Posted on 07/13/2004 8:12:11 AM PDT by kattracks
Ron Reagan, Jr., admitted Monday night that embryonic stem cell research will probably be absolutely useless in the quest to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease - throwing cold water on the big media's campaign to sell the controversial science as medically effective in battling the affliction that killed Reagan's father."Alzheimer‘s is a disease, ironically, that probably won‘t be amenable to treatment through stem cell therapies," Reagan told MSBC's Chris Matthews. So why have he and his mother, former first lady Nancy Reagan, made stem cell research their cause celeb?
"For people to suggest that [Nancy Reagan] shouldn’t support this because it isn’t Alzheimer's . . that’s very small," a defensive-sounding Reagan responded.
He says he still backs the campaign for embryonic stem cell research because it might cure other diseases such as Parkinson's and diabetes.
But Reagan became the nation's foremost spokesman for stem cell research largely based on the notion that it might have saved the beloved fortieth president, something he now acknowledges isn't true.
The revelation could prove particularly embarrassing for the national press, which has printed hundreds of stories in recent days touting stem cell science as a cure for Alzheimer's.
Tuesday morning's New York Times report was typical:
"Scientists theorize that the cells, which give rise to all other cells and tissues in the body, could yield treatments for Parkinson's disease, diabetes and, perhaps, Alzheimer's disease, which former President Reagan had."
Monday night NBC's Kelly O'Donnell noted that, "John Kerry believes the work could lead to new cures for diseases like Alzheimer's."
But now that Mr. Reagan has contradicted the top Democrat, it's not clear whether Sen. Kerry will publicly acknowledge he and Reagan are at odds over the potential for stem cell research as a cure for Alzheimer's when Reagan addresses the Democratic convention at the end of this month.
What a line-up! What, no Kennedy's?
Follow the money.
Yeah, Teddy's on the dais. But why would you have a guy like O'Malley who is certifiable and is only known for being nutty?
Just over four years ago, my wife gave birth to a healthy baby boy, our son Benjie. Prior to birth, we took all the standard classes and were naturally introduced to a number of products and services - including the cryogenic storage of stem cells from the blood collected from the umbilical cord and other matter. The motivation for doing this is to have a source of stem cells for Benjie and Mom (from my understanding it can't help dad as much) in the event of the onset of a variety of ills including certain types of cancer (not to mention what may be able to be done with the cells as medical science progresses). Since 2000, Benjie's stem cells have been in cold storage in Florida and available for use (The service also advertises that the cells can be donated for research and other uses).
So why is it necessary to use stem cells only from fetal tissue? What is the difference? Isn't a stem cell a stem cell? Is this issue more to do with abortion (justification) than medical science? Doesn't it also mean the more births we have, the more stem cells that would be available for research and treatment - without using aborted fetuses?
This is not a scientific answer, but I played a nurse once!
We all start from 2 cells, which have the information to become the gazillion-celled persons that we are.
Embryonic stem cells are much closer to the original 2, so are much less differentiated than even the stem cells found in your baby's umbilical cord blood (after nine whole months of specialized growth.) Those cells are much more 'controllable' in a lab setting than the original 2 or 2 week-old cells.
When is a stem cell an embryonic stem cell and not a mature (?) stem cell like found in the cord blood? Is it based on time from conception or some other factor?
Thanks,
Ben
Main Entry: em·bryo
Pronunciation: 'em-brE-"O
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural em·bry·os
Etymology: Medieval Latin embryon-, embryo, from Greek embryon, from en- + bryein to swell; akin to Greek bryon catkin
1 a archaic : a vertebrate at any stage of development prior to birth or hatching b : an animal in the early stages of growth and differentiation that are characterized by cleavage, the laying down of fundamental tissues, and the formation of primitive organs and organ systems; especially : the developing human individual from the time of implantation to the end of the eighth week after conception
The bold definition is the common medical usage.
It is possible for identical twins to be born if the original 1 egg and 1sperm join and then separate into 2 forming embryos. Siamese twins occur when this separation is not complete. A further disfunction of the original embryo can happen when a few of the first cell-divisions does not become a second human but a tumor of different kinds of cells called a teratoma) inside the 1 developing baby. All of these biological facts lead me to believe that the closer a cell is to the fertilization stage, the less differentiation it has - the more potential it has to become anything - so more in the realm of God's work than man's.
Pro-Life/Pro-Baby ping...
apologies to those who made it here before me.
NewsMax is apparently boycotting the correct spelling of French words until Chirac joins the Coalition.
For his sake lets hope it cures HIV.
Or maybe not.
That is exactly why they keep him on......one more to the payroll.
I had heard not to long ago about alzheimers not being one of the diseases stem cell research would not help and wondered why the press was still going on and on about it. This just proves that they don't do their research also or they think that we won't ever find out these things and they can go on and on forever touting something that is irrevelant. grrrrrrr
COULD yield treatments. Maybe. IS raising human beings to harvest and cannibalize them.
The Red Chinese are criticized for taking transplant organs from prisoners - sometimes while they're still alive. But these DO result in cures. Embryonic stem-cell is harvesting human cells WITHOUT even knowing if there's a cure at the end of it.
