 Successful Stem Cell Research - From Adult Cells |
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Shamalama  |
Posted: 29-Jul-2005, 02:13 PM
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Celtic Guardian
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| QUOTE |
SWEDISH researchers have created new functioning brain cells from stem cells drawn from the brains of living adults, sparking hope that effective treatments for devastating illnesses like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's could be at hand, media reported overnight.
Neurosurgeons withdrew the stem cells from the brains of adults during routine surgery for hydrocephalus, or water on the brain, a researcher at the Stockholm Karolinska Institute told the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet.
As long as an agent was present to induce cell division, the extracted stem cells created new and working brain cells.
"So far we have managed to produce several millions of new cells from the original stem cells. About 25 percent of them are (active) neurons," Ulf Westerlund, who presented his doctoral thesis on the subject last week, told the paper.
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Maybe now we can leave the embryos alone.
It was said on Science Friday on NPR three weeks ago that adults stem cells would never yield brain cells due to the processes that are required, and those who said otherwise were wrong, and they were preventing people from living a full life because their diseases could not be cured, etc.
Now it seems that it is possible that adult stem cells can be used for this, and with other Swedish research it has been found that adult stem cells can be used for any way that fetal stem cells can be used.
Isn't this what the "evil right wing naysayers" in the Bush administration have said all along was possible?
Now the Liberals will say that embryonic stem cells become anything, while adult stem cells are specialized and can only be what they are programmed to be. I'm still waiting on the data to prove this one out. So far, for all the hype, embryonic stem cells are spending a lot of time doing nothing in the labratory.
It is funny that Sweden, the 2nd country to allow abortion, is doing research on adult cells, don't you think? There is nothing in their government stopping them to use embryonic cells, but they chose adult cells here.
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| SCShamrock |
Posted: 02-Aug-2005, 08:51 AM
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I think that mankind has only begun to scrape the surface of medical knowledge and technology. So to me, this kind of news is uplifting considering how eager so many people are to destroy life in order to prolong life. I have heard several times that there are stem cells in the umbilical cord and placenta that are just as valuable as those found in the embryo. If this is true, why would anyone insist on those cells from the embryo and not from another source?
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| SCShamrock |
Posted: 02-Aug-2005, 05:44 PM
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| QUOTE (Shamalama @ 02-Aug-2005, 04:59 PM) |
Yes, I know about the "throwaway embryos" in fertility clinics being used for research, and therefore there isn't anything "meaningful" lost in the process. I'm just worried about a very slippery slope here. |
You have expressed my sentiments brother Shamalama. Let me just also say, that the combination of the potential of profitability in the abortion industry as it applies to stem cells, and that of gene splicing technology and cloning, provides the perfect recipe that amounts to humans being custom ordered, excluding the natural process, and lowering our society to one of Frankestienism. Of course, this could just be an overactive imagination coupled with conspiracy theory. 
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| Swanny |
Posted: 02-Aug-2005, 06:17 PM
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Every new technology has the capacity for both good and evil. Do we wish to throw away the good for fear of evil? As these new technologies are further explored we humans have a responsibility to weigh both factors.
No matter how badly some wish it, abortion isn't likely to be outlawed in the United State any time soon. So long as sex remains popular and people's attitudes about reproductive responsibility remains lax at best, then abortions will be performed. The legality of abortions is immaterial, they will be performed.
Now, being a 100% red-blooded American heterosexual alpha-male guy, I don't have a dog in the abortion fight. I feel pretty certain that I'll never need or want an abortion. However, it seems seems to me that if abortions are going to be performed any good at all that might be derived from an otherwise tragic circumstance should at least be considered and explored.
Certainly the ethical concerns and issues must be considered, but not matter what is decided you can bet that a very large number of people are going to be unhappy with the dicision.
Swanny
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| stoirmeil |
Posted: 02-Aug-2005, 07:37 PM
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| QUOTE (Swanny @ 02-Aug-2005, 07:17 PM) | No matter how badly some wish it, abortion isn't likely to be outlawed in the United State any time soon. So long as sex remains popular and people's attitudes about reproductive responsibility remains lax at best, then abortions will be performed. The legality of abortions is immaterial, they will be performed.
