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Bioethics: A federal judge rules that the administration violated congressional intent when it lifted restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. No, this will not usher in a new dark age. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth was striking enough. Lamberth said that when President Obama lifted Bush administration restrictions on ESCR, he violated the Dickey-Wicker Amendment. First passed in 1996, and passed every year as part of the federal budget, Dickey-Wicker blocks federal funds for stem cell research in which human embryos are destroyed. Perhaps more striking is the press coverage of Lamberth's ruling. The...

A treatment for Parkinson's disease that involves injecting patients' brains with cells from aborted foetuses could bring hope to thousands of sufferers. It was first tested more than 20 years ago and hailed as a cure before being abandoned because of devastating side effects. Many of the human guinea pigs lost control of their bodies and experienced writhing and jerking movements for the rest of their lives. Now scientists say they have found a way to control these side effects, which will give hope to many sufferers - such as Hollywood star Michael J Fox and boxing legend Muhammad Ali....

Findings could affect future treatments for macular degeneration, stargardt disease & other forms of retinal diseaseNEW YORK (February 24, 2010) – An international research team led by Columbia University Medical Center successfully used mouse embryonic stem cells to replace diseased retinal cells and restore sight in a mouse model of retinitis pigmentosa. This strategy could potentially become a new treatment for retinitis pigmentosa, a leading cause of blindness that affects approximately one in 3,000 to 4,000 people, or 1.5 million people worldwide. The study appears online ahead of print in the journal Transplantation (March 27, 2010 print issue). Specialized retinal...

Without so much as a press release, Embryonic Stem Cell research is being slowly defunded by the State of California. Remember Proposition 71, the California initiative that pledged $3 billion dollars of public funds to this dubious research? Back in 2004 voters in that state bet that embryonic stem cells held the key to untold cures and therapies. Six years later, after destroying innumerable embryos and devaluing human life, they have nothing to show for their investment. Only adult stem cell research has shown any promise. By reprogramming adult stem cells, researchers have produced astounding results; curing everything from type...

Bioethics: Five years after a budget-busting $3 billion was allocated to embryonic stem cell research, there have been no cures, no therapies and little progress. So supporters are embracing research they once opposed. California's Proposition 71 was intended to create a $3 billion West Coast counterpart to the National Institutes of Health, empowered to go where the NIH could not — either because of federal policy or funding restraints on biomedical research centered on human embryonic stem cells. Supporters of the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative, passed in 2004, held out hopes of imminent medical miracles that were...

LifeNews.com Note: This opinion column originally appeared on the blog of First Things, a pro-life, Catholic publication founded by Father Richard John Neuhaus.   The battle over embryonic stem cell research is over. A few skirmishes will no doubt continue -- perhaps even for years -- and some ESCR advocates will refuse to acknowledge defeat. But they have decisively lost. Years from now, when we look back in astonishment at having been fleeced for billions to pay for therapeutically worthless research, we'll recognize that California was the Waterloo for ESCR.In 2004, California approved Proposition71, a ballot measure that would allow...

An age of medical miracles is dawning. Obama administration federal funding rules for embryonic stem cells, or ES cells, will open wide the money floodgates for "the most remarkable potential of any scientific discovery ever made with respect to human health." It has "the capacity to cure maladies of all sorts,including cancer, heart disease, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's," and spinal cord injuries. Or so says Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) among others. But paraplegics shouldn’t post their wheelchairs on EBay just yet. If these cures are just around the corner, this corner is far, far away. And that's according to ES cell researchers...

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...

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...

Researchers have announced a breakthrough that could end the ethical debate surrounding stem-cell research. The groundbreaking technique would allow the conversion of adult cells into an embryonic-like state. Researchers have been competing in recent years to reach just such a discovery, which would allow them to perform their work without using the controversial embryonic stem cell lines. Scientists at the the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego believe the key to their success is converting the cells by using recombinant proteins, which eliminates subsequent genetic alterations that typically occur during later stages. "Instead of inserting the four genes into the...

