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In addition to stopping funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion business, Komen for the Cure has also quietly stopped funding embryonic stem cell research centers, another concern for pro-life advocates.As LifeNews reported last July, Karen Malec of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer spent time examining KomenÂ’s 990 Forms for the IRS for 2010 and she found that Komen has active relationships with at least five research groups or educational facilities that engage in embryonic stem cell research, which requires the destruction of unborn children in their earliest days for stem cells that have yet to help any patients.The return showed...

Ian Wilmut, the scientist who achieved international notoriety for cloning the sheep Dolly, is now urging his fellow scientists and researchers to abandon embryonic stem cell research.His comments at a conference follow on the major news that Geron, a cloning company the Obama administration funded to undertake the first human clinical trials involving embryonic-like stem cells, abruptly canceled the trials and got out of the embryonic stem cell research business.Wilmut spoke to researchers at a late November event in California and said that embryonic stem cells are not likely going to show promise because they lead to the development of...

I am one of a growing number of Americans who find themselves increasingly frustrated with the low-tech surgical options available in this country for certain chronic medical conditions. To achieve an improved quality of life I’m willing to travel abroad for treatment, despite the fact that it’s not covered by health insurance providers. I’m in high-profile company: in early July Texas’ governor and presidential candidate Rick Perry traveled outside the United States to undergo spinal fusion surgery. The procedure included an injection of his own, adult (autologous) stem cells. Unfortunately for his fellow Americans whose lives would be greatly improved...

Gov. Jerry Brown, like his predecessors, ordered state agencies and departments this year to restrict employee travel, and after reviewing out-of-state travel requests, his office said most obeyed. Except, in Brown's view, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which proposed as "mission critical" about two dozen international trips, including to Paris, Amsterdam, Australia and Japan. Meeting with foreign scientists and government officials, said Robert Klein, then chairman of the stem cell research agency's independent oversight committee, was necessary to share research and pursue international funding agreements worth millions of dollars. "More than 20 million Californians live in families where a...

Researchers from Japan recently published a paper in PLoS One describing their successful growth and transplantation of new teeth created from the stem cells of mice. In order to create these teeth, Takashi Tsuji from Tokyo University of Science and his team removed two different stem cells from the molar teeth of mice. They took these stem cells to grow in the laboratory. In order to control how the teeth grew, as far as shape and length, the stem cells were placed in a mold to grow. Once the cells grew into full tooth units, the researchers then transplanted them...

Reporting from Sacramento— California's stem cell research agency says it needs billions more taxpayer dollars to deliver on promised cures to major diseases. Yet at a time when other departments are cutting back spending, the agency recently agreed to pay its new boss one of the highest salaries in state government. The 50-person grant-making body will pay a Los Angeles investment banker $400,000 to serve as its new part-time board chairman, pushing the combined salaries of its two top officials to nearly $1 million per year. Santa Monica-based Saybrook Capital founder Jonathan Thomas — chosen over a former cardiologist who...

Dr. Robin Smith, CEO of NeoStem, announces the joint venture at the Vatican on June 16, 2011 Vatican City, Jun 16, 2011 / 12:35 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican has signed its first ever commercial agreement with an outside company. The contract with U.S.-based bio-pharmaceutical firm NeoStem will advance ethical research into stem cells. “We would like to create a hotspot for scientists, benefactors, academics (and) Church leaders that will now join this group and would work together for the benefit of humanity,”Fr. Tomaz Trafny of the Vatican’s Council for Culture told CNA June 16. The deal was announced...

A team of researchers at Lund University in southern Sweden have managed to develop nerve cells from human skin cells without using stem cells - a development described as an ethical and medical breakthrough. "This fundamentally changes how we look at mature cells and their capacity. Previously a skin cell was thought to always remain a skin cell, but we have shown that it can be any cell," said Malin Parmar, the Lund University researcher leading the study, to The Local on Tuesday. The new technique works by reprogramming connective tissue cells, so-called human fibroblasts, directly into nerve cells, opening...

Here we report the dynamic, autonomous formation of the optic cup (retinal primordium) structure from a three-dimensional culture of mouse embryonic stem cell aggregates.

