The "Decades Away" Dirty Secret of Stem Cell Research

My intention is not to bash, but to try to inform with grace. First, I think Michael meant that it is going to be a long time before there would be positive results with ESCR, which might be safely used on a patient. Embryonic stem cells have been implanted in humans in foreign countries, with horrendous results, causing horrible tumors and even death.

Second, if the average person could peek into the tiny embryo, he would find there the DNA which contains its own individual genetic code, to which ever after no new genetic characteristics are added in order to live. It also fulfills the four-part scientific criteria for biological life: metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction.

If the embryo didn't...

ES research is really just a cover for the abortion industry to make more profits off the million plus children they murder each year. Previously, the babies had to be taken to a hospital or funeral home and cremated at the abortion provider's expense. Of course, that expense was passed on to the woman getting the abortion, and also to the taxpayer. Now the abortion industry can turn that temporary loss into more profits, and the taxpayer gets double billed, first by Planned Parenthood etc, then by the research institute.

They had to spend their own money instead of the taxpayers to experiment on embryonic stem cells. The FDA has given approval. That is all that has happened. They don't even know if it is safe to inject people with these cells.

As my cells die and my body replaces them you believe my soul is somehow affected.

First, as others have pointed out, embryonic stem cell therapies are currently in clinical trials, so the author doesn't even have his facts straight. Not that facts would stop a social conservative, whose modus operandi is Taqiyya.

Second, embryonic stem cells are absolutely necessary in basic research, period, end of story. Scientists cannot understand the growth pathways in cells and how they interact normally with one another unless they have a pure model. That model is the embryonic stem cell. Applied research relies on what is learned from basic research to develop treatments. The advancement of biopharma depends on studying embryonic stem cells.

Third, all religions hold that the soul is indivisible, but fertilized...

I too am a political conservative and think Obama is the worse thing to happen to this country in decades, however, I don't agree with the overwhelming conservative thinking on stem cell research. We are talking about taking stem cells from an embryo the size of the period at the end of this sentence. For those that equate that to a human life I can respect that belief, I just don't agree. These embryos to be used are restricted to the left overs from fertility clinics. How is it more moral to discard them in next week's trash than to use them for helping countless people with diseases and conditions that have no other hope? The author of this article should at least get his facts correct. The use of ESC's is not decades away it...

You are so right in every thing you said. What most people, even those who espouse to be conservatives, do not understand is that almost everything the federal government is now involved in is none of their business.

The federal government was never intended to become the behemoth that it has become. Most of the things that the feds are involved in are supposed to be relegated to state and local governments.

And, the real problem with the Federal Bureaucracy and Laws, they have tried to make every state a Carbon Copy of the Federal Model by mandating that states set up agencies and departments that reflect their Parent-U.S. Department. Welfare Departments for example are not only immoral, they are also illegal in a...

And, I bet you voted for, at least once, for Al Franken. I have no problem with being a Good Samaritan. What I do have a problem with is so-called Non-Profits, who take government grants and Good Samaritan Donations, to embellish lifestyles of their Top Level Administrators, and others, and relying on the Real Work To Get Done by Volunteers. Why not Apply the Monies for Real Acts of Helping Others, and not To Build the Empire Status of the Organizations and to set up their leaders in a lifestyle befitting Emperors. These organizations are almost a Carbon Copy of the Federal Government's Bureaucratice Empires, that spend more on Administration of Their Empires than they do in helping individuals they presumable were formed to...

prove that good samaritan's in the U.S. need to step up even more. We in the other side, do act for our fellow man, to help in time of disaster. Tornadoes kill many each year, and the destruction left in the path is extensive. If not for the A.R.C. a lot of folk would not be taken care of as well as they are. The A.R.C. sets up beds, or cots, in churches and shcools whenever it is needed, they even might require a hotel for use, but it's up to the situation. So, why is this so bad in your view.

Oh, compensation. So, it's wrong to have ultra low administrative costs of under 20% and even as low as 14% for ARC or even the United Way, and have this safety net?

Beautifully and succinctly covered, Mr. Fumento. Best regards.

I was a volunteer teaching CPR for the Red Cross a bunch of years ago and they made me pay for the teaching materials I used in my courses. It only took 4 or so months before I got tired of shelling out my hard earned bucks to do them a favor. I save my charity for local organizations whose leaders I've met personally. The big charities are run by clowns who line their pockets with donations. Wasn't some bigwig running the United Way exposed for taking a 6+ digit yearly paycheck? It was either the United Way or some other big outfit I don't remember which.

"Hell, why not just give the able bodied deadbeats on welfare the 15 percent with no red tape or strings attached, and abolish the Administration of the Programs and save the 85 percent which is the lion's share."

Righto. If Congress cared much about the 47 million who purportedly lack health insurance -- many of them illegals -- it could try this:

* Abolish Medicare and Medicaid; the departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, Labor, HUD, and HHS; and some odd federal sinkholes, such as Amtrak, the NEA, the NEH, NPR, and PBS.

