RE: Stem Cell Research...your thoughts???

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samboct -> RE: Stem Cell Research...your thoughts??? (3/9/2009 12:22:44 PM)
Full Circle If you don't think there's a problem with humans being able to choose what babies they're having, all you have to do is look at the dog population. Humans have bred dogs to have the largest variation in size within a species- basically two orders of magnitude. How exactly would a chihuaha mate with a Great Dane? Not to mention that most popular breeds quickly get overbred and the useful qualitities are sacrificed to the nonsensical requirements of the AKC. Golden retrievers can't retrieve and get vicious, St. Bernards get larger and drop dead in 5 years- not to mention having horrible hip trouble, and beagles get dumb- and bite kids. Since humans control the breeding of dogs with such spectacular results, I doubt we'd be any better at choosing what's worthwhile for our own progeny. Consider- what happens if penis size costs IQ points? We haven't been bred for penis size in many cultures, since aside from a vocal few, it's less important than wallet size for most women. But if men get to pick....well, to males, a big dick beats a fat wallet, brains, and most everything else. (Maybe not a Corvette.) Up until now, females have chosen their mates for the attributes that the females consider important. With designer babies, men are now going to play more of a part in what their offspring will look like- and women will get to put aesthetics higher up on the list as well. Dinosaurs here we come...... Sam

ZhuRenDianandted -> RE: Stem Cell Research...your thoughts??? (3/9/2009 12:26:48 PM)
At the risk of being labelled a "solidly enmeshed red state, bible-belt, Bush lovin' folk" what on earth is an "ebryo"? in my country we have a similar word-Embryo- perhaps it is different in "Orther" countries. While i have looked at the benefits touted by stem-cell research, i have not yet seen any of the touted solutions to any genetic or neurological disorders. There is actually a brighter glimmer of hope and change through T-cell research which is more genetically directed, and does not broach the controversy of the elimination of potential life. While i realize that there is some delay due to a lack of federal funding, if there was a great deal of future involved, then private industry would fund this research with the hope and expectation of owning the rights. Whoever equated this to Smoke and Mirrors has a good point, but look carefully at who is setting up the mirrors and blowing smoke. Who was it who said "follow the money."?

Archer -> RE: Stem Cell Research...your thoughts??? (3/9/2009 12:36:43 PM)
I'm of two minds about the issue. Overall I am for stem cell research, but I am torn on the embrionic aspect, many places that they system could turn very bad. I'm glad the ban was in effect on one hand because the need to work around it likely was the reason they found the new skin based Stem Cell where they can manufacture stem cells without the need for embrios at all. Which was found in 2007. Would this line of study have been followed as diligently without the controversy? Yet I recognize that the slowing of the research has cost years of study on what they could do with Embrionic Stem Cells, which were and are the most promising to date.

Owner59 -> RE: Stem Cell Research...your thoughts??? (3/9/2009 1:30:04 PM)
Fair enough. Exactly how can stem sell research, "turn very bad"? What would have to happen? Considering that unused fertilized eggs are tossed out after IVF efforts are over,what are the downsides?

MarcEsadrian -> RE: Stem Cell Research...your thoughts??? (3/9/2009 1:33:21 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: ZhuRenDianandted While i have looked at the benefits touted by stem-cell research, i have not yet seen any of the touted solutions to any genetic or neurological disorders. I can sympathize with that sentiment, yet I do try to keep in mind this research—particularly human embryonic stem cell research—is relatively new, due to funding issues less than ten years ago. Adult stem cells have already been used to help treat diseases, and there is reason to believe hESC research will indeed benefit us in the long run. I say give it time and funding and see what comes of it. The natural course of science is going that route anyway, as one poster here astutely noted.

atursvcMaam -> RE: Stem Cell Research...your thoughts??? (3/9/2009 1:46:55 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Owner59 Fair enough. Exactly how can stem sell research, "turn very bad"? What would have to happen? Considering that unused fertilized eggs are tossed out after IVF efforts are over,what are the downsides? On the "slippery slope" side...if the unused fertilized eggs (potential lives, if you look at it that way) are not a close enough genetic match, there would be an inclination to create an embryo by a couple to store for potential "spare parts" for other family members involved. it becomes a question of ethics vs scientific capacities.

