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

[hooplady]

Faye, best of luck for Jason!  He has had to live with this for too long, but he's still young enough to be a good candidate for this new technology.  Here's hoping he gets his chance and has many years of walking ahead of him.

[Ajax]

I don't intend to insult anyone but I realize that some will take offense to what I'm about to say.  So be it. 

Even the most adamant pro-lifers out there don't insist on having funerals whenever there's an early-term miscarriage.  So if people really believed that all life has 'dignity' from the moment of conception, they wouldn’t be flushing these little embryos down the toilet - they would be peeing into a strainer every time they went to the bathroom for fear that they might not be able to give the remains a proper burial.   (Sorry for the crude imagery).  Otherwise, that is a very undignified way to dispose of a precious form of life.  The thought of tossing a 2-year old child's body into a dumpster is abhorrent, but I’m not aware of anyone that considers flushing the remains of a miscarriage after four weeks of pregnancy inappropriate. 

Embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells, who knows which is the most promising?  Maybe to some scientists the adult stem cells look better today, but why should we limit ourselves? 

[FayeforCure]

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

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.

I completely agree with you Shwaz.

Nobody is trying to stop adult stem cell research, but unfortunately some religious scientists have filed a lawsuit against Obama's executive order in order to stop all federal embryonic stem cell research funding. They are claiming that federal funding of embryonic stem cell research takes away from adult stem cell funding even though the federal government funds ten times as much adult stem cell research as it does emvbryonic stem cell research.

So if anything............embryonic stem cell research doesn't get its fair share.

Hence the comment in the article that "Much of the ( embryonic stem cell research) field remains as frozen as the embryos themselves"

[FayeforCure]

Faye, best of luck for Jason!  He has had to live with this for too long, but he's still young enough to be a good candidate for this new technology.  Here's hoping he gets his chance and has many years of walking ahead of him.

Sweet, sweet, sweet!!!!

Thank you sooooo much hooplady. I hope Jason will be able to re-live his lost childhood through his future children once he gets back on his feet.

Ajax, thank you so much too!!

You must explain your love for Amsterdam soccer team Ajax to me some time too 

[Fallen Buckeye]

As a matter of fact, I do mourn the innocent lives of children lost to abortion, miscarriage, IVF, embryonic stem cell research, and abuse every December 28 on the feast of the Holy Innocents. I know many, many people who pray daily for these children as well as for mercy on the people take the lives of these innocent human lives. I pray that you all will have a change of heart on the matter as well.

Now regarding the funding, if we focus our money and provide the means to research this less controversial treatment option more thoroughly we can likely see results faster for a wider variety of ailments with the full support of the general public which is what we're after isn't it?

[Clem1029]

This is incredible...for Faye, life depends on what someone "looks" like. That's frightening on a level that defies description.

Keep digging that hole Faye.

Do you really think that's what she meant?  Come on, that's weak.  Maybe you forgot to put a winking smiley face at the end of your post?   

Actually, no missing wink...it's EXACTLY what she meant. Faye (and other ESCR proponents (not to mention abortion, etc), not just singling her out) advocate exactly that - "human" and "life" is completely arbitrary and re-definable to whatever standards they choose. It's defined by how something "appears" (in this discussion, "looks") rather than what something "is." And the problem with that mindset is that once you start defining humanity down, there's no objective reason to stop and life can be redefined to whatever is convenient - it's the starting point for most of the heinous crimes seen in history.

More importantly, and probably as scary, nobody is asking whether those lives "in a petri dish" should even be there/exist in the first place.

[Kiva]

Embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells, who knows which is the most promising?  Maybe to some scientists the adult stem cells look better today, but why should we limit ourselves?

The scientific literature is clear on this. Embryonic stem cells are more useful (they can form any type of cell) than adult stem cells (much more limited). When embryo stem cells were first used, harvesting them killed the embryo, which is the reason George Bush gave for cutting off federal funding.  However, new techniques (available for about the last 4 years) allow scientists to harvest stem cells without killing the embryo from which they are taken. Many stem cell opponents are unaware of this.

[Fallen Buckeye]

Also, here's a great website that debunks the overpopulation myth:

http://overpopulationisamyth.com/

(Don't mean to sidetrack, but someone brought it up.)

[Fallen Buckeye]

Being able to harvest cells without taking the life of the embryo is a definite step forward. However, as Clem pointed out there is the question of where these embryos come from. As I said earlier I have a problem with IVF and similar treatments mainly because it takes procreation out of its natural context of the loving union of a man and wife, multiple eggs are usually fertilized to increase likelyhood of success and then selectively thinned out later, and the method which sperm is harvested is immoral. So if these embryos are coming from fertility treatment centers then there are still fundamental moral problems with the process. And the fact that these embryos might be trashed or sit on ice indefinitely otherwise fails to justify the use of embryonic stem cells because it reinforces another morally problematic practice.

