Spinal-Cord Injury Victim First to Undergo Embryonic Stem-Cell Therapy

[Fallen Buckeye]

I bet you are glad that the cells being harvested for stem cell research weren't taken from you when you were just a blastocyst. We might not be having this conversation otherwise. 

I also must say that I can see that your position is based out of compassion for your son and others in similar situations, and I commend you for your love for other people. However, the ends do not justify the means. This idea of embryonic stem cell therapies unjustly takes from one (a developing embryo) to give to another. Think of it like this. Let's say that a family needs $100,000 in order to complete a life saving surgery for a child. That family does not have the right to rob a bank to get the money for the surgery despite the fact that it would be for a demonstrably good cause. It would be unjust. The money does not belong to them, and in taking that money they could be taking money that in the future could have been used for an equally good cause. In embryonic stem cell research that "blastocyst" has the innate potential to become a human being and holds an inherent dignity because of that fact. That blastocyst being used for stem cell research could have one day become president or someone else's son or even the researcher who develops an alternative treatment to spinal cord injuries. The fact that so many of these "clumps" are left over and generally disregarded as having value is an equal if not greater tragedy which is why I'm also opposed to IVF and so on. (But that's a conversation for another day. )

And about Jesus as healer, you have to understand that the physical healing was secondary to the spiritual miracles happening. He did these things that people might come to believe. After all, physical healing was temporary. Even Lazarus who was raised from the dead eventually died again, but only belief can lead to eternal salvation. Also, don't forget that Jesus also that everyone must take up their crosses and walk with him, and although some crosses seem toe heavy to bear He will be with you.

And finally I want to reiterate that this is not an all or none proposition. Adult stem cell research offers a viable, arguably superior, alternative to embryonic stem cell research minus the moral questions. I don't mean to condemn anyone on here as immoral, but I felt obliged to offer a different point of view on the subject. I hope the best for you and your son. God bless.

[FayeforCure]

I bet you are glad that the cells being harvested for stem cell research weren't taken from you when you were just a blastocyst. We might not be having this conversation otherwise. 

You must be mourning a million times over..............about all the blastocysts that didn't make it for whatever reason:

Print|Email
Is Heaven Populated Chiefly by the Souls of Embryos?
Harvesting stem cells without tears
Ronald Bailey | December 22, 2004

What are we to think about the fact that Nature (and for believers, Nature's God) profligately creates and destroys human embryos? John Opitz, a professor of pediatrics, human genetics, and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Utah, testified before the President's Council on Bioethics that between 60 and 80 percent of all naturally conceived embryos are simply flushed out in women's normal menstrual flows unnoticed. This is not miscarriage we're talking about. The women and their husbands or partners never even know that conception has taken place; the embryos disappear from their wombs in their menstrual flows. In fact, according to Opitz, embryologists estimate that the rate of natural loss for embryos that have developed for seven days or more is 60 percent.

The total rate of natural loss of human embryos increases to at least 80 percent if one counts from the moment of conception. About half of the embryos lost are abnormal, but half are not, and had they implanted they would probably have developed into healthy babies.

http://reason.com/archives/2004/12/22/is-heaven-populated-chiefly-by

If adult stem cell treatment works so great, why is my son still using a wheelchair?

I have no doubt that adult stem cells work great for some conditions (bonemarrow transplants have worked great for some forms of leukemia and blood related conditions), but for spinal cord injury I do not know of a single adult stem cell treatment that has helped spinal cord injured people to get out of their wheelchair en masse.

Should we halt current human embryonic stem-cell research while these possible new avenues of research are being explored? Absolutely not. That would be surrendering to the moral bullying of a minority that wants to halt promising medical research that could cure millions on theological grounds that many of their fellow citizens do not share.

[Clem1029]

I bet you are glad that the cells being harvested for stem cell research weren't taken from you when you were just a blastocyst. We might not be having this conversation otherwise. 

You must be mourning a million times over..............about all the blastocysts that didn't make it for whatever reason:

Print|Email
Is Heaven Populated Chiefly by the Souls of Embryos?
Harvesting stem cells without tears
Ronald Bailey | December 22, 2004

What are we to think about the fact that Nature (and for believers, Nature's God) profligately creates and destroys human embryos? John Opitz, a professor of pediatrics, human genetics, and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Utah, testified before the President's Council on Bioethics that between 60 and 80 percent of all naturally conceived embryos are simply flushed out in women's normal menstrual flows unnoticed. This is not miscarriage we're talking about. The women and their husbands or partners never even know that conception has taken place; the embryos disappear from their wombs in their menstrual flows. In fact, according to Opitz, embryologists estimate that the rate of natural loss for embryos that have developed for seven days or more is 60 percent.