samboct -> RE: Stem Cell Research...your thoughts??? (3/9/2009 1:57:25 PM)
" While i realize that there is some delay due to a lack of federal funding, if there was a great deal of future involved, then private industry would fund this research with the hope and expectation of owning the rights." Nope- it's never worked that way. Basically industry matches federal research money- I think the split is 60/40 or thereabouts (federal/industry). Cut back on federal dollars- industry cuts back on its research dollars. I still remember Ronnie Reagan claiming that industry was just going to have to pick up a larger share of research dollars when basic research money got shoveled into the bottomless black joke of Star Wars (SDI) instead. Rather than pony up, industry just shuttered the labs where people used to work. I've been to half a dozen or more large companies (probably more come to think about it) and of the labs that were built during the 70s and 80s- I haven't seen ONE that's even close to fully staffed- generally they're empty or close to it. You're quite correct that embryonic stem cells have a long ways to go before they have commercial impact- which is precisely why you need federal dollars for research. Corporations don't have the necessary time frame- the demand for quarterly profits has killed any long term planning of most companies in this country and even globally. Sam

lronitulstahp -> RE: Stem Cell Research...your thoughts??? (3/9/2009 2:12:26 PM)
quote: At the risk of being labelled a "solidly enmeshed red state, bible-belt, Bush lovin' folk" what on earth is an "ebryo"? in my country we have a similar word-Embryo- perhaps it is different in "Orther" countries. A typo....kill me.[sm=blasted.gif] But thank you for contributing and [sm=welcome.gif] to the boards...

Evility -> RE: Stem Cell Research...your thoughts??? (3/9/2009 2:36:41 PM)
In principle I did not agree with President Bush when he banned federal funds from being used for stem cell research. During the public debate I recall reading/hearing a comment from a pro stem cell research advocate - I think it may actually have been Christopher Reeve - who said that the religious folks deserved no say in the debate which I felt was wrong. I'm not a religious man but to deny one group a voice on an issue due to some phony separation of church and state argument was nonsense. Based on that argument alone while I disagreed with Bush the ban didn't really bother me much because attitudes like that really piss me off.

DomKen -> RE: Stem Cell Research...your thoughts??? (3/9/2009 2:37:01 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Archer I'm glad the ban was in effect on one hand because the need to work around it likely was the reason they found the new skin based Stem Cell where they can manufacture stem cells without the need for embrios at all. Which was found in 2007. Would this line of study have been followed as diligently without the controversy? That research was not pushed because of any controversy or ban on ESC research, it was actually done in Canada. Ideally what we will learn from ESC research is how to cause a stem cell to become any type of cell we want. Then we would take one or more cells from the patient to be treated and use the knowledge gained from ESC's to cause these cells to become what ever cell we need. For instance a person with type I diabetes has had an autoimmune response that killed all the cells in the pancreas that make insulin so it would be very helpful to have a way to create new insulin producing cells that would not produce an immune system response so using the patients own genetic material would probably result in the best match. A similiar problem is the cause of some Parkinson's and being able to introduce dopamine producing cells into the brain that don't cause an immune response is thought tobe a likely cure for that as well. The reason biologists need to study embryonic stem cells versus adult stem cells is that embryonic stem cells can and do become any type of cell in the body while human stem cells only become cells near where the stem cells are found in the body. So studying adult stem cells might tell us how to creat a bone marrow stem cell into one of the standard bone marrow cell types it can't teach us how to make an insuling producing pancreatic cell (for which as far as I know there are no known adult stem cells).

DomKen -> RE: Stem Cell Research...your thoughts??? (3/9/2009 2:39:59 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Evility In principle I did not agree with President Bush when he banned federal funds from being used for stem cell research. During the public debate I recall reading/hearing a comment from a pro stem cell research advocate - I think it may actually have been Christopher Reeve - who said that the religious folks deserved no say in the debate which I felt was wrong. I'm not a religious man but to deny one group a voice on an issue due to some phony separation of church and state argument was nonsense. Based on that argument alone while I disagreed with Bush the ban didn't really bother me much because attitudes like that really piss me off. Why should one person's or group's spiritual beliefs be the basis for restricting the activities of others? Should Christian Scientists be able to stop all federal funding of new surgical techniques?

FullCircle -> RE: Stem Cell Research...your thoughts??? (3/9/2009 2:47:46 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: samboct If you don't think there's a problem with humans being able to choose what babies they're having, all you have to do is look at the dog population. Humans have bred dogs to have the largest variation in size within a species- basically two orders of magnitude. I agree with you it's not good but it's inevitable, this is a clear case where the morality needs to catch up with the technology.

DomKen -> RE: Stem Cell Research...your thoughts??? (3/9/2009 2:55:18 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: FullCircle quote: ORIGINAL: samboct If you don't think there's a problem with humans being able to choose what babies they're having, all you have to do is look at the dog population. Humans have bred dogs to have the largest variation in size within a species- basically two orders of magnitude. I agree with you it's not good but it's inevitable, this is a clear case where the morality needs to catch up with the technology. It's an awfully tricky question. Obviously we want to be able to screen for lethal genetic maladies. It would be cruel to go through all of IVF to have a child born with something will kill him after a month or two. Now what about congenital disabilities? Do we screen for blindness? What about deafness or dwarfism? What if the intent is to have a deaf or dwarf child? Now what about gentic "nuisances"? Do we screen for baldness? Myopia? How far to screening to get tall blond children?

