[quote]Sifu wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
Makavali wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
The last ESC therapy they tried on Parksinson’s patients did further harm.
What year was that? What was the response of the research community? Did they perhaps stop doing research on humans till they worked out safety issues by doing tests on lab animals, where they have had success?
I got the list of potentially curable stuff from Wikipedia. Where did you hear about the Parkinson’s thing?
We currently use ASCs to treat 80 different diseases, including Type I diabetes, liver disease, and spinal cord injury. Other cures from ASCs are being tested in hundreds of clinical trials.
This is s typical ploy. There is no federal funding available for research with ESC treatments. ASC research can get funding. ESC opponents have stacked the deck in favor of ASC, then they use the results of the deck they stacked as validation of their opposition.
ESCs have a two major problems that ASCs don’t have. First, they tend to be rejected by the immune system. Second, they tend to cause malignancies called “teratomas” - meaning “monster tumors”.
With more ESC lines to choose from genetics could be more closely matched and rejection reduced. Again a problem resulting from the ban being used as justification.
The cancer risks are being grossly overstated by opponents. Besides all cancerous tumors are made by malfunctioning stem cells. Your statement that ASC don’t cause cancer is a factual inexactitude.
In the 2001 Parksinson’s study I was referring to, fetal brain tissue was injected in the patients. In 15% of the patients, side effects included involuntary writhing, twisting, jerking of their heads, and flailing of their arms. (New York Times, March 8, 2001).
That study was done eight years ago. A lot has been learned since then. No revolutionary breakthrough in science has come without setbacks. Setbacks are part of the learning process.
The fifteen percent who had side effects had them not because the therapy didn’t work. They had them because the injected cells grew too well and were producing too much of a chemical that controls movement.
Under no circumstances will I ever receive a “treatment” from such “technology,” given the risks and ethics involved. The technology is like Nazi science and there are no rewards. The venture capitalists have steered clear because there isn’t any promise in it, which is why we now have a PR campaign going on to promote it so “researchers” can get federal money.
If you don’t want it you shouldn’t get it. But you shouldn’t stand in the way of the majority of people who would be willing to benefit from this technology.
The Nazi’s did their experiments on unwilling test subjects with no regard about the test subject dying. In this matter you are the proverbial pot calling the kettle black. The ESC opponents are withholding medical treatment from people against their will with no regard to who dies.
The venture capitalists are staying away because they are afraid of the taliban like nutjobs who are opposed to ESC. [/quote]
That’s my point.
This statement is risible. How many martyrdom operations have such Talibanists committed so far? The venture capitalists do whatever will make them money. ESC technology will not pan out and will not make them money, ergo, they don’t invest.
I think the links that BB and I posted provide ample evidence to the lack of promise in this technology. I’m not sure the ESC proponents on this thread have even read through them.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
…
BostonBarrister wrote:
Refresh my memory - have the most promising breakthroughs been from embryonic stem cells, or other pluripotent stem cells, or adult stem cells?
Sifu wrote:
There have been a lot of promising advances. Not neccessarily breakthroughs but advances, that fully realized would be breakthroughs. The Embryonic cells have the most potential.
One thing they can do is take one cell from an embryo which is a common procedure fertility clinics do for testing that doesn’t destroy the embryo. That would yield one embryonic stem cell but leave an intact embryo to throw in the furnace. Unfortuneately the ban on embryonic stem cell funding make this useless, even though it gets around the ethical issues by leaving a useable embryo to destroy.
Another thing they are looking into is putting adult cells with embryonic stem cells. The embryonic stem cells produce chemical messengers that tell each other what state of development they are at. When the adult cell is put in this environment it can get reset to an earlier state of development where it is undifferentiated. The potential of this is to produce genetically matched embryonic stem cells for anyone. Unfortuneately it involves embryonic stem cells so no funding.
A really promising avenue for men is testicular stem cells, where they harvest some of the stem cells that produce sperm cells. The cells they get from that are at the least evolved state so they appear able to become any cell. It offers the benefit of a genetic match but only for the half of the population that have testicals and are willing to give up a small piece of teste. And it only works for the half of the population that can give a biopsy. It is something to bear in mind though if for some reason you have to have one or both testes removed, because they can successfully freeze them now.
I get the fact that there is claimed potential, but my understanding is that it’s just that: claimed potential. And my understanding also is that in veterinary medicine, which has no restrictions of which I’m aware on animal embryonic stem cells, there are still only proven therapies from adult stem cells. [/quote]
They have had success using human ESC to treat Parkinsons in monkeys and rats.