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Swanny's right about that, I believe. It's never going to become profitable to get pregnant intentionally to abort a fetus for science and get paid -- the supply is too ready, and neither end of the process is as quick and simple as you might think. There are also spontaneous abortions ("miscarriages") with usable tissue. It is a delicate matter, because it is almost always a painful emotional issue for the parents who have experienced loss. But then, so is the donor side of many vital organ transplant stories, and in those situations the voluntary donation of a loved one's heart, corneas, and so forth becomes a healing to both families.
The question remains -- is a fetal stem cell (whether from the cord or from the fetus itself) more pluripotent (="can go more ways to make a greater variety of cells") than an astrocyte sampled from a mature individual? (Those are the little star-shaped cells in human brains that take on needed shapes and functions, and are not tightly predetermined. They've known about them for a long time. Now it seems there is a little more control over what they may become on external demand.) The answer, until quite recently, was thought to be "yes." This new development is thought-provoking and calls for a lot of deeper investigation, if it was rigorously arrived at and can be replicated through trials. Part of that is controlled comparison of how effective each type is. You can't do that with one type eliminated from the trials.
But these announcements tend to come very early with all their political implications swinging. I would say it is not a reason to call off existing lines of research, if the ethical climate is not doing so already all by itself.
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| SCShamrock |
Posted: 02-Aug-2005, 09:49 PM
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| QUOTE (Swanny @ 02-Aug-2005, 07:17 PM) |
No matter how badly some wish it, abortion isn't likely to be outlawed in the United State any time soon. So long as sex remains popular and people's attitudes about reproductive responsibility remains lax at best, then abortions will be performed. The legality of abortions is immaterial, they will be performed.
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Swanny,
I appreciate your honest and thoughtful expressions. There is a big "however" though. And that applies to those of us who view abortion as the single most egregious act ever to be sanctioned by the federal government. That is how I feel, with abortion-on-demand topping the chart. Considering this point of view, I think that "not wasting", or "making some good" from aborted fetuses would eventually, assuming of course that it is successful for stem cell research, give a sense of righteous justification to the practice of abortion, and almost guarantee its continuation for time indefinite. This would be a devastating setback for those of us who view abortion the way I do. Of course, there will always be those out there who think any means necessary for prolonging the life of their decrepid 90 year old grandfather is totally justified. They're willing to snuff out life a life in its beginning in order to unnaturally extend a life that's at its end.
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| stoirmeil |
Posted: 02-Aug-2005, 10:12 PM
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| QUOTE (SCShamrock @ 02-Aug-2005, 10:49 PM) | | Of course, there will always be those out there who think any means necessary for prolonging the life of their decrepid 90 year old grandfather is totally justified. They're willing to snuff out life a life in its beginning in order to unnaturally extend a life that's at its end. |
I'm not sure this would be the typical use of stem-cell-mediated regeneration. Spinal and brain injuries injuries happen to people of all ages. Perhaps you are thinking of Ronald Reagan's son's argument, that the research would be of help to the aging with Alzheimer's disease. And so it might.
Now, I don't want to offend 50% of the membership here (the lads) -- but men tend to have a preoccupation with -- and sometimes a quite blatant desire to control -- what is going to happen to the products of conception. This is their shot at surviving and moving into the future genetically, and they haven't nearly as much biological control over the long run of it as we women do. This sits deep underneath a lot of other motivations, among them laws of marriage and ownership, primogeniture, what defines a legitimate child, the inclusion of rape among the aggressions of war, and all kinds of other historical things: not only "will it live to carry my genes", but "is it even MINE"? (Never mind about DNA testing -- that possibility is a speck of a mote of recency in the evolution of human motivation. The possessive behavior is very old and very strong: part of the concern of "my genes" has logically to be "and not my rival's".) So -- again, forgive me, lads -- the idea of women "getting pregnant and selling the fetus" sounds like an unreasonable fear that probably only a man would come up with. Sort of an extension of prostitution, perhaps.
This is NOT to say men's expressed ethical concerns for human life and the right to it are bogus -- of course they are not, they're terribly sincere. But it does pay to remember that the unconscious force of the argument is right down on the survival level for men in ways that they might not recognize, or want to admit to.
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| SCShamrock |
Posted: 03-Aug-2005, 05:37 AM
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I just want to clear up something, for the sake of the argument. I don't have altogether too much fear that "fetus farming" is a thing of the future. I can see it as a real possibility in the light of several different scenarios, and would be glad to share those if asked. My biggest concern, and one I think is legitimate, is that the whole issue of stem cells' most usable form being from the human embryo, would give a morbid legitimacy to the pro-abortion crowd. That is the area in which I think America need not go. We do not need to promote this act of barbarism. And that, dear Stoirmeil, is the reason for my loathing of abortion, not some primitive form of species protection, or the instinctual desire to protect my genes. It is a barbaric practice, one that needs to be addressed in more than just the academic fashion so common in government debates. Get graphic, go into great detail, and then let the public debate begin. I can just see the Barbara Boxer's of the world standing to defend this practice even when much light is shed on its dark and sinister methods.