* Use the money saved in step 1 to give every household with an annual income below the median (ca. $44,000) a yearly payment of $23,000 for health insurance, a healthcare savings account,...

I personally do not support the American Red Cross, the United Way or any of these other front organizations or community organizers. Most of the monies these folks get their hands on is used to lobby for more money and to pay their executives while their volunteers do all the work for nothing in many cases.

As for government welfare programs, even 20 years ago, 85 dollars of every dollar spent on welfare programs went to the administration of the programs. Hell, why not just give the able bodied deadbeats on welfare the 15 percent with no red tape or strings attached, and abolish the Administration of the Programs and save the 85 percent which is the lion's share.

And, many so called non-profits are even more corrupt...

"These iPS cells. . . .have neither the health concerns nor moral baggage of the embryonic ones."

The moral baggage of embryonic stem cells is exactly what recommends them to some advocates of their exploitation. Because embryonic stem cells are potentially useful and come only from dead human embryos, they provide moral and political cover for abortion.

If embryonic stem cells could be extracted nondestructively, the federal government probably would still fund research into their development as healing tools -- perhaps as half-heartedly as it funds research into missile defense, Belgian-endive yields, or the literary aspirations of porn performers. And no doubt unfortunate people like Michael J. Fox would still have a...

Non-profit parasites
This is the largest problem with society. I do not care their cause, religion, or even their political view. All the parasites depend upon the protection of those doing works of compassion for everyone. Lets end the protection of all parasites by permanently eliminating all tax exemptions in the United States and all subdivision of government within it.

A by product of the Abortion Mill Business, which for the most part are funded by Taxpayers, is the Cottage Industry of selling the products of Abortions (i.e. aborted fetuses) to the Geneticists and other Mad Scientists, who also, for the most part are funded by tax payers.

What these geneticists are trying to create among other things, is a series of Designer-Gene Master Races who can be Genetically Engineered to be Basketball Players is that is what is ordered or may A Genetically Engineered Physicist, or you might want to produce a group of Narcissistic and Sociopathic Assassins, etc. Do not be fooled, there is much more to the Abortion and Genetic Engineering business than meets the eye.

Abortion Mills are big...

A blastocyst is a mass of undifferentiated cells.

Just use ONE of the cells to grow a new blastocyst, and use the rest for research.

How are stem cells better than cybernetics?

The proponents simply wanted to tap into federal funding. The research was never banned under Bush, as they erroneously claimed. You know darned well, if there was any real promise in the research, private research funds would have been all over it.

Gov. Arnold really showed the administration, didn't he?!?! Committing a billion dollars that California didn't have, to fund ES research! More wasted, misdirected, time and money.

Anyone see the pattern? Manmade Global Warming, aka "Climate Change", is more hysteria based on junk science. Enron pushed cap and trade first, and opportunists picked up the potentially lucretive scam when they went under for fraud. Government funded ES and cap and trade are not about finding...

To "harvest" embryonic stem cells, a living human must be killed. The debate about when a blastocyst, for example, becomes a "person" is specious. If it is left to grow and mature, it will become a person. Therefore, it always was a person, from the instant of conception. Period. Any further discussion is sophistry, designed to fool the gullible public, which to a large degree it has. Creating humans to slaughter them for whatever reason is barbarous, and it is frightening and disgusting to see our scientists and politicians advocating this unthinkable evil. The fact that ES cells have never been used successfully makes one wonder at first why this research is being pushed, but like "climate change" research, the liberals (who at this...

for grants. In order to hire grad students and raise your status as a professor they need to have funding ergo: global warming, stem cells, alternative energy and thousands of other money grabbing schemes to be funded by the government. Am I the only one who sees this fraud for what it is?

We have to have ES in order to justify abortions. It is the born human being that is using stem cell treatments. The pro abortionist says the unborn is nothing more than glob of cells. With this argument how then is it possible for ES to benefit a born human? Using this logic we could use stem cells from any life form and it should work fine.
I say Dr. Oz on Oprah when he made his statements about stem cells. She was furious. Fox was not happy about Dr. Oz statements that ones own stem cells was the best option.

Yep you got me on that. I fell into the use of lefty terminology; it’s way too easy to make use of their doublespeak without realizing you're doing it. Thanks for the heads up, I’ll try to remember next time.

What is the record? Many disorders have been cured or helped by adult stem cells. There is a web site that lists them. How many disorders or patients have been cured or helped by embryonic stem cells? None so far as I know. I would be glad to be corrected about this.
I haven't even mentioned the ethical moral aspect of ESC, but the secularists are so in favor of ESC because opposing it would attack their idea of abortion on demand by considering the value of the embryo.

Donald W. Bales, M.D. retired.

Having the information and believing are two differnt matters. Knowing that I don't have money for a house, doesn't make me believe I can't buy one.

Same thing with ES. Knowing their implementation is decades away doesn't convince persons who are living with a disease into beliving that the "cure" is right around the corner given enough money.

It is a sad state of events. AS works ES not so. That's a fact and no amount of political interference is going to change it. But if people were persuaded by facts and not fantasies, Obama would not be in the White House and the country wouldn't be headed for destruction.