Bush vetoes Stem Cell Research

[Ben Kenobi]

Further more an embro is not a life form. It has the possibility of becoming a life form but some 75% never do even in the best of times.

Oh really? So say someone was 95 years old and had a 75 percent chance of not surviving to be 96. Does he stop being a person?

What if it's 67% or 50%?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

Finally, there are absolutely no restrictions on the use of skin, bone marrow, blood or other sources of stem cells, the only restrictions placed are on using embryos since you need to kill the embryo in order to harvest the cells. The issue is not whether one science is promising, you can do perfectly fine research without the need to use embryos as a source of stem cells.

This is all true but patient derived stem cell research is less ready for immediate application.

Embryonic stem cell research can probably lead to useful treatments earlier than adult derived stem cells could deliver. In the long term patient derived adult stem cells are the more promising basis for treatment of disease but in the short run thousands perhaps even millions of lives could be saved with simplier treatment approaches using embryonic stem cells as a stop gap measure.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


I'm talking about embryo adoption. I don't see why that is so hard to figure out. The folks who go through IVF have frozen embryos that they give up for adoption just like you give up your baby after they are born. The difference is that the embryos are thawed and implanted into the mothers womb so the adoptive mother gets to carry her adoptive child in the womb.

I can't see why this is a bad thing, instead of throwing the embryos in the trash, you allow them to grow and develop like any other child.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

http://www.nightlight.org/snowflakeadoption.htm

Folks have and would just for the privilege of having children to look after. I can see this taking off since there are way more parents looking to adopt infants then there are children for them to adopt.

don't delude yourself. IVF produces far more embryos than you could possibly find enough women to carry to term. In fact even if we could devise some sort of effective artificial womb to bring them all to term I'm not certain there would be enough prospective adoptive parents for all of them.

Currently parents wishing to adopt infants greatly outnumber infants available for adoption true, but if every embryo produced by IFV were brought to term that ratio would more than reverse.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


They are frozen after a successful IVF cycle. Why do you believe these frozen embryos are immediately destroyed after being conceived? This is where they get their supplies of embryos from the frozen embryos from IVF cycles.

Because IIRC the legislation in question would have only allowed research involving such embryos when such embryos were going to otherwise be immediately destroyed.

[Ben Kenobi]

You are looking at at total of some 400 thousand embryos that are frozen.

Out of a total of about 4 million children born every year in the United States, that would mean you would have to find 10 percent of that total willing to have kids through this method.

Overall adoptions are maybe 128,000 a year.

So say you can get around 80-100 thousand embryo adoptions a year, that would give you about a supply for 4 years of embryo adoptions.

[Ben Kenobi]

Embryonic stem cell research can probably lead to useful treatments earlier than adult derived stem cells could deliver. In the long term patient derived adult stem cells are the more promising basis for treatment of disease but in the short run thousands perhaps even millions of lives could be saved with simplier treatment approaches using embryonic stem cells as a stop gap measure.

I'm not sure why you would think this.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-smith042302.asp

http://www.cbhd.org/resources/stemcells/mcconchie_2004-06-16.htm

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
You are looking at at total of some 400 thousand embryos that are frozen.

Out of a total of about 4 million children born every year in the United States, that would mean you would have to find 10 percent of that total willing to have kids through this method.

Overall adoptions are maybe 128,000 a year.

So say you can get around 80-100 thousand embryo adoptions a year, that would give you about a supply for 4 years of embryo adoptions.

good luck with that!

patient consent issues alone would make that very hard to achieve.

Not to mention the difficulty in convincing enough women to be surrogate mothers.

There wouldn't even be demand for IVF if prospective parents weren't so concerned about their kids being 'their own' in as many ways as possible.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


I'm not sure why you would think this.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-smith042302.asp

http://www.cbhd.org/resources/stemce...2004-06-16.htm

Both of those articles are really dealing only with specific investigations rather than the broad possibilities of use of embryonic derived stem cells in new treatment strategies.

I base my opinion on my contact with catherine verfaillie. I was interviewing for an opening in her lab and I asked if she thought her work implied that research involving embryonic stem cells should be curtailed if those resources could then be applied to adult stem cell research and she made clear that she felt that embryonic stem cells could probably lead to clinically useful treatment strategies for some applications earlier than could be accomplished by relying entirely on adult stem cells. This was only 4 years ago.

[Mordoch]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


I'm not sure why you would think this.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-smith042302.asp

http://www.cbhd.org/resources/stemce...2004-06-16.htm

You need to educate yourself. Specifically Embryonic Stem Cell research is the ONLY approach that has shown the current dramatic potential to allow paralized people to walk again. (Clearly the 2001 adult cell method method had obvious limitations or it would either be in widespread use or at least large trials by now.) The second article clearly was misinformed and is VERY outdated by now.