They're both bad, but what the Red Chinese are doing is actually more defendable.
Thanks for the ping!
They deserve to be embarrassed, then, because the information that embryonic stem cells were useless for Alzheimer's was in the news just after President Reagan died. They must not have been paying attention!
Yeah, but it will be a prime time Freak Show, and I sincerely hope that some folks out there who might have thought about supporting them, will be disgusted by them.
It is NOT necessary, and it isn't even the best source. The cord blood stem cells and adult stem cells have been shown to be more useful. The use of embryonic stem cells has caused fast growing tumors in many cases.
Many folks seem to be pushing the embryonic stem cell issue because they see it somehow as tied to the abortion issue. If people start thinking about embryos as living beings who must not be destroyed to use their stem cells, it may get people to thinking about the embryos who are destroyed during abortion, and it may cause them not to support abortion. This would be dangerous to the pro-choice crowd, so they have to beat back ANYTHING that would cause those ideas to germinate.
Looks like someone finally penetrated Ron's thick head to save the Reagan family further embarrassment and heartache. Remember you read it here first that no stem cells can help Alzheimer's disease and that gene and drug therapies are the research and treatments of choice.
I wonder if Nancy still believes in using tarot cards and astrologers?
Adult stem cells work there is NO need to harvest babies for their body parts.
Adult Stem Cell Research More Effective Than Embryonic Cells
Embryo Vivisection and Elusive Promises Act--California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative
Stem Cells Not the Priority for Alzheimer's
The Stem Cell Cover-Up By Michael Fumento
Lies About Fetal Stem Cell Research [Free Republic]
Stem cells without benefit of embryos
Michael Fumento Interview [DDT, Global Warming, Fuel Cells, Stem Cells, AIDS, Biotech, AD/HD, Etc.]
SELLING LIES (Stem Cell Myths exposed by Michael Fumento)
FREE Book on Stem Cells and Cloning in understandable language
Unborn Children May "Cure" Mothers' Diseases Via Fetal Stem Cells
| Alzheimer's gene therapy trial shows early promise | Drug slows advanced Alzheimer's disease |
*In 2000, Israeli scientists implanted Melissa Holley's white blood cells into her spinal cord to treat the paraplegia caused when her spinal cord was severed in an auto accident. Melissa, who is 18, has since regained control over her bladder and recovered significant motor function in her limbs - she can now move her legs and toes, although she cannot yet walk.
This is exactly the kind of therapy that embryonic-stem-cell proponents promise - years down the road. Yet Melissa's breakthrough was met with collective yawns in the press with the exception of Canada's The Globe and Mail. Non-embryonic stem cells may be as common as beach sand.
They have been successfully extracted from umbilical cord blood, placentas, fat, cadaver brains, bone marrow, and tissues of the spleen, pancreas, and other organs. Even more astounding, the scientists who cloned Dolly the sheep successfully created cow heart tissue using stem cells from cow skin. And just this week, Singapore scientists announced that they have transformed bone-marrow cells into heart muscle.
Research with these cells also has a distinct moral advantage: It doesn't require the destruction of a human embryo. You don't have to be pro-life to be more comfortable with that.
*In another Parkinson's case, a patient treated with his own brain stem cells appears to have experienced a substantial remission with no adverse side effects. Dennis Turner was expected by this time to require a wheelchair and extensive medication. Instead, he has substantially reduced his medication and rarely reports any noticeable symptoms of his Parkinson's. Human trials in this technique are due to begin soon.
*Bone marrow stem cells, blood stem cells, and immature thigh muscle cells have been used to grow new heart tissue in both animal subjects and human patients. Indeed, while it was once scientific dogma that damaged heart muscle could not regenerate, it now appears that cells taken from a patient's own body may be able to restore cardiac function. Human trials using adult stem cells have commenced in Europe and other nations. (The FDA is requiring American researchers to stick with animal studies for now to test the safety of the adult stem cell approach.)
*Harvard Medical School researchers reversed juvenile onset diabetes (type-1) in mice using "precursor cells" taken from spleens of healthy mice and injecting them into diabetic animals. The cells transformed into pancreatic islet cells. The technique will begin human trials as soon as sufficient funding is made available.
*In the United States and Canada, more than 250 human patients with type-1 diabetes were treated with pancreatic tissue (islet) transplantations taken from human cadavers. Eighty percent of those who completed the treatment protocol have achieved insulin independence for over a year. (Good results have been previously achieved with pancreas transplantation, but the new approach may be much safer than a whole organ transplant.)
*Blindness is one symptom of diabetes. Now, human umbilical cord blood stem cells have been injected into the eyes of mice and led to the growth of new human blood vessels. Researchers hope that the technique will eventually provide an efficacious treatment for diabetes-related blindness. Scientists also are experimenting with using cord blood stem cells to inhibit the growth of blood vessels in cancer, which could potentially lead to a viable treatment.
*Bone marrow stem cells have partially helped regenerate muscle tissue in mice with muscular dystrophy. Much more research is needed before final conclusions can be drawn and human studies commenced. But it now appears that adult stem cells may well provide future treatments for neuromuscular diseases.
