[cgk]

I just found out that John Kerry and Henry Waxman were recruited by my meds maker Serono to get FDA approval for the meds in this country. It was approved nearly everywhere else: canada, europe, etc.

But Serono has given more money to the Repubs than the Dems, even during the fight with Biogen who made a competing med.

[marktwain]

What is keeping the market from operating here? I bet that there are all kinds of federal laws and regulations that prevent a company from paying for, testing, sorting, storing and selling these cord blood units.

$1200 cost for a $20,000 sale in a couple of years seems like powerful profit incentive to me, with the internet as an easy way to market.

[MHGinTN]

There is a little discussed issue which is driving the lust for embryonic stem cell exploitation (as opposed to cord blood stem cells and other adult stem cell applications). That issue is the 'profitability' to be had from the applications. If a medical procedure uses your stem cells to treat you, there is no 'valuable tissue bank' to draw from, thus no enrichment to a singular source. Allow me to explain further.

When embryonic stem cell exploitation hit the news a few years back (early in Bush's Presidency) the expectation of some was a system of tissue banks derived from embryonic stem cell lines. The owners of these banks of immune response identified tissues would be the source for stem cell lines closely matched to the immune system of the patient, thus the banks would be tremendously profitable as the source of tissues for treatments. Using adult stem cells taken from the patient's body and coaxed into differentiating into needed tissues takes away the 'banking empowerment' anticipated by business for embryonic stem cells (the body parts of individual humans at their embryo age in their lifetime ended for harvesting purposes ... cannibalism).