Hello Athiests!

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aileron said:
Not one example on this list meets the standard you set for ESCR, a successful clinical trial – not one. The list of peer-reviewed journal entries cover isolated cases, meta analysis, or conjecture, not one is a clinical trial let alone a successful one.
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Firstly, what standard did I set for ESCR? Secondly, there have been cases of people who have received ASCR successfully? Thirdly, you could easily do your own research to find this out. Fourthly, I think quite frankly we are being fed ideological bull fostered by an ESCR obsessed scientific community. I have no doubt that nothing but failure will ensue in pursuing ESCR.
 
aileron said:
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Again, this cut and paste doesn’t even discuss the issue. It doesn’t even touch on SCNT, which no researcher in the field is suggesting, or could even imagine how it would require immunosuppressive therapy.
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I’m starting to think that you’re trying to pull a fast one on me, firstly, because I originally posted this from an article that did not mention SCNT, that you brought it up is where you failed to stick to what the article stated.

As originally posted:

**First, one minor complication is that use of human embryonic stem cells requires lifelong use of drugs to prevent rejection of the tissue. **Second, another more serious disadvantage is that using embryonic stem cells can produce tumors from rapid growth when injected into adult patients. A third disadvantage reported in the March 8, 2001, New England Journal of Medicine was of tragic side effects from an experiment involving the insertion of fetal brain cells into the brains of Parkinson’s disease patients. Results included uncontrollable movements: writhing, twisting, head jerking, arm-flailing, and constant chewing. Fourth, a recent report in the Journal Science reported that mice cloned from ESC were genetically defective. If human ESC are also genetically unstable, that could materially compromise efforts to transform cells extracted from embryos into successful medical therapies. Finally, the research may be hampered because many of the existing stem cell lines were grown with the necessary help of mouse cells. If any of this research is to turn into treatments, it will need approval from the FDA, which requires special safeguards to prevent transmission of animal diseases to people. It is unclear how many of these cell lines were developed with the safeguards in place. This leads to a host of problems related to transgenic issues.

Pretty straight forward wouldn’t you say? And that cut and paste (such a useful tool) article from Stanford is basically stating just that.
 
UK adult stem cell researcher moves to France over ‘funding lack’
By Aislinn Simpson

A leading British adult stem cell scientist has announced he plans to quit the UK for France because he has not been given enough funding or support.

Colin McGuckin, professor of regenerative medicine at Newcastle University and an expert in adult stem cells, claimed that the Government and funding bodies are biased towards embryonic stem cell research, even his work has more immediate clinical benefits.

He claimed his university has failed to provide him with adequate facilities, adding: “You would barely know that adult stem cells exist at Newcastle.”

Professor McGuckin, a Catholic, pioneered the extraction of stem cells from babies’ umbilical cord blood in 2005 for the creation of skin and liver tissue.

The method generates similar material to embryonic stem cells but is less controversial because no embryo is destroyed in the process. Prof McGuckin said it could yield livers for transplant within a decade.

After a series of public warnings of a need for more funding, he has now decided to move to the University of Lyon in January to open the world’s biggest institute devoted to cord blood and adult stem-cell research. He will take a 10-man research team from Newcastle with him, including his research partner Nico Forraz.

Speaking to Times Higher Education, Prof McGuckin said France offered a “much better environment” to cure and treat more people.

“The bottom line is my vocation is to work with patients and help patients and unfortunately I can’t do that in the UK,” he said.

"France is very supportive of adult stem cells because they know that these are the things that are in the clinic right now and will be more likely in the clinic.

“A vast amount of money in the UK from the Government has gone into embryonic stem-cell research with not one patient having being treated, to the detriment of (research into) adult stem cells, which has been severely underfunded.”

Stem cell ethics groups said his departure would create a “huge hole” in Newcastle’s research portfolio and another leading scientist, Anthony Hollander, a professor of tissue engineering at the University of Bristol, agreed funding was unbalanced.

But the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust said they funded the best proposals across all areas and Chris Day, pro vice-chancellor for medical sciences faculty at Newcastle insisted it was improving facilities for academics.