*Severed spinal cords in rats were regenerated using gene therapy to prevent the growth of scar tissue that inhibits nerve regeneration. The rats recovered the ability to walk within weeks of receiving the treatments. The next step will be to try the technique with monkeys. If that succeeds, human trials would follow.
*In one case reported from Japan, an advanced pancreatic cancer patient injected with bone marrow stem cells experienced an 80 percent reduction in tumor size.
* In separate experiments, scientists researched the ability of embryonic and adult mouse pancreatic stem cells to regenerate the body's ability to make insulin. Both types of cells boosted insulin production in diabetic mice. The embryonic success made a big splash with prominent coverage in all major media outlets. Yet the same media organs were strangely silent about the research involving adult cells.
Stranger still, the adult-cell experiment was far more successful - it raised insulin levels much more. Indeed, those diabetic mice lived, while the mice treated with embryonic cells all died. Why did the media celebrate the less successful experiment and ignore the more successful one?
* Another barely reported story is that alternative-source stem cells are already healing human illnesses.
*In Los Angeles, the transplantation of stem cells harvested from umbilical-cord blood has saved the lives of three young boys born with defective immune systems.
“‘This [isolating stem cells from fat] could take the air right out of the debate about embryonic stem cells,’ said Dr. Mark Hedrick of UCLA, the lead author. The newly identified cells have so many different potential applications, he added, that ‘it makes it hard to argue that we should use embryonic cells.’” -- Thomas H. Maugh II, “Fat may be answer to many illnesses,” Los Angeles Times, 4/10/01
“With the newest evidence that even cells in fat are capable of being transformed into tissue through the alchemy of biotechnology, some scientists said they are beginning to conclude they’ll be able to grow with relative ease all sorts of replacement tissues without resorting to embryo or fetal cells…‘It’s highly provocative work, and they’re probably right,’ said Eric Olson, chairman of molecular biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas…Like many biologists, Olson believes that adult, fetal and embryonic stem cell research all merit support…it’s heartening, he said, that almost “every other week there’s another interesting finding of adult stem cells turning into neurons or blood cells or heart muscle cells. Apparently our traditional views need to be reevaluated.’” --Rick Weiss, “Human Fat May Provide Stem Cells,” The Washington Post, 4/10/01
“In a finding that could offer an entirely new way to treat heart disease within the next few years, scientists working with mice and rats have found that key cells from adult bone marrow can rebuild a damaged heart—actually creating new heart muscle and blood vessels…Until now researchers thought that stem cells from embryos offer the best hope for rebuilding damaged organs, but this latest research shows that the embryos, which are politically controversial, may not be necessary. ‘We are currently finding that these adult stem cells can function as well, perhaps even better than, embryonic stem cells,’ [Dr. Donald] Orlic [of the National Human Genome Research Institute] said.” --Robert Bazell, “Approach may repair heart damage,” NBC Nightly News, 3/30/01.
“[Dr. Donald] Orlic said fetal and embryonic stem cell researchers have not been able to show the regeneration of heart cells, even in animals. ‘This study alone gives us tremendous hope that adult stem cells can do more than what embryonic stem cells can do,’ he said.” --Kristen Philipkoski, “Adult Stem Cells Growing Strong,” Wired Magazine, 3/30/01
“Like several other recent studies, the new work with hearts suggests that stem cells retrieved from adults have unexpected and perhaps equal flexibility of their own, perhaps precluding the need for the more ethically contentious [embryonic] cells.” --Rick Weiss, “Studies Raise Hopes of Cardiac Rejuvenation,” The Washington Post, 3/31/01
“Umbilical cords discarded after birth may offer a vast new source of repair material for fixing brains damaged by strokes and other ills, free of the ethical concerns surrounding the use of fetal tissue, researchers said Sunday.” --“Umbilical cords could repair brains,” Associated Press, 2/20/01.
"PPL Therapeutics, the company that cloned Dolly the sheep, has succeeded in ‘reprogramming' a cell -- a move that could lead to the development of treatments for diseases such as diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The Scotland-based group will today announce that it has turned a cow's skin cell into a beating heart cell and is close to starting research on humans... The PPL announcement...will be seen as an important step towards producing stem cells without using human embryos." --"PPL follows Dolly with cell breakthrough," Financial Times, 2/23/01
“Because they have traveled further on a pathway of differentiation than an embryo’s cells have, such tissue specific [adult] stem cells are believed by many to have more limited potential than E[mbryonic] S[tem] cells or those that PPL hopes to create. Some researchers, however, are beginning to argue that these limitations would actually make tissue-specific stem cells safer than their pluripotent counterparts. University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Glenn McGee is one of the most vocal critics on this point: ‘The emerging truth in the lab is that pluripotent stem cells are hard to reign in. The potential that they would explode into a cancerous mass after a stem cell transplant might turn out to be the Pandora’s box of stem cell research.’” --Erika Jonietz, “Biotech: Could new research end the embryo debate?” Technology Review, January/February, 2001.
Kerry would make a perfect monster as well. He's got the creepy head for it.
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