Michael Reagan does a great guest post in LifeNews. Here he sums it up better than I've seen anywhere:
It needs to be said right up front: at this time those promised ESCR miracles are merely the products of the proponents’ hopes and dreams, and mostly based on the now admittedly falsified claims of a South Korean scientist -- not of the current reality, which is grim. Far from curing everything from Alzheimer’s Disease to spinal cord injuries, and a whole host of other medical problems as proponents promise, all ESCR has produced thus far is cancerous tumors in lab animals. And even top ESCR scientists now admit that any progress in the field is 25 years away, after they stop killing lab animals, that is.
More at Marlowe's Shade
Michael Reagan and you Religious Reich folks are making another astounding leap of faith when you pronounce judgement on research that has not been done. Why do you suppose 80 Nobel Laurettes support ESCR? Michael has no scientific credentials.
Rayilyn, when it comes to treating disease and congenital conditions, why not go with what is working now, not potentially in the future? Isn't it morally wrong to take funding away from something proven for a theoretical treatment? Adult stem cell research has discovered over 60 effective treatments. As far as the Nobel Laureates there is a great deal of self-interest in their advocacy for ESCR. You see adult stem cell cures can't be patented because they use your own cells. Embryonic stem cell, because they would be "created" can be patented. It's about profit motive Rayilyn, not science.
I've had correspondence with Rayilyn Brown before. Trust me: she's simply not interested in anything good that adult stem cells are doing, no matter how exciting. Like many, she holds ESCR and ASCR to two different standards: ASCR must cure a disease forever before she'll be satisfied, while ESCR being used with some poor lab animal is sufficient for it to be anointed as the holy grail of medicine.
I question ALL the 60, Senator Coburn said 70 this AM on the Senate floor, "successful" ASC treatments because one such "success" is the experiment on Dennis Turner. I called him on 4-24-06 and his Parkinson's has returned with a vengeance,yet his condition as of 2004 as documented in his senate testimony is still on the "cures" list. There are no ASC treatments for PD, I know, I have it. I also know Don C. Reed, whose son is a paraplegic and he tells me the stuff on spinal cord injuries is bogus. We don't even have honesty on your side. We need all kinds of SCR. Stem cells are not people. ASC has been around at least 30 years, ESCR only since 1998. If you are convinced these cells are people it shouldn't matter which kind is "better". Opponents of ESCR want ASCR for cover, so they won't appear so uncaring about real people. Also, SCNT or somatic cell nuclear transfer uses an unfertilized egg and your own somatic cells. Some younger women could provide their own eggs.
Also, SCNT or somatic cell nuclear transfer uses an unfertilized egg and your own somatic cells. Some younger women could provide their own eggs.
So cloning yourself and destroying the clone to harvest stem cells is preferable?
ASCR is clearly far ahead of ESCR. It's mystifying why for practical purposes you wouldn't prefer the easier solution, especially give all the negatives about ESCR...
"Senator Coburn said 70 this AM on the Senate floor..."
And he should know: he's a DOCTOR who actually WORKS WITH adult stem cells.
"...and [Dennis Turner's] Parkinson's has returned with a vengeance,yet his condition as of 2004 as documented in his senate testimony is still on the 'cures' list."
It's NOT a "CURES" list; it's a list of treatments. And Dennis Turner WAS treated with his own stem cells successfully. He's eager for another TREATMENT, because the first one WORKED, allowing him to do things he wouldn't even dream of otherwise. Stop creating straw-man arguments by putting claims in our mouths.
"Stem cells are not people."
In my e-mail to you a few months ago, I EXPLAINED to you that nobody's even SAYING that stem cells are people. Stem cells are cells; human EMBRYOS are people, according to science you should have learned in seventh grade or so. Get it straight or don't bother posting.
"ESCR only since 1998."
Non-human embryonic stem cells were isolated several decades ago. What ELSE don't you know?
"Also, SCNT or somatic cell nuclear transfer uses an unfertilized egg and your own somatic cells."
To create a new human individual via cloning, yes.
Brian and Papijoe - you are both so wrong. We who suffer want ALL KINDS OF STEM CELL RESEARCH. You are the ones committed to one kind, ASCR, because you suffer from the faith-based delusion that ESCRs are people. Why would anyone who is paralyzed or had Parkinson's or any horrible disease not want a cure from ASCR or drugs for that matter if it was available? I am 70 years old, so I don't hold out hope in my lifetime for a cure from any kind of SCR, but see no reason why it should not go forward full speed ahead.