**I just wanted you to read this so you could tell me your thoughts. **

P.S. You will more than likely find the clinical trials for ASCR here: ascrnetwork.org/
 
josie_L said:
Firstly, what standard did I set for ESCR?
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Your wrote: “Are you aware (and dissenting Catholics as well) that ESCR has been proven thus far to be completely unresponsive to treatments and cures…”

Proven unresponsive means that it’s been tested in clinical trials and showed to have no efficacy. That is the standard you set, and it doesn’t even apply because approvals for clinical trials have been blocked by political action in the US and Europe until the Obama administration allowed the first one in April of this year. We’ll see the results soon.
Secondly, there have been cases of people who have received ASCR successfully?
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Yes, there have been, however, there have been no clinical trials. We have reason to believe that these therapies work, but we don’t know for sure. In any case, there are differences between adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells are multipotent, while embryonic stem cells are totipotent. There are valid scientific reasons to hypothesize that embryonic stem cells will have therapeutic uses that adult stem cells will not. However, we can’t get there until the research is unimpeded by politics.
Thirdly, you could easily do your own research to find this out.
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No, I couldn’t. There have been no clinical trials for adult stem cell therapies, so how could I have found them by my own research?

So your score should be 70 maybes to 0 because it’s never been allowed to play.
Fourthly, I think quite frankly we are being fed ideological bull fostered by an ESCR obsessed scientific community. I have no doubt that nothing but failure will ensue in pursuing ESCR.
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We’ll have a chance to find out soon enough.
 
josie_L said:
I’m starting to think that you’re trying to pull a fast one on me, firstly, because I originally posted this from an article that did not mention SCNT, that you brought it up is where you failed to stick to what the article stated.
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My whole point is that the article should have brought up SCNT. If they are going to argue that embryonic stem cell therapies will require lifelong immunosuppresive therapies, then they need to address the obvious objection that SCNT will not. If they do not address the objection, then they either don’t know it in which case they are an incompetent source, or they are deliberately hiding it from their audience because they know they won’t go looking for counterarguments.
 
josie_L said:
**I just wanted you to read this so you could tell me your thoughts. **
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He very well could be right for the UK. The UK government may have spotted an opportunity. Since the US and other major research nations effectively shut out ESCR for years, the UK government may have sensed an opportunity to fill the vacuum and beat the US. Whatever the reasons are though, it seems the US beat them to the first clinical trial anyway.
 
aileron said:
Your wrote: “Are you aware (and dissenting Catholics as well) that ESCR has been proven thus far to be completely unresponsive to treatments and cures…”

Proven unresponsive means that it’s been tested in clinical trials and showed to have no efficacy. That is the standard you set, and it doesn’t even apply because approvals for clinical trials have been blocked by political action in the US and Europe until the Obama administration allowed the first one in April of this year. We’ll see the results soon.
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Well, this is what I meant by proven unresponsive:

Research shows adult stem cells are now being used to treat well over 70 diseases and medical conditions, while research using embryonic stem cells – which requires killing of a human embryo – has produced no results.

ascrnetwork.org/component/content/article/55-may-2009/453-adult-stem-cells-cure-child-of-sickle-cell-anemia.html

The question of stem cells is currently the dominant subject in the debate over biotechnology and human genetics: Should we use embryonic stem cells or adult stem cells for future medical therapies? Embryonic stem cells are taken from a developing embryo at the blastocyst stage, destroying the embryo, a developing human life. Adult stem cells, on the other hand, are found in all tissues of the growing human being and, according to latest reports, also have the potential to transform themselves into practically all other cell types, or revert to being stem cells with greater reproductive capacity. Embryonic stem cells have not yet been used for even one therapy, while adult stem cells have already been successfully used in numerous patients, including for cardiac infarction (death of some of the heart tissue).

21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/winter01/stem_cell.html

ESCR always destroys living human embryos

ESCR is being touted as the key to unlock all the solutions for ailments that plague humanity, but in reality ESCR leads us in the opposite direction by striking at the very core of humanity.

ESCR can only ‘succeed’ if we destroy human life.

Embryos always die when used in this research. We were all once embryos. When we are willing to sacrifice human life at its earliest stages simply for research, we render all human life a mere commodity.

ESCR is ineffective.

In the 20 years that ESCR has been conducted, there have been absolutely no resulting treatments–just tumors, rejection problems and dead embryos.

mccl.org/Page.aspx?pid=296&srcid=183

It is worth noting that this particular condition impairs the immune system. Nonetheless, a reason embryonic stem cells cause tumors in animal models is their hyper activity,which makes their proliferation hard to control. Adult stem cells don’t seem to have this problem. Fetal stem cells are less "youthful"than embryonic, but more than adult, and thus this tumor finding raises renewed questions about using ES cells in humans at the present time–a worry expressed by supporters as well as opponents of ESCR

stanford.wellsphere.com/bioethics-article/fetal-stem-cells-cause-tumors-in-human-patient-should-geron-escr-human-trial-license-be-reconsidered/609094

Embryonic cells from the excess embryos after in-vitro fertilization are at the early stages of differentiation, so can be made to grow into any type of cell. However, there are problems with embryonic cells:

The ethical objection is that human embryos are killed to obtain cells.

The body of a person injected with embryonic cells would automatically reject them so the person would need anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their life.

