Judge Halts Human-Embryonic Stem Cell Research

[Flames Fan, Ph.D.]

Originally Posted by peter12

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.

You're pretty far off on this one.

The whole point of stem cells is that you need not "totalize" the whole body. People are working on embryonic (pluripotent) stem cells to see what types of cells they can differentiate them into (liver, kidney, etc...), but they're also using them as a model blueprint to see if we can reprogram adult stem cells into embryonic stem cells.

So really, there is very little "harvesting" if at all. And if the aimed for outcome is achieved, you won't need to harvest anything from an embryo. All you'll need to do is get consent from the sick patient (or perhaps a healthy relative) to draw a few cells from a biopsy. Hardly an ethical morass.

TBQH, I'd rather use all those "embryos" in stasis (I hesitate to call them embryos at such an early stage following fertilization) rather than just let them sit there while we lie to ourselves that some day we'll find legions of women to carry them to term. As far as I'm concerned, the moral "line" has already been crossed by the people engaging in the in vitro fertilization process*, so there is little harm in maximizing utility.


* I'm not trying to make a positive or negative judgment for those who choose IVF. I'm just saying that the ethical decision is made *before* you choose to drop multiple fertilized eggs into liquid nitrogen for an undefined period of time.

[Phanuthier]

pwned120

[Azure]

Originally Posted by valo403

Actually research and science were massive recipients through the Reinvestment Act, particularly in the area of energy.

I'm not talking about the stimulus. The US can't sustain spending like this forever, and R&D will be cut before social services.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Thor

lol Nasa is a nickel/dime organization compared to the military. Go cut there.

DoD does a lot of R&D as well. I think the only way to realistically be able to cut the military budget would be to bring down the $280 billion dollar operations and maintenance bill. The rest of the spending throughout the military is less than half of that.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by Azure

DoD does a lot of R&D as well. I think the only way to realistically be able to cut the military budget would be to bring down the $280 billion dollar operations and maintenance bill. The rest of the spending throughout the military is less than half of that.

NASA/US labs do more research than just guns and planes. What money goes where is a little vague.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

pwned120

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

NASA/US labs do more research than just guns and planes. What money goes where is a little vague.

Personally I think a lot of research in regards to space exploration, and what it takes to get up there cheap and fast should be done by the private side.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by Azure

I'm not talking about the stimulus. The US can't sustain spending like this forever, and R&D will be cut before social services.

Fair enough, my point is that research and science have been the recipient of significant amounts of spending in the last 2 years.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by Azure

Personally I think a lot of research in regards to space exploration, and what it takes to get up there cheap and fast should be done by the private side.

And what's the motivation for the private sector to do so? Space tourism?

[Flames Fan, Ph.D.]

Originally Posted by Azure

Personally I think a lot of research in regards to space exploration, and what it takes to get up there cheap and fast should be done by the private side.

Please explain how that would work.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by Azure

Personally I think a lot of research in regards to space exploration, and what it takes to get up there cheap and fast should be done by the private side.

I'm not an expert, but as far as I know, its somewhat of a partnership between government associations and private for a lot of this research. In laymans terms, the government is the backing and private comes in.

And this isn't just private as in companies, but private universities like Stanford as well. i.e. its not uncommon to see universities involved in NASA research. Even while I was at UofA, a prof or two was involved in research for NASA. Of coarse, local universities closet to a NASA base (for instance) get a lot of work.

[Flames Fan, Ph.D.]

Originally Posted by valo403

Fair enough, my point is that research and science have been the recipient of significant amounts of spending in the last 2 years.

True enough, on a relative basis.

The NIH received about 8 billion on top of its budget of around 30 billion. It did help me keep a post-doc employed for another 2 years.

But I *wish* we had DoD-like levels of support!

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Azure

Personally I think a lot of research in regards to space exploration, and what it takes to get up there cheap and fast should be done by the private side.

Isn't that a core component of Obama's space plan?

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65R64920100628

The strategy follows President Barack Obama's blueprint for NASA that cancels the space shuttle follow-on program to return to the moon, hires private space taxis to fly crews to the International Space Station and seeds promising technologies for future human and robotic missions into deep space.

Emphasis added.

[Thor]

Since its being discussed, recent development in the research

WASHINGTON (AFP) – British scientists have grown liver cells out of stem cells from human skin, boosting hopes that healthy cells can be transplanted into organs to repair damage from diseases like cirrhosis and cancer, according to new findings.
Cambrige University took skin biopsies from seven patients suffering from various hereditary liver diseases, and from three healthy patients, "reprogramming" the skin samples into stem cells which can effectively become any tissue in the body.

For the first time, such cells were used to mimic a range of liver diseases, according to the findings published in Wednesday's Journal of Clinival Investigation.
Growing liver cells in a laboratory is particularly difficult.