Live human heart grown in lab using stem cells in potential transplant breakthrough By David Derbyshire Last updated at 12:22 PM on 4th April 2011 Breakthrough: Scientists are hopeful their artificial heart will be beating within days Scientists are growing human hearts in laboratories, offering hope for millions of cardiac patients. American researchers believe the artificial organs could start beating within weeks. The experiment is a major step towards the first ‘grow-your-own’ heart, and could pave the way for livers, lungs or kidneys to be made to order. The organs were created by removing muscle cells from donor organs to...

A little girl who has been blind since birth has seen her mother and father for the first time - at the age of four. Izabelle Evans can now see up to three feet in front of her after groundbreaking stem cell treatment in China costing £50,000. Parents James Evans and Hollie McHugh said nothing could beat the feeling of the first time their daughter looked into their eyes and said: 'mummy' and 'daddy'.

Latest on Embryonic Stem Cell Research Battles Court to Hear Lawsuit on Obama's Embryonic Stem Cell Funds http://LifeNews.com/bio-3223 Bill to Expand Obama's Embryonic Stem Cell Funds Appears Dead http://LifeNews.com/bio-3222

A retired military service dog is getting a new lease on life in Washington, D.C., after undergoing a revolutionary stem cell treatment. ... The cutting-edge treatment helps dogs grow new cartilage by injecting stem cells from their own fat, normally from the abdomen, into the affected joint. The treatment takes about three days and has an 80 percent success rate, MyFoxDC.com reported.

NEW YORK — For only the second time, the U.S. government has approved a test in people of a treatment using embryonic stem cells — this time for a rare disease that causes serious vision loss. Advanced Cell Technology, a biotechnology company based in Santa Monica., California, said the research should begin early next year, following the green light from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Just last month another biotech company, Geron Corp., said it had begun preliminary testing in people for treating spinal cord injuries by injecting cells derived from embryonic stem cells. Scientists hope to use...

Famous Pro-Life Priest in a press conference in Vienna: the principle goal of the movement remains in any case, is to make abortion legally unallowable. Vienna (kath.net/KAP) An insight in the engagement of the US-American "Pro-Life" - movement was given by activist and President of "Priests for Life" - initiative, Frank Pavone this Thursday in Vienna. The principle goal of the movement remains in any case, to make abortion legally unallowable, said Pavone during an encounter with a journalist. The movement also has in any case to raise consciousness in the population: "We want to make abortion unthinkable." He could...

STEM cell researchers have found a way to turn a person's skin into blood, a process that could be used to treat cancer and other ailments, according to a Canadian study published today. The method uses cells from a patch of a person's skin and transforms it into blood that is a genetic match, without using human embryonic stem cells, said the study in the journal Nature. By avoiding the controversial and more complicated processes involved with using human embryonic stem cells to create blood, this approach simplifies the process, researchers said. "What we believe we can do in the...

In a letter sent Friday to the leadership of the House of Representatives and the Senate, the deans of American medical schools, chief executives of U.S. hospitals and heads of organizations with names like the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the American Society of Human Genetics said that federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research “is essential” if scientists are to succeed in turning the cells into usable treatments. “The therapeutic potential of human embryonic stem cells is remarkable and could well prove to be one of the most significant paradigm-shifting advances in the history of...

Appeals Court Allows Obama to Fund Embryonic Stem Cell Research Washington, DC -- A federal appeals court has lifted the injunction a federal judge put in place stopping President Barack Obama from forcing taxpayers to finance unproven embryonic stem cell research while scientists continue with their lawsuit against the funding. http://LifeNews.com/bio3185.html

... Human embryonic stem cell research is the $10,000 toilet seat of the 21st century. Years ago, science created a cell that appears to be, in the words of an MIT study published last month, "virtually identical" to an embryonic stem cell but is cheaper, promises better compatibility to patients and kills no embryos. These new induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) "do all the things embryonic stem cells do," explains the father of human embryonic stem cells James Thomson. Harvard's David Scadden agrees that iPSC technology "is absolutely changing the field." IPSCs "perhaps even eliminate the need for human embryos...

[Democrat] Gov. Chet Culver predicted his support of embryonic stem cell research will be a key to winning re-election over Republican challenger, former Gov. Terry Branstad, whose opposition represents an “extreme ideological view.” The research is important to independent voters – and Iowa has about 755,000, Culver said Sept. 10 at the Carver Biomedical Research Center on the University of Iowa campus in Iowa City. “I really believe we won the race in ’06 and we’ll win again in 2010 because we’re for helping those individuals who are suffering,” Culver said. Culver said the state’s $30 million investment in biomedical...

