Video: Claire McCaskill’s Michael J. Fox ad
posted at 12:49 pm on October 23, 2006 by Allahpundit
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Effective, but no different from CNN’s sniper segment in its M.O. Dean’s logic is unassailable, and I say that as someone who agrees with McCaskill on this issue.
I hate to give Coulter credit, but when she’s right, she’s right.
Update: Actually, as a devoted Kurzweilian, I do disagree with this part of Dean’s post:
If Fox thinks that stem cell research offers him (or me) hope, he’s mistaken. Stem cell research, both embryonic and otherwise, right now represents nothing more than a promising theory. If it bears fruit, and that’s a huge “if”, it will likely do so too late to benefit Fox, me, and our contemporaries.
Techology advances exponentially, my friend. Kurzweil says we could see many genetic diseases conquered within 15 years.
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People have been donating huge sums of money to stem cell research since the 50’s with no actual cures to harp about, and without cures, the funds start dwindling…therefore you try to convince the backers of the next best and greatest hope….
Pam on October 23, 2006 at 6:49 PM
I feel badly about Fox. Of course I do. I feel badly about a lot of sick people in this world. But it amazes me that people think that their illness trumps the life of other people. If we somehow discovered a cure for an illness that required an adult human’s brain to be ripped out of its skull, should we start rounding up folks on the street, killing them in a lab, and then making medicine out of them?
The whole concept of “embryos” being somehow divorced from the concept of human life is one of the tragic by-products of the legitimization of abortion. We absolutely cannot allow people to get away with the idea that human life can be thrown away in the name of science or medicine.
This ad by Fox is dishonest. It offers no truth to the debate whatsoever. So while I indeed feel badly about Fox, I must say his actions make me angry.
Jared White on October 23, 2006 at 7:35 PM
Some on the left argue, often passionately, sometimes violently, against the use of animals in medical research on the one hand and in favor of the use of human embryos in medical research on the other. In Maine we say, ‘Ain’t that odd.’
kmcguire on October 23, 2006 at 8:23 PM
Jim Tallent does NOT oppose stem cell research. He doesn’t even oppose federal funding of stem cell research. ONLY federal funding of abortions, which are the ONLY source for embryonic stem cells.
Destroying a baby to save an adult is the most immoral act known to man.
Google will turn up more information than anyone needs. I won’t bother linking to representative articles when anyone else can do the same research. But when you examine “studies” regarding embryonic stem cells, you will not find a single case of actual treatment. On the other hand, you can find a wide range of case studies applying adult stem cells. One point of discussion that recurs throughout the embryonic research is the cells’ uncontrollable transformation capability, which frequently causes tumors. With adult cells, they are less free to transform, which actually makes them more usable. Two examples:
From Spontaneous Human Adult Stem Cell Transformation by seven representatives of the American Association for Cancer Research, 15 April 2005
Not strong enough? Ok…
From Stem Cell Basics, under Stem Cell Information on the site of the National Institutes of Health. This site even includes the national Stem Cell Registry, a clearinghouse source for researchers to request and find sourcing for embryonic cell lines. Note that the NIH is the federal government. It isn’t funding the fetal research, but provides a way for researches to find fetal tissue to be used for research. (understand that cell lines already harvested are “cultivated”, and expanded upon)
The arguments of the left are completely bogus, as usual. The President won’t allow federal money to support abortions, but they are doing everything up to and touching that in support of medical research. Bet you didn’t know that, Michael J.
Freelancer on October 23, 2006 at 8:28 PM
Way to cherry pick the article, here is the rest of the first paragrah.
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/winter01/stem_cell.html
Gee whiz, I don’t recall stating that. Why should the Federal gov’t fund research that has shown nothing? Pie in the sky wishes, statements and maybe’s don’t mean anything. If the research is that favorable to cure everything from AIDS to the common hang over then get private donations to validate the research.
VikingGoneWild on October 23, 2006 at 8:32 PM
Oh, and Pablo, also from the NIH site…
Adult stem cells, such as blood-forming stem cells in bone marrow (called hematopoietic stem cells, or HSCs), are currently the only type of stem cell commonly used to treat human diseases. Doctors have been transferring HSCs in bone marrow transplants for over 40 years. More advanced techniques of collecting, or “harvesting,” HSCs are now used in order to treat leukemia, lymphoma and several inherited blood disorders.
Freelancer on October 23, 2006 at 8:32 PM
we must harvest the unplanned.
jummy on October 23, 2006 at 8:48 PM
I respectfully disagree but only because of the inevitable silppery slope and possible loopholes. I can see how it could be considered pro-life, as it would give meaning to what would otherwise be simply discarded, but in my opinion, it’s only going to fuel the debate and confuse emotions with science.
And for what though? Let’s say ESC are just as effective as ASC. Still, why breach what many consider a moral code when it’s unecessary?
I would understand if ESCs were the only ones out there, but they are not, and the research on them isn’t even as advanced as other stem cells. And yet, they are still the ones that get all the attention.
