parent, male or female, can personally empathize with this issue.
Well-resarched. But again, we already have federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. It started under Bush 43.
There was a limitation of lines, I know.
We watched a TV show recently about the Polio vaccine, and learned that the research that Salk did was privately funded. It was NOT a government operation. He was funded by private sources, with a large amount coming from the March of Dimes.
Jim Quinn in Pittsburgh calls abortion the sacrament of the feminist church.
Yeah, I guess if Bush said it was unethical to kill embryos, they are going to kill as many embryos as they can get their hands on.
The additional tragedy in all of this is that stem cell research has made great inroads in the past few years ( adult, cord, skin sources nNOT embryonic). The problems geenrated by embryonic stem cells has been well documented and is far worse than the original disease. We live in an age where science is “god” —— actually pseudo-science is god. Global warming, stem cell research next thing you know we won’t even know how to go back to the moon ( oops already at that point). We are sooooo screwed
I've always said that this whole issue was never about medicine or science, only about power and the ability to demonstrate it. Showing The Fundies Who's Boss.
And there was/is federal funding.
My teenage son has type 1 diabetes, but we strongly oppose any kind of research that destroys embryos. We pray for a cure, but we do not want a cure that requires other human beings to die.
Many parents in my position are brainwashed by groups like the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation into believing that a cure is just around the corner with embryonic stem cells. In fact, research with adult stem cells shows much more promise.
On the noon news break, I heard Obama declare that he would make certain that this does not “open the door for human cloning.”
My question for him would be, “Why do you want to keep that door closed?”
THANK YOU!
My kid has T1 diabetes and it's a hell disease - especially in kids. But I believe we *already* have the best hope to get him off insulin (and testing and hypoglycemic episodes, etc).
It's called the Encapsulated Swine Islet Transplant by Living Cell Technology.
All we need is the approval to *do* it and more of the right kind of pig.
No babies need to have their bodies harvested. No corpses need to be violated. No anti-rejection drugs need to be given. Just a normal, non diabetic life.
What p*sses me off, is that we've got the technology *here* - *now* - and money is still be poured into barely-scratch-the-surface-brand-new research that will take decades to develop (if it ever does). LCT can't get the JDRF to give them the time of day, let alone lobbying power or money.
Why? It's not a traditional approach. (Guess what, morons?! THE TRADITIONAL APPROACHES HAVEN'T WORKED!)
Sorry. This whole thread hit a sore spot.
You’re right. Brown Institute of Molecular Medicine at Houston. The California $300 Billion. Harvard and U. Cal. Irvine - not to mention ACT.
Sonds like the plot for Clonus.
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