These so-call "doctors" are so greedy, no wonder they only represent less than 20 present of all doctors in the US.

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge has turned down the Justice Department's request to temporarily delay his order that could shut down federal funding for some stem cell research. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth on Tuesday turned down federal officials' request for a stay. Lamberth blocked federal dollars from going to certain stem cell research on grounds the research could violate a law prohibiting use of taxpayer dollars in work that destroys a human embryo. ...

Thursday September 2, 2010 Obama Justice Dept Seeks Stay of Order Nixing NIH Embryonic Stem Cell Funding By Peter J. Smith   WASHINGTON, D.C., September 2, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The U.S. Justice Department is requesting a federal judge stay his order stopping the National Institute of Health’s embryo-destroying stem-cell research pending an appeal, saying that cutting off the money to scientists would harm their research efforts.   Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled last week that embryonic stem cell research projects funded by the NIH violate the Dickey-Wicker amendment, which prohibits...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – (8/31/10) – AUL President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest called the decision by the Department of Justice to appeal an injunction of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research “not surprising, but not the biggest story here.” “Adult stem cell research has yielded incredible, life-giving results for people with many diseases and disabilities, while the stem cell lines created by destroying unborn children has provided little hope for those suffering,” Yoest noted. “Media reports indicate that more than $100 million in federal funds has been wasted on embryonic stem cell research in the last year alone. With...

Monday August 30, 2010 Congressmen Seek to Undermine Embryonic Stem Cell Ruling by Changing Law Senate aide: codifying Obama order "wouldn't do the trick" By Kathleen GilbertWASHINGTON, D.C., August 30, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Members in both chambers of U.S. Congress are angling to alter federal law in order to undermine a district court judge's temporary injunction that effectively puts a stop to the onset of taxpayer-funded embryonic stem-cell research.U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ruled last Monday that Obama's March 2009 Executive Order, which permitted public funds for the research involving the destruction of embryonic human beings, directly conflicted with...

Democrats planned a fight on two fronts against a U.S. judge's ruling halting federal support for embryonic stem-cell research, filing a legal appeal and weighing legislation to restore the funding. The Justice Department said Tuesday that it would appeal the preliminary injunction issued by Judge Royce Lamberth, which put tens of millions of dollars in grants into legal limbo. On Capitol Hill, leading backers of the research said they were exploring ways to maintain government support. Sen. Tom Harkin (D., Iowa) called a hearing for Sept. 16, shortly after Congress returns from its summer break, and House leaders discussed strategy....

A federal judge temporarily blocked the Obama administration Monday from using federal dollars to fund expanded human embryonic stem cell research, saying the research involves the destruction of embryos. The ruling comes after the National Institutes of Health last year issued new guidelines permitting federal funding for research on certain stem cell lines that had already been created. ... U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled that despite attempts to separate the derivation of human embryonic stem cells from the research process, "the two cannot be separated" because culling those stem cells destroys an embryo. ...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked Obama administration regulations expanding stem cell research. The nonprofit group Nightlight Christian Adoptions contends that the government's new guidelines will decrease the number of human embryos available for adoption. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled that the plaintiffs are entitled to bring their lawsuit in the courts ...

God love him! Dick Van Dyke has been named the first-ever spokesperson of Cell Therapy Foundation, a public charity founded in 2007 to advance awareness about the benefits of adult stem cell research. From CTF: Mr. Van Dyke is scheduled to record a series of public service announcements focused on educating the public that adult stem cells, which come from bone marrow, fat, umbilical cord blood and placenta, skin, muscle, and other sources, have healing functions that are leading to new therapies for many diseases. An avid graphic artist and animation hobbyist, Mr. Van Dyke will also participate in...

Tuesday August 3, 2010 Mainstream Media Recognizes Adult Stem Cell Research Far Ahead Of Embryonic By Thaddeus M. BaklinskiWASHINGTON, DC, August 3, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Following an announcement on Friday by U.S. biotech firm Geron Corp. that it received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration to carry out clinical trials using stem cells derived from human embryos, the mainstream media has been awash in stories that acknowledge the success of adult stem cell treatments, and the absence of any positive results from embryonic stem cell research.AP reported the fact that adult stem cells have the ability not only...