On Friday, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed critics of federal funding of life-killing embryonic stem-cell research with this argument: “We’ve had a situation where it’s faith or science — take your pick,” Pelosi said about how the administration of George W. Bush allegedly dealt with the funding issue and other hot-button issues that involve making moral choices about scientific research. “We’re saying science is an answer to our prayers.” Added Pelosi, “We need science, science, science, science, science.” At his Secondhand Smoke blog, bioethicist Wesley Smith demolishes Pelosi’s claim that embryonic stem-cell research represents state-of-the-art science. In fact,...

Here’s Josh Brahm explaining this “Oprah” spot, in which Dr. Oz comes out against embryonic stem-cell research on scientific grounds (Warning: In it he handles, pokes and slices a real human brain).  Catholics remember sadly that Michael J. Fox was a huge proponent of clone-and-kill stem-cell research. How ironic that President Obama, who claims to want to “follow science” is funding precisely the kind of research that the medical community is abandoning. See Josh Brahm’s essay “9 Things the Media Messed Up About the Obama Stem Cell Story.”On the “Oprah” show, Dr. Mehmet Oz handles the brain of a 50-year-old...

Obama’s anti-life ideology ... Obama is not opposed to restricting adult stem cell research, because the same executive order which gives funding to embryonic stem cell research takes away funding from adult stem cell research. This is a senseless move on the part of the president; the only stem cell research he is interested in funding is precisely the most dangerous kind, the only kind that a large segment of the population is opposed to on moral grounds, and the only one that has consistently failed to produce the promised ‘miracle cure’ results. If he were really concerned about life-saving...

WASHINGTON: For all the past week's headlines about embryonic stem cells' medical promise there is a sobering reality: The science to prove that promise will take years, probably too long for many of today's seriously ill. On his desk at Children's Hospital Boston, Harvard stem cell researcher Dr. George Daley keeps a file about 3 inches thick of e-mails and letters from patients and families who hope his work could help them. They are both inspiration and caution. "It took much of the 20th century to figure out how to deliver chemicals as drugs," noted Daley. "We should be humble...

I was shocked to hear from two sources that Obama is going to rescind Bush's policy of using Federal money from going for NONembryonic stem cell research. So Obama wants Federal dollars for immoral embryonic stem cell which do not work, but wants to take away money for ethical stem cells which DO work!

...President Obama’s reversal of the embryonic stem cell ban sentences these embryos to the category of disposable life, a clear indicator that the president values the free exercise of science over the life of the unborn. But there is much more to the president’s decision. Dr. Guliuzza continued:

President Barack Obama signed a law that explicitly bans federal funding of any “research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death” only two days after he lifted President Bush’s executive order banning federal funding of stem cell research that requires the killing of new human embryos. The law banning any federal funding of research that kills or risks injury to embryos was included in the language of the $410-billion omnibus appropriation bill that President Obama signed Wednesday. Known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment, the language has been included in...

AMA Supports President's Decision to Fund Stem Cell Research For immediate release March 9, 2009 Statement attributable to: Joseph Heyman, MD Board Chair, American Medical Association "The American Medical Association supports President Obama's decision to lift the ban on federal funding of stem cell research. Stem cell research holds great promise to treat diseases that science has so far been unable to cure, and this change in policy will allow researchers to accelerate their efforts by applying for federal research funds. "The AMA supports biomedical research on stem cells and has encouraged strong public support of federal funding for this...

LONDON, March 12, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An Oxford University stem cell expert has urged the use of aborted children in organ transplants as a solution to the shortage of available organs. Sir Richard Gardner has called for a feasibility study on the possibility of obtaining organs from the bodies of aborted babies.He said, "It is probably a more realistic technique in dealing with the shortage of kidney donors than others."The Daily Mail reports that pro-life and Christian groups have called the proposal "morally abhorrent," and said it will result in abortions being timed to suit transplant patients. Dr Peter...