SCNT is about cloning cells, Brian, not people. I talked to Dennis Turner on 4-24-06 and his attitude is not optimistic. Dr. Levesque's Phase II isn't going anywhere. Sinemet is a "treatment" for PD that works part of the time, so people talk about being "ON" or "OFF", but it stops working after awhile. We are all different and it doesn't help me. Turner is on a real "OFF" right now. PD is forever, a life sentence.
Have either of you ever had brain surgery while you were awake? I have, twice.
Coburn is an MD not a neurosurgeon or stem cell researcher. Frist is an MD who flip-flopped to support S471. You might learn something if you listened to me, Brian.
Rayilyn it's pretty clear you would open the Pandora's Box of human cloning based on the remote promise of ESCR. Any limitations that ASCR treatments are currently having will increase by orders of magnitude for similar ESCR treatments. And there are plenty of pragmatic reasons to steer clear of human cloning that have nothing to do with faith.
But you seem to be under the impression that a Ph.d or Nobel Prize confers a kind of clairvoyance on the recipient that allows them to see all the possible consequences of tinkering with the source of human life and avoid the disasterous outcomes. I don't share that particular faith.
Rayilyn is back to spread more propaganda. Why does it bother? It tells us the ASCR has not cured Parkinson's nor paralysis, so it's a failure. Of course it hasn't cured those things; if it had, Rayilyn wouldn't be here spreading its propaganda.
As I've said before, hey Rayilyn, if you want ESCR done, then fund it YOURSELF. We keep hearing about how mere months after the federal government starts funding ESCR, we'll all of a sudden have tons of cures. Yet such research can't get private funding? Yeah, right... and Rayilyn calls us dishonest?
You hate-filled, anti-God liberals are supposed to be for "choice". If you're really for choice, then spend your own damn money on immoral research which kills innocent humans for no reason.
And by the way:
"I have recently applied to become a research subject at Dr. Woo-suk Hwang's renowned Seoul National University in South Korea, considered the "hub" of stem cell research. I know a cure won't come in my lifetime, but it will come eventually and I would like my life to be worth something."
-Rayilyn, from CNN.com - http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/11/07/rayilyn.brown/
So, how's that going, Rayilyn? Has Dr. Woo-suk seen you yet? Oh wait a sec, he's too busy admitting to being a complete fraud.
"because you suffer from the faith-based delusion that ESCRs are people."
We believe that embryonic stem cell researches are people? What on earth does that mean? You STILL don't understand our position even after it's been explained to you umpteen times. Embryonic stem cells are NOT human beings, but the embryos from which they come ARE human beings(research a biology textbook, please).
"We believe that embryonic stem cell researches are people? What on earth does that mean? You STILL don't understand our position even after it's been explained to you umpteen times. Embryonic stem cells are NOT human beings, but the embryos from which they come ARE human beings(research a biology textbook, please)."
This needs to be repeated again, since Rayilyn missed it the first ten times it was said.
Rayilyn really doesn't care what we say; to it, we are simply evil people of no compassion who don't want it to get a cure for its illness just because we're mean. Rayilyn is one of those "reality-based" people who lives on another planet.
To be human don't you have to at least have the potential of being born?
Hmm. SCNT has never produced a baby, even when it's been attempted in Korea.
If I slough off some of my skin am I to be considered a murderer because every cell has the potential for human life?
Just because I am smarter than a child should we quit educating children because the promise of a better future is not worth investigating? ESCR is making great strides.
Why pay attention to Nobel scientists who say that ESCR offers likely cures that are simply not possible with ASCR, when you can just listen to a politician parrot an morality message from the extreme right?
Do I have to live in a world where I can not make my own decisions because some theocrat has decided my fate based on their own view.
Missouri State Senator Matt Bartle proposed legistlation to jail the brightest scientists in the region for investigation of ESCR.
Insanity.
Iseektruth, you may have set an internet record for number of strawmen in a single post.
But you'll be glad to hear that theocrats won't stop you from lining up your own egg donors and doing embryonic stem cell research. But not with my taxes...
"Iseektruth"? Good. I provide truth.
Every cell in your body has the potential to become a human being ONLY IF YOU COMBINE IT WITH AN OVUM VIA CLONING (SCNT). This means, of course, that your skin cells are NOT equivalent to human embryos, as you mistakenly believe, but rather (if anything) to sperm cells. But thanks for playing.