[quote]
Also, I’m not a scientist, obviously, so please explain if I’m mistaken - but I thought that pluripotent stem cells from cord blood and placental blood were just as able to become any other type of cells as were embryonic stems cells? [/quote]
They are promising and an important reason for cryogenic freezing of those tissues for newborns. But they still are not quite the same. As cells evolve and differentiate chemical messengers trigger mechanisms inside the cell that lock the cell from becoming less evolved/differentiated cells while opening the door to it becoming something else.
This is the problem with using ASC instead of ESC. Cells derived from ASC may look like the cells they are meant to replace but they may have processes turned off by the evolution process. We can’t tell because we don’t have the evolution/differentiation process figured out.
This is why ESC are important to research, they are the logical starting point for figuring out the process of cellular evolution/differentiation. Without an understanding of this process it is really difficult if not impossible to figure out if cells derived from ASC are fully functional. So ESC research has the potential to improve therapies using other types of stem cells.
Also understanding the process of differentiation of ESC will allow us to take adult cells and turn them back into ESC for anyone.
[quote]
As to some of the stuff you’ve described - sounds interesting if they can remove cells without killing (or irrepairably damaging) the embryo. [/quote]
The fertility clinics remove one cell for testing when the embryo is at eight cells. Once you have one it can replicate itself indefinately.
[quote]
Question: Can’t they use the previously existing embryonic stem cell lines to get government funding (assuming government funding is necessary, which, again, is really what the fight is about in the U.S.) and prove the technologies - particularly if they can do the replication process you’ve described above so there would be no shortage? [/quote]
There are several problems with the federally approved stem cell lines.
The most important problem of all the federal cell lines is this. It is difficult to harvest large numbers of human ovum (egg cells). So instead what they did was take mouse ovum and replace the nucleus with a human one. For the basic research these cells were created for this is not a problem.
What those cell lines were never intended for is use in humans. Because the cells are a mouse human hybrid there is potential for a mouse disease to mutate inside them to something that can infect humans. So the federally approved cell lines could potentially cause a pandemic that has the ability to kill millions or even billions.
This is why you will never see any therapy derived from the federally approved cell lines. Safeguards that would allow them to be used therapuetically were not follwed because they were never meant to be used that way.
The techniques used to derive them are outdated and potentially damaging to the cells. New techniques yield much better results. The federal cell lines are about a decade old.
Then there is genetic diversity. If we were to create cell lines for therapy we would want to do things like develop lines for every racial group, so there would be a closer genetic match for any given individual.
[quote]
BostonBarrister wrote:
People are worried about incentivizing the creation of human embryos for research and/or cell harvesting.
Sifu wrote:
If that truly is the case then there should be no objection to using embryos from fertility clinics that are going to be incinerated. Those embryos could be used to do research that will revolutionize medicine but instead they are wasted in an incinerator.
…
Actually, that doesn’t account for the incentivizing effect of harvesting, just research. However, at the point that the research was fruitful, you really would have yourself in the throes of that different dilemma: do I create and kill and embryo specifically for the purpose of saving a person? What about a million embryos? But that’s a different discussion… [/quote]
You are not killing, you would be preventing it from developing into a fetus, but you are not killing. I don’t think a clump of less than a thousand cells is equal to a living breathing person.
It certainly isn’t like what is going on in China where they have a thriving business with anti-crime pushes every few months, where they give the death penalty for almost crime and sell the organs of the convicted. In Hong Kong the travel agencies do a brisk business catering to medical tourists looking to take advantage of all the organs that are harvested.
I can appreciate that. I think you are a very resonable person BB. The federal ban itself has had some benefit in that it has caused research into work arounds like getting adult cells to revert to an undifferentiated state or testicular stem cells. But overall it has been a drag on the field as a whole.
Another thing we should consider is that by not allowing this research to advance here, we are forcing it to go elsewhere where there are no restrictions or controls. Somewhere where all our worst fears could be realized a thousand fold.
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
Sifu wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
Makavali wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
The venture capitalists are staying away because they are afraid of the taliban like nutjobs who are opposed to ESC.
This statement is risible. How many martyrdom operations have such Talibanists committed so far? The venture capitalists do whatever will make them money. ESC technology will not pan out and will not make them money, ergo, they don’t invest. [/quote]
Perhaps I should clarify my view on this. The pro-lifers are the ones who are most ardently opposed to ESC. Some of the pro-lifers are religious lunatics, who have used bombs and bullets to push their agenda. Abortion clinics have been blown up, doctors and staff have been gunned down. These are terrorist acts that have created a condition of fear and intimidation. Getting rich people who have something to lose (like their rich life) to publicly put money into ESC research is not easy.