FDA OKs First Embryonic Stem Cell Research Trial on Humans, Despite Concerns Washington, DC -- The Obama administration has approved the bid by cloning company Geron to undertake the first trial involving the use of embryonic stem cells in humans. They have never been used before in people because the cells cause tumors and have immune system rejection issues when tried in animals. http://LifeNews.com/bio3137.html

Missouri Right to Life President Pam Fichter explains why her group endorsed Jo Ann Emerson despite the fact Emerson has voted against life twice since 2005.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Friday reinstated a lawsuit that challenges an Obama administration policy for federal funding of some human embryonic stem cell research. The unusual suit against the National Institutes of Health, backed by some Christian groups opposed to embryo research, argued that the NIH policy takes funds from researchers seeking to work with adult stem cells. It also argues that new Obama administration guidelines on stem cell research are illegal. The three-judge federal appeals panel did not rule on the merits of the lawsuit itself, but said two of the doctors involved had legal...

In today’s humanistic culture, individuals are tinkering with ethical boundaries in science, namely genetics, pushing research and experimentation to the limit. In 1973, the monumental court case, Roe v. Wade, altered the bioethical playing field in the United States forever. For the first time in history, a mother could kill her unborn child without any legal consequences. Years later, a sheep named Dolly was cloned in a Scottish laboratory, and scientists around the world claimed they could clone human beings next. Likewise, stem cell research is one of the pivotal debates of the twenty-first century. In-vitro fertilization poses severe ethical...

Well, hm. I've never heard this angle before, but it makes total, creepy sense. An EPA study published February 16 in Environmental Science & Technology (pdf of study here) found that a marked increase in the incidence of autism began in 1988. See its table above; click to enlarge. The study found, "Although the debate about the nature of increasing autism continues, the potential for this increase to be real and involve exogenous environmental stressors exists." According to the April newsletter of the Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute, this is the year the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices added a 2nd...

From California comes an interesting bit of news on the Bush-era controversy surrounding embryonic stem cell research. Remember stem cells? That was a red-hot issue in the previous decade, as it had all the hallmarks of the classic left-wing meme; the Luddite Christians standing in the way of a glorious scientific revolution due to their quaint and obsolete notions on abortion and their overheated morality.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - The University of Nebraska's governing board was expected to vote Friday on a resolution that would limit stem-cell research at the university system's facilities to rules approved under former President George W. Bush. The vote by the Board of Regents would come eight months after President Barack Obama removed government funding restrictions on new stem-cell lines. Supporters of stem-cell research hope it will lead to cures for diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Opponents believe embryos, which are destroyed during the research, are the starting point of human life and destroying them is immoral.

SAN FRANCISCO — Cells from fetuses have “unique properties” that aid in healing, boasts a Swiss biopharmaceutical firm, in response to complaints that it uses fetal cell lines in skin-care products.A Christian watchdog group called Children of God for Life brought attention to the fact that the company, Neocutis, used the cell lines, derived from an abortion, in the products.“It’s absolutely deplorable,” said the Tennessee group’s founder and executive director, Debi Vinnedge. “It’s not even for humanitarian reasons. They are exploiting the remains of a deliberately slaughtered baby for nothing other than vanity.”Vinnedge usually concentrates her watchdog efforts on...

SANTIAGO (AFP) – A middle-aged leukemia patient has became Chile's first patient to receive stem cells from an umbilical cord in a radical procedure that could cure the disease, health officials here said Thursday. The 48-year-old man received the transplanted cells on Monday from samples stored in the so-called "Bank of Life" institute, said doctors at Santiago's Catholic University Hospital, where the operation was performed...

Bioethics: The former director of the National Institutes of Health, once an enthusiast for embryonic stem cells, now says their future has "dimmed." So why is the administration bailing out research into such therapies while troubled states like California have committed billions?Aside from creating or saving a few research jobs, the administration's decision to federally fund embryonic stem cell research is, as we've noted, a bailout of bad science. It throws money at an avenue of research that time and adult stem cell progress have passed by. Applauding the administration's move was Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., who echoed the claims...