The total rate of natural loss of human embryos increases to at least 80 percent if one counts from the moment of conception. About half of the embryos lost are abnormal, but half are not, and had they implanted they would probably have developed into healthy babies.

It's worth noting, by using this position as an argument, Faye finally recognized the difference between dying peacefully in your bed and dying by having a bullet put through your skull.

Now THAT'S progress.

[FayeforCure]

[It's worth noting, by using this position as an argument, Faye finally recognized the difference between dying peacefully in your bed and dying by having a bullet put through your skull.

Now THAT'S progress.

?What???

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
â€" Galileo Galilei


Clem, here is a little thought experiment for you:

Of course, culturally we do not mourn the deaths of these millions of embryos as we would the death of a childâ€"and reasonably so, because we do in fact know that these embryos are not people.

Try this thought experiment. A fire breaks out in a fertility clinic and you have a choice: You can save a three-year-old child or a Petri dish containing 10 seven-day old embryos. Which do you choose to rescue?

http://reason.com/archives/2004/12/22/is-heaven-populated-chiefly-by

[wsansewjs]

Adult stem cell research offers a viable, arguably superior, alternative to embryonic stem cell research minus the moral questions.

How in the world is adult stem cell more superior than embryonic stem cell? Adult stem cell is only limited by its own growth and point of origin. Embryonic stem cells starts from VERY VERY beginning of the process. It can truly grow into ANYTHING while adult stem cells are already programmed. Adult stem cells can be grow into anything, but such a complicated process like hundreds yards of nerves embedded in your body. That is got to be hard to surgerically insert them, when embryonic stem cells can be inserted at the source and naturally grow from the surroundings.

Let me put in a metaphor for you...

Your car engine's air intake A (adult stem cell) is only this 5" wide and square edges for the air to suck in to allow the car to go fast as the air can be mustered into that hole. When you upgrade or use the option E (Embryonic stem cell) which is actually 7" wide and has rounded edges, your car will most likely to go faster than before at much efficient.

The metaphor speaks the same for these stem cells options. We need to try every resource out there is in the nature and under the God's eyes. The adult stem cell is not even cutting enough for this intense research like spinal cord injury for thousands including Faye's son.

Money, argument, research, and much more are all we can afford to mend to, but time is ticking.

We cannot afford that. Faye's son is 21 years old, and time is robbing him the opportunities to go out do things physically and be free.

I got something else you should think about. There are over 6.5 billions people on this planet. How can you justify every blastocysts as killing when this planet is heavily populated. Pardon me the pun, but we don't need to save every cells that are going to be TRASHED, then pushed to be processed into birth to add to our global population. when we could use those to save the lives of those who already are existing. There are tons of natural disasters killing millions of the human race under God's will.

-Josh

[Shwaz]

If adult stem cell treatment works so great, why is my son still using a wheelchair?

The same argument can be made for embryonic stem cell progress. It's not like all embryonic research was abandoned over the last decade... I understand that funding was cut short but even that was lifted in 2009 which also granted access to all those cells locked in government freezers.

IMO both embryonic & adult stem cell treatments are still in the infant stages (pun intended) and it will take years and years to cultivate either into successful treatment options.

[Shwaz]

How in the world is adult stem cell more superior than embryonic stem cell? Adult stem cell is only limited by its own growth and point of origin. Embryonic stem cells starts from VERY VERY beginning of the process. It can truly grow into ANYTHING while adult stem cells are already programmed. Adult stem cells can be grow into anything, but such a complicated process like hundreds yards of nerves embedded in your body. That is got to be hard to surgerically insert them, when embryonic stem cells can be inserted at the source and naturally grow from the surroundings.

Adult stem cells are also capable of becoming 'anything' with the help of re-programming or pluripotency:

Like hackers one-upping each others’ code, stem cell scientists keep finding better ways to turn flakes of skin into stem cells. And the latest technique could avoid the cancer-causing side effects of previous methods.