I realize it's easy for me to sit and say all this while people suffer from various ailments, but I have seen this type of suffering take place in front of my eyes with a few different immediate family members. I know what's it's like to be desperate for treatment options and even to slowly die. But in bearing our suffering we cannot afford to step on the weak and the vulnerable. God bless.

[wsansewjs]

Also, here's a great website that debunks the overpopulation myth:

http://overpopulationisamyth.com/

(Don't mean to sidetrack, but someone brought it up.)

I surely did brought it up. We are overpopulating by the economic capacity.

-Josh

[FayeforCure]

Clem and Buckeye, the solution is simple: Given your religious convictions I would suggest you don't partake of the cures that are being developed, just as the Jehova Witnesses refuse blood transfusions.

At least the Jehova Witnesses are not trying to ban blood transfusions for the rest of us 

BTW are you aware that you probably overstepped your own moral reasoning already?

Vaccines Grown on Aborted Fetal Tissue
The following vaccines are grown on aborted fetal tissue - rabies, some mumps, rubella, chickenpox, hepatitis a, smallpox (some), ipv. One of the single measles vaccines is further attenuated in diploid cells

http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/abortedtissue.htm

[FayeforCure]

Embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells, who knows which is the most promising?  Maybe to some scientists the adult stem cells look better today, but why should we limit ourselves?

The scientific literature is clear on this. Embryonic stem cells are more useful (they can form any type of cell) than adult stem cells (much more limited). When embryo stem cells were first used, harvesting them killed the embryo, which is the reason George Bush gave for cutting off federal funding.  However, new techniques (available for about the last 4 years) allow scientists to harvest stem cells without killing the embryo from which they are taken. Many stem cell opponents are unaware of this.

You are so right Kiva, scientists can pluck just one cell from the blastocyst and return the blastocyst to the freezer. Voila, no "killing."

Besides since embryonic stem cells are immortal, very few stem cell lines are needed to provide all the stem cell treatments we need............that also should alleviate some of the concerns out there in the religious community:

Amazingly, all the billions of cells that Geron has grown for its spinal-cord programâ€"including those injected into Atchison's spineâ€"are direct descendants of the very first supply of stem cells that Thomson created from an embryo, a cell line known as H1. "There is no further destruction of human embryos required to keep this work going, and there hasn't been since 1998," Ed Wirth, Geron's medical director, told a Phoenix audience last year. "[It's] very, very powerful how you can multiply these cells."

http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/37787/?mod=chthumb

[wsansewjs]

You are so right Kiva, scientists can pluck just one cell from the blastocyst and return the blastocyst to the freezer. Voila, no "killing."

That is like receiving God's blessing.

-Josh

[FayeforCure]

You are so right Kiva, scientists can pluck just one cell from the blastocyst and return the blastocyst to the freezer. Voila, no "killing."

That is like receiving God's blessing.

-Josh

And what a giant blessing it would be to find a cure for cancer, the #3 killer of all of us:

Stem Cell Research Offers Hope for Colon Cancer Vaccine

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 7 -- Human stem cells may provide a means of creating a vaccine against colon cancer and other types of cancers, say American and Chinese scientists.

"Cancer and stem cells share many molecular and biological features. By immunizing the host with stem cells, we are able to 'fool' the immune system to believe that cancer cells are present and thus to initiate a tumor-combating immune program," Dr. Zihai Li, of the University of Connecticut Stem Cell Institute, said in a news release.

The research by Li and colleagues is the first to make the connection between human stem cells and colon cancer vaccination.


It has long been believed that immunizing people with embryonic materials may trigger an anti-tumor response by the immune system, but this theory has never advanced beyond animal research. The finding that human stem cells may help immunize against colon cancer is new and unexpected, the study authors pointed out.

In this study, the researchers vaccinated mice with human embryonic stem cells and found that the mice developed a consistent immune response against colon cancer cells. The vaccinated mice showed a dramatic decline in tumor growth, compared with non-vaccinated mice.

While human embryonic stem cells triggered an immune response, artificially induced pluripotent stem cells did not, a finding that challenges the theory that induced pluripotent stem cells are the same as human embryonic stem cells and may replace them at the forefront of stem cell research, Li and colleagues said.

The study was published online Oct. 7 in the journal Stem Cells.

So what about other cancer types?

"Although we have only tested the protection against colon cancer, we believe that stem cells might be useful for generating an immune response against a broad spectrum of cancers, thus serving as a universal cancer vaccine," co-author Dr. Bei Liu said in the news release.

http://www.drugs.com/news/stem-cell-research-offers-hope-colon-cancer-vaccine-20256.html

[Fallen Buckeye]

Still have not addressed the problem with how these embryos come to be in the first place which is just as problematic as the killing of embryos. As I said earlier, not killing the embryo is a step forward but does not completely address the moral issues at play in this debate. And is spending an eternity in the freezer really much better than killing them either?