Embryonic cells can cause cancer. Dr. Mick Bhatia of McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, is researching how to distinguish between cancer-causing and non-cancer-causing embryonic cells.

generalmedicine.suite101.com/article.cfm/adult_stem_cell_research_and_therapies

Moreover, ESCR has yielded no results. Zero. Naturally, this means that using embryonic stem cells to treat diseases is ineffective. And it’s not because enough federal dollars haven’t been dumped into the research. When President Bush took office in 2001, ESCR was receiving no federal money. Since that time, the President has allowed $130 million of federal taxpayer dollars to be spent on research using existing embryonic stem cell lines.[1] Results? Zero. In fact, the research shows that stem cells derived from embryos actually form tumors. Thus, taxpayers are getting no “bang for their buck” on this one; no return on their investment. Pouring more federal dollars into ESCR would be the scientific equivalent of Hurricane Katrina: a federal disaster

cwalac.org/article_396.shtml

to be continued. . . .
 
Yes, there have been, however, there have been no clinical trials. We have reason to believe that these therapies work, but we don’t know for sure. In any case, there are differences between adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells are multipotent, while embryonic stem cells are totipotent. There are valid scientific reasons to **hypothesize ** that embryonic stem cells will have therapeutic uses that adult stem cells will not. However, we can’t get there until the research is unimpeded by politics.

Dallas Hextell is living proof of the healing power of adult stem cells
there. He was diagnosed at eight months with cerebral palsy, which has no
known cure. Fortunately, Dallas’ parents had his umbilical cord blood stored
when he was born. **He was accepted in a clinical trial at Duke University in
July 2007 and was among the first in the country to be intravenously infused
with his own cord blood stem cells to induce healing in his brain. **Soon
after his procedure Dallas’ parents began noticing improvements. Today, with the help of therapists,
Dallas is doing things no one thought possible. He runs, he laughs, and he’s beginning to talk.

“When babies are born, the umbilical cord is generally discarded. This is
partly because pregnant women and many of their doctors are unaware that
life science has demonstrated cord blood cells have immense therapeutic
value. Increasingly families are educating themselves about cryogenic
storage of their child’s cord blood because they understand recent progress
has revealed it is a safe and ethical source of stem cells for therapeutic
use and the technology is evolving rapidly. These cells can be
cryogenically stored for more than 30 years. It’s a one-time opportunity,”
said David Koos, Chairman and CEO of San Diego-based Bio-Matrix Scientific Group, Inc.
(OTC Bulletin Board: BMSN; BMSN.us

lifenews.com/bio2818.html

**Rather than using stem cells from embryonic sources, which opens difficult ethical and complicated scientific issues, **scientists have been looking to adult human stem cells, culled from a person’s own body. Adult stem cells are now being cultivated from various tissues in the body – from skin, bones and even wisdom teeth.

At the forefront in this research is a team of scientists from Tel Aviv University and Scripps Research Institute in California. They recently reported a breakthrough on a new classification system for identifying pluripotent stem cells in human tissue. News about this system recently appeared in the scientific journal Nature.

sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080904102852.htm

So your score should be 70 maybes to 0 because it’s never been allowed to play.

The only response worthy of this statement is this: :banghead:

We’ll have a chance to find out soon enough.

Evil can only beget more evil.

P.S. How come you haven’t mentioned pluripotent stem cells?
 
josie_L said:
Well, this is what I meant by proven unresponsive:

Research shows adult stem cells are now being used to treat well over 70 diseases and medical conditions, while research using embryonic stem cells – which requires killing of a human embryo – has produced no results.

Actually, it’s produced lots of results – unless you want to claim that new scientific discoveries in the biomedical field are no results.
Should we use embryonic stem cells or adult stem cells for future medical therapies?
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hey all … nice to be back. My comments on the new direction this thread has taken. ESCR is untested; and the little we do know about it is taken from a few isolated cases, since the Bush administration effectively blocked approval for all clinical trails (as mentioned above).

Now the Obama administration is allowing the research to go forward. So we’ll have to wait and see if it produces results & if the alarmist conjecture of the religious right is well grounded (I’m guessing NOT). For opposing Catholics & other Christians … tough cookies 😃

A BLOB OF CELLS IN A PEACHTREE DISH IS NOTHING BUT A BLOB OF CELLS IN A PEACHTREE DISH – AND THAT BLOB WILL NEVER AND CAN NEVER WALK, TALK, THINK, BREATH, OR ANYTHING ELSE THAT RESEMBLES LIFE FOR GOODNESS SAKE (gee wiz … this has to be the silliest hot button topic out there).
 
humble_in_doubt said:
hey all … nice to be back. My comments on the new direction this thread has taken. ESCR is untested; and the little we do know about it is taken from a few isolated cases, since the Bush administration effectively blocked approval for all clinical trails (as mentioned above).