By reprogramming skin cell DNA with a virus that literally removed itself afterwards, researchers have made a versatile, near-embryonic stem cell nearly free from glitches left by other manufacturing methods.

"The virus steadily integrates into the cell’s genome. It does the miracle of reprogramming," said Rudolf Jaenisch, a Whitehead Institute cell biologist. Activating a gene in the virus "takes the virus back out, leaving a minimal trace in the human genome."

The miracle of reprogamming, also known as induced pluripotency, was universally recognized as a research milestone when demonstrated in human cells less than 18 months ago. Adding four development-regulating genes turned adult cells into the near-equivalent of pluripotent embryonic stem cells, capable of becoming almost any other type of cell in the body.

Though the medical promise of embryonic stem cells has yet to be fulfilled, scientists say they’ll eventually be used to replace damaged or failing organs. Their production, however, is both ethically contentious and procedurally difficult: producing personalized versions is possible only through cloning, which is expensive, time-consuming and scientifically tricky.

Reprogrammed cells were hailed as an answer to all these problems â€" but there was a catch. The new genes were carried into the cells with viruses, and sometimes caused them to replicate uncontrollably, a phenomenon better known as cancer.

Researchers have subsequently looked for better reprogramming methods: using fewer genes, different genes, fewer viruses, different viruses. Many of the methods appear promising, but none have been efficient, functional and provisionally safe in human rather than animal cells.

"The goal for everybody for the moment is to generate iPS cells which don’t have the genes in them any more," said Frank Soldner, another Whitehead Institute cell biologist. "We showed in our approach that the system not only works in mouse cells, but in human cells. The other systems are proofs of principle."


In a paper published Thursday in Cell, Jaenisch and Soldner’s team used what is known as a Cre-recombinase excisable virus to add the reprogramming genes. The viruses fused with cellular DNA; the cells turned pluripotent; and then the researchers added Cre-recombinase, an enzyme which automatically made the viral genes disengage, snipping themselves out and sealing the chain behind.

When the gene expression patterns of their reprogrammed cells were compared to those of embryonic stem cells, the researchers found only trace differences. The method wasn’t perfect, but was far cleaner than leaving the viruses inside, which left cellular DNA in relative disarray.

"It doesn’t take away all the changes," Jaenisch said. "There is a minimal trace."

The cells used in the study were taken from people with unexplained, or idiopathic, Parkinson’s disease and coaxed into becoming neurons.

These don’t yet have therapeutic power, Jaenisch and Soldner said, but are still useful for studying disease in a person-specific way.

"You can take cells from patients, then differentiate the cells into types that are affected by their disease â€" in our case, dopaminergic neurons for Parkinson’s disease," said Jaenisch. "For the first time, we can generate these cells in a culture dish, and study the mechanisms that led to their disease in the first place."

In the future, he said, it will be possible to supply reprogramming factors "not as genes, but as a proteins, a substance that’s there only for a moment."

Citation: Parkinson’s Disease Patient-Derived Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Free of Viral Reprogramming Factors Frank Soldner, Dirk Hockemeyer, Caroline Beard, Qing Gao, George W. Bell, Elizabeth G. Cook, Gunnar Hargus, Alexandra Blak, Oliver Cooper, Maisam Mitalipova, Ole Isacson, and Rudolf Jaenisch. Cell, Vol. 136, No. 5, March 5, 2009.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/virusfreeips/#more-3830

[Shwaz]

Of course, culturally we do not mourn the deaths of these millions of embryos as we would the death of a childâ€"and reasonably so, because we do in fact know that these embryos are not people.

Try this thought experiment. A fire breaks out in a fertility clinic and you have a choice: You can save a three-year-old child or a Petri dish containing 10 seven-day old embryos. Which do you choose to rescue?

You're over simplifying a moral dilemma. What if a fire breaks out in a school and you have to choose between a 2 year old and a boy in a wheel chair?

[FayeforCure]

Of course, culturally we do not mourn the deaths of these millions of embryos as we would the death of a childâ€"and reasonably so, because we do in fact know that these embryos are not people.

Try this thought experiment. A fire breaks out in a fertility clinic and you have a choice: You can save a three-year-old child or a Petri dish containing 10 seven-day old embryos. Which do you choose to rescue?

You're over simplifying a moral dilemma. What if a fire breaks out in a school and you have to choose between a 2 year old and a boy in a wheel chair?

That is very simple..........they are two equal lives.