The Obama administration today announced far-reaching new guidelines on the use of stem cells in medical research, and promised federal funds to study many of the hundreds of stem cell lines whose use was prohibited by the Bush administration. President Obama had promised during the presidential campaign to ease restrictions on the use of stem cells in research, and has cited the promise of stem cell research in finding cures for disorders that have so far proven intractable. The new guidelines were announced today by officials at the National Institutes of Health. In an important shift from draft guidelines issued...

WEDNESDAY, July 1 (HealthDay News) -- For the first time, researchers have identified a single "master" stem cell in humans that is capable of differentiating into all three major cell types that make up the human heart. "This is a very simple but very important and fundamental finding, and that is understanding how the human heart is built, how it is made, what are the progenitor cells which give rise to the human heart," said Dr. Kenneth Chien, head of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute's cardiovascular disease program and senior author of a paper in the July 2 issue of...

Science: The president's Council on Bioethics is summarily dismissed when it disagrees on the need for more federally funded embryonic stem cell research. The scientific method doesn't include firing those who disagree with you.Inspectors general are apparently not the only ones to pay for annoying the White House by doing their job. The 18-member council existed to provide the president with advice on the moral and ethical implications of the rapid advances in science and medical research. It exists no more. The council existed to ponder whether we should do something just because we can. Apparently President Obama wanted not...

Tuesday June 23, 2009 Obama Abruptly Sacks Bio-ethics Panel Critical of Embryonic Stem-Cell Research By Peter J. SmithWASHINGTON, D.C., June 23, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The White House has dismissed the members of the President’s US Council on Bioethics just a few months before their mandate expires, indicating their services are no longer required by the President and that he is looking for a more “practical� advisory board. The New York Times reported that Reid Cherlin, a White House press officer, told the paper that President Barack Obama saw them as "a philosophically leaning advisory group" designed by the previous...

DOCTORS have frozen sperm stem cells from a three-month-old baby so that he can father children when he is older. The infant is undergoing cancer treatment that is likely to leave him infertile. His parents hope that once he reaches adulthood, doctors will transplant the stem cells back to allow him to produce sperm. The breakthrough in America could give the infant the chance to have a family, but raises ethical questions because a baby is unable to give consent to such a procedure. Until now, doctors in Britain and America have offered fertility treatment to boys only once they...

Conservative Comedian Steven Crowder does it again!

In a world-first breakthrough, University of New South Wales (UNSW) medical researchers have used stem cells cultured on a simple contact lens to restore sight to sufferers of blinding corneal disease. Sight was significantly improved within weeks of the procedure, which is simple, inexpensive and requires a minimal hospital stay. The research team from UNSW’s School of Medical Sciences harvested stem cells from patients’ own eyes to rehabilitate the damaged cornea. The stem cells were cultured on a common therapeutic contact lens which was then placed onto the damaged cornea for 10 days, during which the cells were able to...

Here's something that people with poor or no vision will be excited about: three patients had their sight restored in less than a month by contact lenses cultured with stem cells. All three patients were blind in one eye. The researchers extracted stem cells from their working eyes, cultured them in contact lenses for 10 days, and gave them to the patients. Within 10 to 14 days of use, the stem cells began recolonizing and repairing the cornea. Of the three patients, two were legally blind but can now read the big letters on an eye chart, while the third,...

Pigs offer new stem cell source Pig organs are similar to their human equivalents Chinese scientists have given cells from adult pigs the ability to turn into any tissue in the body, just like embryonic stem cells. They hope the breakthrough could aid research into human disease, and the breeding of animals for organ transplants for humans. It may also enable the development of pigs that are resistant to diseases such as swine flu. The study appears online in the Journal of Molecular Cell Biology. This breakthrough to produce pig stem cells potentially reinvigorates the quest to grow humanised pig...

On May 12, my colleagues on the ethics committee of New York’s Empire State Stem Cell Board voted overwhelmingly to recommend that state funds be awarded to researchers who have paid women for their “time and burden” in the retrieval of their eggs for research purposes. If adopted by New York’s full stem-cell board, the measure will mimic the long-established practice in the assisted-reproduction industry of paying up to $10,000 per retrieval. New York would become the first state in the union to allow such reimbursements to eggs-for-research donors. As if paying women indirectly for their eggs were not shocking...