Vendaval -> RE: Stem Cell Research...your thoughts??? (3/9/2009 2:58:52 PM)
Maya, Thank you for posting the article. There is another story about stem-cell research currently on Reuters. "Scientists remove cancer genes from stem cells" Thu Mar 5, 2009 7:50pm EST By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists have taken another important step toward using ordinary skin cells that are made to behave like embryonic stem cells to find treatments for conditions like Parkinson's disease. Researchers at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Massachusetts removed a stumbling block in using so-called induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, by taking out potentially cancer-causing genes. Writing in the journal Cell on Thursday, the scientists said they then turned these iPS cells into brain cells involved in Parkinson's disease. The iPS stem cells could be made from a patient's own skin cells, reducing the chances that the body's immune system might reject the cells as it sometimes does with organ transplants." http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE5247ZV20090306

Vendaval -> RE: Stem Cell Research...your thoughts??? (3/9/2009 3:02:00 PM)
"Designer offspring, 90210"? [sm=car.gif] quote: ORIGINAL: samboct Consider- what happens if penis size costs IQ points? We haven't been bred for penis size in many cultures, since aside from a vocal few, it's less important than wallet size for most women. But if men get to pick....well, to males, a big dick beats a fat wallet, brains, and most everything else. (Maybe not a Corvette.) Up until now, females have chosen their mates for the attributes that the females consider important. With designer babies, men are now going to play more of a part in what their offspring will look like- and women will get to put aesthetics higher up on the list as well. Dinosaurs here we come...... Sam

Evility -> RE: Stem Cell Research...your thoughts??? (3/9/2009 3:17:50 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen quote: ORIGINAL: Evility In principle I did not agree with President Bush when he banned federal funds from being used for stem cell research. During the public debate I recall reading/hearing a comment from a pro stem cell research advocate - I think it may actually have been Christopher Reeve - who said that the religious folks deserved no say in the debate which I felt was wrong. I'm not a religious man but to deny one group a voice on an issue due to some phony separation of church and state argument was nonsense. Based on that argument alone while I disagreed with Bush the ban didn't really bother me much because attitudes like that really piss me off. Why should one person's or group's spiritual beliefs be the basis for restricting the activities of others? Should Christian Scientists be able to stop all federal funding of new surgical techniques? My point was that *everyone* deserved a voice in the debate - regardless of any political or religious affiliation they might hold. It's nice to see that you have no problem selectively removing opposing viewpoints from the table. Welkome to Amerika.

FullCircle -> RE: Stem Cell Research...your thoughts??? (3/9/2009 3:19:16 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen It's an awfully tricky question. Obviously we want to be able to screen for lethal genetic maladies. It would be cruel to go through all of IVF to have a child born with something will kill him after a month or two. Now what about congenital disabilities? Do we screen for blindness? What about deafness or dwarfism? What if the intent is to have a deaf or dwarf child? Now what about gentic "nuisances"? Do we screen for baldness? Myopia? How far to screening to get tall blond children? I remember having an argument similar to this with my science teacher once. I said it was a good idea to eliminate suffering by screening for disease and so not permitting the existence of people with genetic diseases (not so controversial I thought at the time). She asked me what right someone had to deny someone else a painful existence. The result of the argument being: it's not for anyone else to presume someone who only ever knew pain would not want to exist at all. Some questions as this I'd like to leave to chance and obviously once you start eliminating things you soon come across mission creep. I'm all for eliminating suffering but I'm not best placed to judge what degree of pain and suffering meets the threshold of too much for a human to experience, it would be a personal choice of the sufferer. That is why these ethics debates are a bit of a joke because they are usually conducted by people far removed from the reality of the thing they are judging.

kittinSol -> RE: Stem Cell Research...your thoughts??? (3/9/2009 3:24:07 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: samboct We haven't been bred for penis size in many cultures, since aside from a vocal few, it's less important than wallet size for most women. Wrong [8\|]. It's not wallet size that's important in a man, neither is it penis size (what a laughable idea that women give a damn about that tiny and insignificant little detail [8D]). No, we choose our men on the basis of their good looks, cooking skills, and their ability to put together a decent interior decor.

MmeGigs -> RE: Stem Cell Research...your thoughts??? (3/9/2009 3:28:47 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: RacerJim And how many hapless human beings were murdered to get those results? I'm guessing it's far fewer than the 18,000 to 20,000 hapless human beings who die in the US each year because they don't have health insurance. Many of the same folks who are opposed to stem cell research because it may result in the destruction of a potential human don't seem to be too concerned about the fate of a grown-up human being who may die because they can't afford the care they need. I think that anyone who is opposed to stem cell research on moral grounds and is also opposed to universal health care is a flaming hypocrite.

Raiikun -> RE: Stem Cell Research...your thoughts??? (3/9/2009 3:35:02 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: MmeGigs I think that anyone who is opposed to stem cell research on moral grounds and is also opposed to universal health care is a flaming hypocrite. Eh, there's room for someone to be opposed to one and not the other without it being hypocrisy...the issues surrounding both, and the objections to either one are too different.

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