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| Sonee |
Posted: 03-Aug-2005, 08:13 AM
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The issue of abortion as a barbaric practice has been debated over for year, Shamrock. And thanks to the avid and vivid protests by the anti-abortion groups most of the world knows how graphic it is. I an completely against abortion as well, but I'm not foolish enough to think that it will ever be illegal again. Half the reason it was legalized in the first place was because too many women were dying from back room abortions performed by quacks claiming to be doctors. It was legalized, in part, to keep it somewhat regulated and to keep women from dying unnecessarily. If it were to become illegal all of a sudden we would just end up back where we were with back room abortions and no politician wants that. That's not to say that we should just give in and accept abortion, but we also have to be realistic. While we are fighting many valuable medical resources are being flushed down the toilet, quite literally. Let's take advantage of what is already there since it's not going anywhere for the forseeable future, and make those lost lives at least count for something other than political fodder. They are going to be lost regardless.
As for the idea that these advances are trying to prolong an already long life at the expense of a new life, that just isn't the case. For example, my grandmother is currently suffering the effects of Alzheimers. She can not be left alone for any length of time. She can't cook, clean, remember where she lives or what her phone number is. My seven year old daughter is the only great grandchild out of the 7 that she actually knows and remembers. She has to ask who the others are and who they belong to. That includes my 3 yr old son. We aren't asking for something to make her live longer, just better. Allow her to live out what's left of her life with some dignity instead of sitting away from everyone because she's embarrassed that she doesn't know anything.
Until (or if) abortion is made illegal, shouldn't we do something constructive with what's already being disposed of? As much as I want my grandma better (although I'm sure it's too late for her even if a "cure" is found) that wouldn't prompt me to get pregnant just to get rid of it for research. Abortion is an incredibly emotional process that one doesn't just walk into hap-hazardly and anyone who says the can have it done and not lose any sleep over it is lying to you.
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| CelticCoalition |
Posted: 03-Aug-2005, 09:31 AM
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First of all, abortions will not become profitable to women beyond the profit they already get, which is the abortion of an unwanted pregnancy. Women must pay for abortions, and doctors aren't going to start paying women to undergo this procedure just to get at the stem cells produced. I suppose you could make this into supply and demand. There is already a large demand for abortions, and doctors are supplying them for a cost. Thus, there are a large number of aborted fetuses simply being destroyed instead of doing any good in stem cell research. There is no NEED to pay women to have abortions.
Secondly, the idea of prolonging the decrepit 90 year old grandfather isn't completely out of the relm of reality. However, stem cells are used for far more than this. And besides, this argument's extention is that prolonging life through medicine is a selective thing. Only the young should be allowed to have the best medicine, the old aren't worth it.
Now, the one argument that I see that makes sense to me is that by using these aborted fetuses for good, it undermines the argument that abortions are horrible and barbaric, and it threatens the anti-abortion campagn. However, this reminds me of the movie "Liar Liar" where Jim Carey yells out "'Objection your honor.' 'On what grounds counselor.' 'Because it's devastating to my case!'".
The antiabortion and proabortion sides are both simply opinions. Both sides have good and bad points. I personally don't believe that there is a right or wrong answer to this debate. Each side has a counterpoint for each of the othersides points.
The fact here is that stem cell research could save lives. The other fact is that not only are abortions legal, but they happen all the time. There is no reason not to use these unwanted fetuses for this research, and they should be if some good can come from it.
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| SCShamrock |
Posted: 03-Aug-2005, 12:24 PM
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Sean,
I love that movie Liar, Liar. And you recited my favorite line from it. This situation does seem to mirror that, however, I don't feel that it is simply "devastating to my case." I just personally believe abortion was wrong. Oh, and another area that I might disagree with. I can't imagine you really believe that abortion was made legal in order to minimize unnecessary deaths through "back alley" abortions. With this line of reasoning, why don't we just legalize cocaine, pcp, heroine, or crack? These cause unnecessary deaths, and it will just continue whether its made legal or not.
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