For the first time, researchers have enticed transplants of embryonic stem cell-derived motor neurons in the spinal cord to connect with muscles and partially restore function in paralyzed animals. The study suggests that similar techniques may be useful for treating such disorders as spinal cord injury, transverse myelitis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and spinal muscular atrophy. The study was funded in part by the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).

The researchers, led by Douglas Kerr, M.D., Ph.D., of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, used a combination of transplanted motor neurons, chemicals capable of overcoming signals that inhibit axon growth, and a nerve growth factor to attract axons to muscles. The report is published in the July 2006 issue of Annals of Neurology.*

In the study, Dr. Kerr and his colleagues cultured embryonic stem cells from mice with chemicals that caused them to differentiate into motor neurons. Just before transplantation, they added three nerve growth factors to the culture medium. Most of the cells were also cultured with a substance called dibutyrl cAMP (dbcAMP) that helps to overcome axon-inhibiting signals from myelin, the substance that insulates nerve fibers in the spinal cord.

The cells were transplanted into eight groups of paralyzed rats. Each group received a different combination of treatments. Some groups received injections of a drug called rolipram under the skin before and after the transplants. Rolipram, a drug approved to treat depression, helps to counteract axon-inhibiting signals from myelin. Some animals also received transplants of neural stem cells that secreted the nerve growth factor GDNF into the sciatic nerve (the sciatic nerve extends from the spine down the back of the hind leg). GDNF causes axons to grow toward it.

Three months after the transplants, the investigators examined the rats for signs that the stem cell-derived neurons had survived and integrated with the nervous system. The rats that had received the full cocktail of treatments — transplanted motor neurons, rolipram, dbcAMP, and GDNF-secreting neural stem cells in the sciatic nerve — had several hundred transplant-derived axons extending into the peripheral nervous system, more than in any other group. The axons in these animals reached all the way to the gastrocnemius muscle in the lower leg and formed functional connections, called synapses, with the muscle. The rats showed an increase in the number of functioning motor neurons and an approximately 50 percent improvement in hind limb grip strength by 4 months after transplantation. In contrast, none of the rats given other combinations of treatments recovered lost function...

Follow-up experiments with GDNF treatment on only one side of the body showed that, by 6 months after treatment, 75 percent of rats given the full combination of treatments regained the ability to bear weight on the GDNF-treated limbs and to take steps and push away with the foot on that side of the body.

http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/jun2006/ninds-20.htm

[Mordoch]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
You are looking at at total of some 400 thousand embryos that are frozen.

Out of a total of about 4 million children born every year in the United States, that would mean you would have to find 10 percent of that total willing to have kids through this method.

Overall adoptions are maybe 128,000 a year.

So say you can get around 80-100 thousand embryo adoptions a year, that would give you about a supply for 4 years of embryo adoptions.

First of all in the overwhelming number of cases, the creators of the embryo will not be willing to let someone else bear their genetic material unless you pass a law saying "use it or lose it" which takes their rights on this matter away.

Secondly, in the overwhelming number of cases, adoption involves couples who have previously had serious fertility problems, and therefore can't bear the implanted embryos, or at least you're simply killing them in a less obvious way by having them placed in people who will almost certainly miscarry them.

Even in those adopting for humanitarian reasons, many of them will not view an embryo as a human being, and therefore see no need to prioritize this method over adopting an orphan from somewhere in the world. Another minor point is adoption is obviously less physically painful than childbirth is.

The reality is the overwhelming portion of the population has no interest in bearing some else's genetic material. This is why only slight over 100 people have so far agree to the method you talked about.

The only real solution to the creation surplus of embryos which keep getting thrown out would be banning a large portion of the invitro fertilization techniques currently used.

Given Bush has not advocated this, he is taking an illogical position that is deeply immoral.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by DanS
(2) Hasn't stopped CA from doing so. Even if it did, that's not a bad thing IMO... I think your argument is a bad one.

I don't know if you've realised, but you aren't the only country on the planet. If you don't research it, there are plenty of other countries that will, including my own and many EU countries. Welcome to falling behind

[Ecthy]

We're falling behind too

[Drake Tungsten]

Welcome to falling behind

Thank god we're still light years ahead in everything else...

[dannubis]

[Ben Kenobi]

There wouldn't even be demand for IVF if prospective parents weren't so concerned about their kids being 'their own' in as many ways as possible.

Ever try for an overseas adoption? It's a nightmare in both logistics and cost. IVF is really a desperate shot for many of having a kid, and I think that if they could they would opt for embryo adoption instead.