[quote]
I think the links that BB and I posted provide ample evidence to the lack of promise in this technology. I’m not sure the ESC proponents on this thread have even read through them. [/quote]
This is an evolving technology with thousands of reports coming out every month. It is very easy to cherry pick.
[quote]Makavali wrote:
I see only religious groups attacking this, and it makes me sad that they can’t see past their own nose at such a lifesaving issue.
[/quote]
That’s interesting. It’s just that often, in the religious debates here, it’s said that religious folk are who they are, because they’re araid of their mortality. Yet, you believe it’s mostly the non-religious, so fearful of the mortality of man, that they are willing to farm other humans in the earliest stage of a human’s life cycle.
[quote]Perhaps I should clarify my view on this. The pro-lifers are the ones who are most ardently opposed to ESC. Some of the pro-lifers are religious lunatics, who have used bombs and bullets to push their agenda. Abortion clinics have been blown up, doctors and staff have been gunned down. These are terrorist acts that have created a condition of fear and intimidation. Getting rich people who have something to lose (like their rich life) to publicly put money into ESC research is not easy.
[/quote]
I agree that there have been incidents, but the total number is very small. Mostly, abortion doctors live in fear in guilt because they’re doing something they know is wrong. It’s probably very mentally taxing to live with oneself after killing babies.
Do these reports include the terms “may” and “possibly”? I’ll tell you what, if anything comes of ESC research, I owe you a coke.
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
I agree that there have been incidents, but the total number is very small. Mostly, abortion doctors live in fear in guilt because they’re doing something they know is wrong. It’s probably very mentally taxing to live with oneself after killing babies.[/quote]
Where’d you pull this gem from?
I know a Doctor who does abortions, he doesn’t think of it as ending life. Life doesn’t begin at conception.
[quote]Makavali wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
I agree that there have been incidents, but the total number is very small. Mostly, abortion doctors live in fear in guilt because they’re doing something they know is wrong. It’s probably very mentally taxing to live with oneself after killing babies.
Where’d you pull this gem from?
I know a Doctor who does abortions, he doesn’t think of it as ending life. Life doesn’t begin at conception.[/quote]
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Well, an embryo is an organism. Life, no? [/quote]
I don’t consider abortion to be an issue until the embryo gets to a stage where it can survive outside of the womb i.e. in the context of a premature birth etc.
[quote]Makavali wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
I agree that there have been incidents, but the total number is very small. Mostly, abortion doctors live in fear in guilt because they’re doing something they know is wrong. It’s probably very mentally taxing to live with oneself after killing babies.
Where’d you pull this gem from?
I know a Doctor who does abortions, he doesn’t think of it as ending life. Life doesn’t begin at conception.[/quote]
I’m sure he’s got his rationalizations. You’d have to have them to sleep at night.
[quote]Makavali wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Well, an embryo is an organism. Life, no?
I don’t consider abortion to be an issue until the embryo gets to a stage where it can survive outside of the womb i.e. in the context of a premature birth etc.[/quote]
It can’t survive outside the womb even after 9 months in without its mother feeding it.
[quote]Makavali wrote:
Sloth wrote:
But you agree life is ended, correct?
Yes.
But to the same extent that life is ended when I step on a plant.[/quote]
I don’t understand how that can possibly be. We know a human embryo isn’t a plant. We know what type of organism it is. Right? Isn’t it human? Or does a plant, dolphin, or dog somehow turn into a human at some point in the womb?
What it all comes down to is one side trying to force the gov't into funding ESC reasearch. This thing the gov't actually got right. They have just drawn a line saying ESC research is not illegal just not funded leaving it up to private industry to provide the funding. Why is less gov't involvment in something a bad thing?
[quote]Sloth wrote:
I don’t understand how that can possibly be. We know a human embryo isn’t a plant. We know what type of organism it is. Right? Isn’t it human? Or does a plant, dolphin, or dog somehow turn into a human at some point in the womb? [/quote]
Let me put it another way, I don’t consider the embryo to be self aware until a fair way into the pregnancy.
[quote]Makavali wrote:
Sloth wrote:
I don’t understand how that can possibly be. We know a human embryo isn’t a plant. We know what type of organism it is. Right? Isn’t it human? Or does a plant, dolphin, or dog somehow turn into a human at some point in the womb?
Let me put it another way, I don’t consider the embryo to be self aware until a fair way into the pregnancy.
No Skynet jokes please.[/quote]
But, you won’t argue that a human life is destroyed, correct? We’ve just established life (organism) and species (human), after all.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
But, you won’t argue that a human life is destroyed, correct? We’ve just established life (organism) and species (human), after all.[/quote]
There was a time when I thought like you. Yes, life is destroyed, but look at the reason for doing so.