Judge Halts Human-Embryonic Stem Cell Research

[Ramsayfarian]

A year and a half after President Obama loosened restrictions on government funding of human-embryonic-stem-cell research, a federal judge on Monday, Aug. 23, declared all such studies temporarily off-limits for taxpayer dollars, on the grounds that they violate a 1996 law. The decision could be a devastating step backward for a promising new science that has the potential to generate new treatments and possibly even cures for diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson's — and the reaction from scientists was swift and blistering.
"The court decision threatens to impede progress in regenerative medicine in our country," says Dr. Elaine Fuchs, a professor at Rockefeller University and president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research. "It must be challenged as quickly as possible."


Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/arti...013042,00.html

[peter12]

Good news. This stuff creeps the heck out of me, regardless of the so-called possible treatments that could emerge. No human harvesting please.

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by peter12

Good news. This stuff creeps the heck out of me, regardless of the so-called possible treatments that could emerge. No human harvesting please.

Well played troll post!

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by peter12

Good news. This stuff creeps the heck out of me, regardless of the so-called possible treatments that could emerge. No human harvesting please.

You've clearly never had a family member with Parkinsons.

Considering the potential benefits, I don't see how anyone could not be in favor if this research.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Table 5

You've clearly never had a family member with Parkinsons.

Considering the potential benefits, I don't see how anyone could not be in favor if this research.

I have had family members with diabetes, MS, cancer, spinal injuries etc... We're all human and we all end up with some debilitating form of illness at one point in our lives. Searching for some sort of miracle cure with no mind to the vast human cost is something that I do not agree with.

[Old Yeller]

What vast human cost?

[Table 5]

nm....beaten to it.

[habernac]

Obviously, cells feel pain too.

[peter12]

So no one sees the ethical and philosophical problems with using human reproductive tissue as a biomedical crop? I can understand a hesitant support of the technology. I don't understand the unequivocal cheer-leading.

The so-called treatments are only hoped for possibilities with very little tangible and hard evidence to support them. To get to a stage where any treatments appear we will have to totalize the human body, utilizing "spare parts" of unused embryos for the fuel to run this particular scientific project with little purpose.

I find that disgusting and wrong. In regards to the sick and dying, this is the everlasting presence of nature in our lives. We are better spent caring and loving for the sick than pursuing utopian pipe dreams that erode our humanity.

[flylock shox]

Importantly, this decision doesn't outlaw research of this kind - it simply prohibits funding of such research out of the federal purse. Private funding is still a viable option.

This does make me wonder what effect, in terms of privatization of the fruits of the research, this decision may have.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by flylock shox

Importantly, this decision doesn't outlaw research of this kind - it simply prohibits funding of such research out of the federal purse. Private funding is still a viable option.

This does make me wonder what effect, in terms of privatization of the fruits of the research, this decision may have.

Which is all Bush did. Prohibit public funding.

If there were a profit behind this some private person would fund it. Makes you wonder if Buffet is going to give billions away, why isn't he investing all of it into stem cell research if the result can be a magic cure for every disease known to mankind?

[Table 5]

Nobody said stem cells are a magic cure. All I'm for is the continued research into to find out if it actually has some usable benefits or not. That's the whole point of research. Or are we only supposed to support things that have a guaranteed viability?

[fredr123]

Check out Ancestor by Scott Sigler and tell me this genetic research stuff is a good idea: http://www.scottsigler.com/ancestor

[Ramsayfarian]

Originally Posted by Azure

Which is all Bush did. Prohibit public funding.

If there were a profit behind this some private person would fund it. Makes you wonder if Buffet is going to give billions away, why isn't he investing all of it into stem cell research if the result can be a magic cure for every disease known to mankind?

Wars are good, cures are bad.

Why does it have to make a profit?

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Nobody said stem cells are a magic cure. All I'm for is the continued research into to find out if it actually has some usable benefits or not. That's the whole point of research. Or are we only supposed to support things that have a guaranteed viability?

As I said, the intangible is what it does to the human body. It industrializes human reproductive tissue. Something that I find abhorrent regardless of its utilitarian purpose.

[habernac]

Originally Posted by peter12

Good news. This stuff creeps the heck out of me, regardless of the so-called possible treatments that could emerge. No human harvesting please.

You've been watching too many science fiction movies.


U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth declared that research on human embryonic stem cells violates the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, a 1996 law that prohibits federal dollars from being used to support any studies "in which human embryos are created, destroyed, discarded or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death." In order to obtain stem cells, the four-to-five-day-old embryos from which they emerge are sacrificed.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2013042,00.html#ixzz0xeG23kKT

I guess throwing out excess embryos is more acceptable than actually using them to try and discover new ways to fight disease. It's a dumb amendment.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by Azure

Which is all Bush did. Prohibit public funding.

If there were a profit behind this some private person would fund it. Makes you wonder if Buffet is going to give billions away, why isn't he investing all of it into stem cell research if the result can be a magic cure for every disease known to mankind?

Government funding allows for the discovery of potential benefits, and therefore profits. Without the initial research you're asking private enterprise to sink money into the unknown, which simply sin't going to happen.

[MarchHare]

Damn those activist liberal judges legislating from the bench!

[peter12]

Originally Posted by valo403

Government funding allows for the discovery of potential benefits, and therefore profits. Without the initial research you're asking private enterprise to sink money into the unknown, which simply sin't going to happen.

But it's okay for government to sink taxpayers' money into the unknown? Gotcha.

[flylock shox]

The thread title probably could benefit from some amendment.

The situation isn't nearly as dire as a total cessation of research. Basically it calls for a legislative solution.