Now the Obama administration is allowing the research to go forward. So we’ll have to wait and see if it produces results & if the alarmist conjecture of the religious right is well grounded (I’m guessing NOT). For opposing Catholics & other Christians … tough cookies 😃

A BLOB OF CELLS IN A PEACHTREE DISH IS NOTHING BUT A BLOB OF CELLS IN A PEACHTREE DISH – AND THAT BLOB WILL NEVER AND CAN NEVER WALK, TALK, THINK, BREATH, OR ANYTHING ELSE THAT RESEMBLES LIFE FOR GOODNESS SAKE (gee wiz … this has to be the silliest hot button topic out there).
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Okay, which “blob” are you referring to…

The embryo or the stem cells taken from the embryo?
 
humble_in_doubt said:
hey all … nice to be back. My comments on the new direction this thread has taken. ESCR is untested; and the little we do know about it is taken from a few isolated cases, since the Bush administration effectively blocked approval for all clinical trails (as mentioned above).

Now the Obama administration is allowing the research to go forward. So we’ll have to wait and see if it produces results & if the alarmist conjecture of the religious right is well grounded (I’m guessing NOT). For opposing Catholics & other Christians … tough cookies 😃

A BLOB OF CELLS IN A PEACHTREE DISH IS NOTHING BUT A BLOB OF CELLS IN A PEACHTREE DISH – AND THAT BLOB WILL NEVER AND CAN NEVER WALK, TALK, THINK, BREATH, OR ANYTHING ELSE THAT RESEMBLES LIFE FOR GOODNESS SAKE (gee wiz … this has to be the silliest hot button topic out there).
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Francis, it’s a petri not “peachtree” dish (I will continue my response later).
 
josie_L said:
Francis, it’s a petri not “peachtree” dish (I will continue my response later).
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That’s kinda like those 80’s songs!

"Little brick houses for you and me"… :whistle:

Yeah, that was me… :blushing:
 
aileron said:
My whole point is that the article should have brought up SCNT. If they are going to argue that embryonic stem cell therapies will require lifelong immunosuppresive therapies, then they need to address the obvious objection that SCNT will not. If they do not address the objection, then they either don’t know it in which case they are an incompetent source, or they are deliberately hiding it from their audience because they know they won’t go looking for counterarguments.
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Well, what does SCNT do but add more problems to an issue that is already morally and scientifically contentious? And I can’t understand for the life of me why SCNT is necessary when we have found that pluripotent stem cells can be extracted from human tissue.

“A cell is called pluripotent if it can develop into any of the three germ layers of the body: endoderm, mesoderm, and ectoderm. Ectoderm gives rise to the skin, epidermis, and the nervous system; from mesoderm arises heart tissue, kidney, gonads, blood cells and vessels, muscle, and connective tissue; and from endoderm comes the gut tube, plus all the principal organs that bud off of that, including the liver, pancreas, and lungs.”

sciencemag.org/products/lst_20070420.dtl

If the whole purpose behind stem cell research is to create pluripotent cells that can develop into any cell of the human organism so that we may one day cure, regenerate, and treat all diseases and ailments, then why is SCNT necessary? Is it because ultimately those proponents advocating SCNT have ulterior motives for wanting this type of stem cell research funded? The answer should be obvious. And the fact that you have not mentioned pluripotent stem cells (taken from human tissue) speaks volumes. Are you perhaps deliberately hiding this fact to avoid a counterargument to SCNT?

Furthermore, SCNT is not ESCR and ESCR is not SCNT, therefore the writers of both articles I posted had every legitimate reason to limit the scope of their article to the disadvantages associated with ESCR (without having to go into the advantages and disadvantages of SCNT). This was not a disingenious attempt to fool the unsuspecting reader.

“It is argued that the use of induced pluripotent stem cells for regenerative therapy may soon be ethically practicable and **could sidestep the various objections pertaining to other types of stem cell **(human embryonic stem cells, and stem cells obtained by altered nuclear transfer or somatic cell nuclear transfer).”

jme.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/34/12/849

See how the two are differentiated.
 
Please forgive me for committing a cardinal sin of posting- I saw something on the first page and feel that I must respond.

Mythology IS basically religion in retrospect. Greek Mythology was once the religion that everyone followed there, and Christian “history” is regarded today as “Christian Mythology”, however offensive you may find that, it is fact. To be even more specific, mythology is part of religion- the story of how a religion came to be, and what stories the people who follow it believe. It does not include the rituals, etc., but it still is the main part of religion.
 
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