Giving preference to saving the 10 "lives" in a petri dish vs the three year old child would be something only the religious dogmatists would find morally acceptable.

[Clem1029]

Of course, culturally we do not mourn the deaths of these millions of embryos as we would the death of a childâ€"and reasonably so, because we do in fact know that these embryos are not people.

Try this thought experiment. A fire breaks out in a fertility clinic and you have a choice: You can save a three-year-old child or a Petri dish containing 10 seven-day old embryos. Which do you choose to rescue?

You're over simplifying a moral dilemma. What if a fire breaks out in a school and you have to choose between a 2 year old and a boy in a wheel chair?

That is very simple..........they are two equal lives.

Giving preference to saving the 10 "lives" in a petri dish vs the three year old child would be something only the religious dogmatists would find morally acceptable.

Isn't it awesome how Faye is able to determine what counts as an "equal life" and what doesn't?

I pray she never finds a way to write one of my friends or family members off as "unequal."

[wsansewjs]

Guys,

The moderators would have deleted your posts already by now, but they are currently occupied at the moment.

Let us not bash each other. Thanks

-Josh

[FayeforCure]

How in the world is adult stem cell more superior than embryonic stem cell? Adult stem cell is only limited by its own growth and point of origin. Embryonic stem cells starts from VERY VERY beginning of the process. It can truly grow into ANYTHING while adult stem cells are already programmed. Adult stem cells can be grow into anything, but such a complicated process like hundreds yards of nerves embedded in your body. That is got to be hard to surgerically insert them, when embryonic stem cells can be inserted at the source and naturally grow from the surroundings.

Adult stem cells are also capable of becoming 'anything' with the help of re-programming or pluripotency:

Shwaz your info is from 2009 and thus outdated. Here is the latest:

Novel Stem Cell Therapy Faces Major Setback

Christopher Wanjek, LiveScience's Bad Medicine Columnist

Date: 31 May 2011 Time: 08:20 AM ET

A promising method for creating therapeutic stem cells without destroying human embryos has encountered a major setback, as reported this month in the journal Nature.

The research involves induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells. Like embryonic stem cells, iPS cells have the ability to develop into any adult cell in the body, from bone to brain.

Their discovery by Japanese researchers in 2007 was met with great fanfare, because iPS cells can be created easily from adult cells such as skin. This method circumvents the controversy inherent in harvesting stem cells from human embryos, which many consider to be protected human life.


Alas, the iPS method might be too simplistic. University of California, San Diego researchers found that mice injected with iPS cells genetically similar to their own adult cells violently rejected the transfusion, as if it were foreign matter. Meanwhile, others accepted a similar injection of embryonic stem cells with ease.

The study doesn't spell the end of iPS cells. Rather, this work demonstrates the importance of human embryonic stem cell research, now limited by law. Without continued, complementary research on the "real thing," work on otherwise promising alternatives is futile â€" a concept that the U.S. government remains hesitant to accept.

Great promise

Stem cell therapy holds great promise because it offers the ability to grow new tissue to replace older, diseased tissue. The body itself employs this technique at a basic level: Adult blood stem cells, for example, churn out the various types of new red and white blood cells. Other adult stem cells create new bone or skin in response to damage.

Once a cell reaches its end point â€" skin, bone, blood, etc. â€" there's no turning back. A blood cell can't turn into a skin cell. Not even a blood stem cell can make skin.

Embryonic stem cells, however, have the ability to differentiate into all the body's cells. That, of course, is how a fetus grows. Thus, embryonic stem cells harvested from discarded, frozen embryos from fertility clinics offer the best hope for patients suffering from paralysis, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, cancer and many other afflictions.

Oh, right, the law

Human embryonic stem cell research has been severely limited for over three decades, on moral grounds. In 1980 President Ronald Reagan instituted a moratorium on public funding, which remained in place into the George W. Bush administration. Bush allowed limited funding for embryonic cells already derived from discarded embryos but not for any new cells. This left only 20 viable cell lines, not enough to perform substantial research. [Embryonic Stem Cells: 5 Misconceptions]

President Obama lifted the funding ban when he came into office. But this action could be reversed once again in the coming months as the courts continue to debate the relevance of the 1995 Dickey-Wicker Amendment, which bans federal funding on any research that destroys human embryos. Much of the field remains as frozen as the embryos themselves, and few younger scientists are pursuing a career in stem cells.