By replicating such cells in diseased livers, and replicating the healthy cells from a control group, researchers can not only determine precisely what is happening in the diseased cell, but also test the effectiveness of new therapies to treat diseases.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100826...esearchbritain

[Canada 02]

unfortunately, whoever first developed human embryonic stem cells condemned the technology and the process to this debate, forever linking it with the pro-life, anti-abortion movement.

Had he called them pluripotent blastocysts or some other non-inflammatory name, the "quick to judge, slow to understand" would have never caught on. Reality is, embryos are never destroyed in the creation of pluripotent blastocysts because they are not embryos. They are pre-embryos (an important distinction), no more and no less capable of forming a human being than human umbilical vein endothelial cells, human amniotic cells, or adult cells of any tissue origin - all of which are readily available for medical research.

It's an important distinction to appropriately call them pre-embryos because, without scientific/medical intervention, these will never form into embryos. Conversely, with scientific/medical intervention somatic cells could be coaxed or manipulated into forming pre-embryos and embryos.

[troutman]

http://www.planetary.org/programs/pr..._advocacy.html

The Administration's request for the 2011 NASA budget calls for a bold recasting of the agency's path for human space exploration. With the new plan NASA will receive more funding for science and technology missions, both robotic and human, and join forces with private industry and international partners. Together they will develop new capabilities and technologies to carry humans beyond Earth orbit -- to the Moon, near-Earth asteroids, and ultimately to Mars.

The Administration's proposal has come under attack from special interests and their representatives in Congress. They are trying to chip away at this bold new program and go back to "business as usual," leaving us stuck in Earth orbit for another decade or more.

The Planetary Society is determined not to let that happen. The Administration's new plan closely follows our own recommendations, included last year in our report "Beyond the Moon: A New Roadmap for Human Space Exploration."

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by peter12

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

NASA says hi.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by valo403

And what's the motivation for the private sector to do so? Space tourism?

In the most basic sense, yes. We already know that a lot of rich people are going to pay millions for space flight, and I think we should let the private side take advantage of this and run with it.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Isn't that a core component of Obama's space plan?

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65R64920100628

Emphasis added.

It sure is.

And a reason why a lot of people are saying the Canadian Aerospace industry is going to start booming in the future.

[peter12]

You began with a claim of personal discomfort, and have equated the results of this research with "human harvesting". This is probably something that needs to be addressed in more detail, as AC, Thor, troutman and others have pointed out that this characterization is erroneous. Please clarify.

I'm not an expert on bio-ethics by any means. I expressed discomfort with the process given my experience in another field, namely politics. I am uncomfortable with stem cell research, IVF and other reproductive technologies because they represent a separation of the public realm and the private realm. All of these technologies promise to reap enormous benefits for the individual, such as long-lasting and healthy life, but because they are kept separate from the moral and political world, as many posters have insisted they should be, they separate humans from the human life. That is, a moral, political and cultural life dedicated to a single end, technological supremacy over the human body. Human life loses its meaning unless it serves some utilitarian purpose. This is a complicated argument that I am making and I feel personally quite tired even trying to make it as the status quo arguments are so apparently self-evident to so many people lacking in the proper context to make sound moral decisions.

You have again made a values claim and projected it as an axiom. You have not yet established that the science is fruitless or that the results are utopian, and have also failed to demonstrate why we are better off "caring and loving for the sick". What does this mean, anyways?

How can anyone demonstrate that any science is fruitless or without purpose given the current status quo? Many posters have stated that technology is merely the process by which human beings explore, expand and take control of their surroundings. This is a value statement as well even when it is passed off as having some sort of absolute merit.

I should go on to further explain that my views on politics and human life figure largely into this view. I'll expand a bit, but I really expect that people on here will just respond with more popular misconceptions about politics. Basically, politics is the highest human activity. I am not necessarily talking about "Washington, Edmonton or Ottawa" when I say "politics." Rather, I am talking about the means to answer the ancient question, "who rules?" This is a question that has no real apparent answer, but has many different and superb arguments struggling to place it within a proper moral framework. What it really means when one asks this question properly is that politics becomes an end in itself. That is, the act of governing and being governed is something that humans engage in forever. Always struggling to find moral answers in a world which lacks any morality but which humans impose moral order upon.

The "problem" or rather the dialogic issue with science is that on one hand it seeks to serve humanity but it also, whether purposively or inevitably, also extends control over the activity of politics, making science or technology an end in itself. I was reading the response to my postulate on whether or not we should explore the stars and what really jumped out at me were the supposed facts eventually mankind would have to move on or that answers to our immediate problems lie in studying the stars. The answer that many posed was essentially an untested faith that science would come up with the solutions to these problems and not politics.

My ultimate issue with IVF and stem cell research is not the potential fruits that could be reaped but rather that our concept of the good life now lies on the magic and unfulfilled fruits of an unpredictable science rather than in the fellowship and discussion with our fellow human beings.

This IS a values statement, but that's the point. Most things that we say politically are values statement and we must defend them with the moral science, of which, incidentally, rhetoric is one. What frightens me, especially, are the people who believe that this is no longer a subject for empirical discussion.