While work on iPS cells is exciting, it is nearly useless without embryonic stem cells as a control. The iPS technique â€" involving a four-gene tweak of adult cells to coax them into acting like embryonic cells â€" was possible only through direct research on embryonic cells. And as seen in the UCSD study, conducted in part with non-federal dollars, researchers need to understand how "real" embryonic stem cells work to understand what iPS cells lack.

Pluripotent wording

The future of embryonic stem cell research and thus stem cell research in general unfortunately remains hinged upon an interpretation of legal language, not science.

The Dickey-Wicker Amendment concerns "research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed [or] discarded." Obama's argument that federal funding could be used on cell lines derived from embryos destroyed with non-federal dollars is just semantics. Everyone knows the intent of this conservative Christian-based law was to stop all research on human embryos â€" or more precisely, on a blastocyst, a collection of a few dozen undifferentiated cells â€" because a considerable percentage of Americans consider this human life with a soul.

Science, however, tells a different story, one in which humans evolved over the course millions of years, with no clear distinction between the last ape ancestor and the first human with a soul.

From a scientific perspective, embryos bring the potential of life â€" whether that life is among the approximately 150 million babies born each year, or among the approximately 25 percent of all fertilized eggs lost in a natural miscarriage, or among the countless blastocysts thrown away daily at fertility clinics, or among the millions of patients who someday could be cured through stem cell research.

Christopher Wanjek is the author of the books "Bad Medicine" and "Food At Work." His column, Bad Medicine, appears regularly on LiveScience.

http://www.livescience.com/14371-stem-cell-therapy-ips.html

[FayeforCure]

Of course, culturally we do not mourn the deaths of these millions of embryos as we would the death of a childâ€"and reasonably so, because we do in fact know that these embryos are not people.

Try this thought experiment. A fire breaks out in a fertility clinic and you have a choice: You can save a three-year-old child or a Petri dish containing 10 seven-day old embryos. Which do you choose to rescue?

You're over simplifying a moral dilemma. What if a fire breaks out in a school and you have to choose between a 2 year old and a boy in a wheel chair?

That is very simple..........they are two equal lives.

Giving preference to saving the 10 "lives" in a petri dish vs the three year old child would be something only the religious dogmatists would find morally acceptable.

Isn't it awesome how Faye is able to determine what counts as an "equal life" and what doesn't?

I pray she never finds a way to write one of my friends or family members off as "unequal."

I don't think any of your friends or family members look like a clump of cells the size of the tip of a needle. So don't worry 

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

To add some levity to the conversation, I will answer both your riddles

1.)  I think I could carry both a small child and a petri dish - so I leave no one.

2.)  I throw the 2yr old in the lap of the kid in the wheelchair and push them both out - I'm a hero

The only question that should be asked is, "What is in my pocket?"

[Shwaz]

Shwaz your info is from 2009 and thus outdated. Here is the latest:

You say that like the idea & work has been discarded which is incorrect... and only furthers my original point: The research, technologies and progress are a long ways off from solid medical treatments. To discard adult stem cells in favor of embryonic is short sighted. The article you posted lists set backs to an infinitely difficult science.

Also, embryonic stem cells have their fare share of obstacles to overcome too

BLOOD

FETUS â€" the blood cell produces proteins with an estimated 70 per cent higher ability to bind to oxygen because it must be drawn from the mother’s blood through the placenta and umbilical cord

ADULT â€" the cell produces proteins with less affinity to bind to oxygen because it can be breathed directly into the lungs

THE HEART

FETUS â€" cardiac cells run a rate of roughly 150 beats per minute during pregnancy, to pump enough oxygenated blood through the tiny body without functioning lungs taking in air to breathe on their own

ADULT â€" cardiac cells have a resting heart rate about twice as slow as those of a fetus as the circulatory and respiratory systems rely on oxygen drawn directly from the air

THE LIVER

FETUS â€" liver cells are immature since the fetus relies on mother’s nutrients for support and the organ does not work as a digestive filter. Nor does it produce all the enzymes necessary for digestion or drug metabolism.

ADULT â€" liver cells play a major role in metabolism and other biological systems, including detoxification, the making of hormones and the production of enzymes needed for digestion and to process drugs

I hope for the sake of your son and the entire human race that I'm wrong... maybe a miracle treatment is just around the corner... in the meantime I think exploring both options are equally important.