It doesn’t even make any sense. Michael J. Fox is rich, it seems he’d be better off putting his money and efforts into helping the one with a proven record and a longer history of research. It is afterall the one with the best chance at making a difference for him while he is alive.
This has been political from the start, and it is easy to see why, to see what motive could be found in treating embryos as nothing but research test products. To encourage it through any federal funding would be (in my opinion) to play directly into that motive.
Esthier on October 23, 2006 at 9:33 PM
That’s true, Pablo, but it’s also apples and oranges. ESCs represent a life that was taken. ASCs do not.
You cannot make the same claim about the Army and the Navy.
If however, in order to use the Army, we had use them as bombs and thus kill them, while being able to ensure that everyone who fought in the Navy survived the war, would it even be a question?
One requires a moral dilema, the other does not. Why put ourselves through a needless dilema?
Esthier on October 23, 2006 at 9:39 PM
Betcha Fox has never BEEN to Missouri in his life!
Warner Todd Huston on October 23, 2006 at 9:48 PM
From el Rushbo’s site
http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Stem-cells-may-cause-tumours-US-study/2006/10/23/1161455644560.html
Stem cells may cause tumours: US study
Email Print Normal font Large font October 23, 2006 - 1:09PM
Injecting human embryonic stem cells into the brains of Parkinson’s disease patients may cause tumours to form, U.S. researchers reported on Sunday.
Texyank on October 23, 2006 at 10:47 PM
Technique might ease ethical concerns - stem cells created from ‘dead’ embryos.
Entelechy on October 23, 2006 at 11:46 PM
VGW,
I suppose they do usually put the cherry right on top.
Research is all about things that aren’t proven. That’s why we do it, and the Fed pays for the vast majority of basic science which is science that isn’t going to cure anything, but that gives researchers knowledge about the nature of whatever they’re working with.
We spend billions on “research that has shown nothing”. Once upon a time, that meant ASC’s. If you don’t think we should pay for such research, then you should also think we don’t need the NIH or its enormous budget.
Once you “prove” a therapy, you’re pretty much done with the research. When you already know the answer, there isn’t much point in asking the question again.
Pablo on October 24, 2006 at 3:25 AM
Taken from what? The incinerator? As soon as I see a petrie dish give birth, I’ll buy that one. Not until.
God gives human life and he does it in the womb. His creatures do not live in a freezer.
As for the question in the article, it is indeed an either/or proposition, which is just silly. Should we have steak or a potato? A house or a car?
Why is it needless? What of the dilemma of embryos being thrown out and put to no purpose whatsoever. Why do that needlessly when we have an option?
Pablo on October 24, 2006 at 3:34 AM
Pablo, you’re playing fast and loose with the very building blocks of Life:
in the sense that you want to use ESCs, those petri dishes do “give birth” of a sort in the new life you purport they bring to sick cells in an existent person.
The point is that an embryo (fertilized egg cell) is a potential person.
Much depends on whether you really do believe that God gives Life and if He does so at the moment the sperm fertilizes the egg, the moment of conception, if you will.
I suggest that you believe both that God gives Life (to at least give lip service to divine power) and that scientists and doctors give life to “inert” cells, too.
The embryos are either Life or they’re not.
If they didn’t contain that vital spark of Life, divine or no, they wouldn’t be crucial to ESC research, now would they?
You can’t have it both ways, although Liberals try.
I think that the Left’s push for ESC research is another ruse to permit them to carry on abortion-on-demand and worse, Frankensteinian cloning because they want to live forever and be the children they didn’t have.
Further, for them to push Michael J. Fox forward and off his meds to do this Democrat political attack ad was unconscionable, but typical of them.
They should be ashamed of themselves, but they have no shame.
Even though Fox became a naturalized American citizen, he still isn’t from Missour-AH and never will be, so why doesn’t he butt out?!
Jen the Neocon on October 24, 2006 at 5:08 AM
Keeping it simple here. Killing a baby is wrong. Enabling a behavior that is already shown to be a marketing tool for the increased killing of babies is wrong. Equivocate all you wish, funding research that demands aborted babies for its tissue is a very straight line to draw, and ought never to be done, nor considered. The federal government has never tried to outlaw embryonic tissue research (one could have wishes), it merely refuses to fund abortions via that avenue.
Any argument that begins with “ok, well let’s just pay for research for whenever there ‘happens’ to be a dead baby…” is disingenuous, because it still creates a market, a demand, for which someone will work to create a supply. Plain and simple, it is evil.
Freelancer on October 24, 2006 at 5:41 AM
Jen,
I don’t know how things work on your planet, but the only thing that has ever given birth on this one is a female.
If they were alive, they’d develop into babies without further intervention. How long can they remain frozen in time and still be “life”. How many living people do you know that can survive indefinitely in a freezer? How many IVF embryos have ever become children without being implanted into and nurtured by a woman?
Many, many fertilzed eggs, particularly the majority of IVF eggs, do NOT become children. Eggs that do not take hold in a woman’s uterus do not ever become children. The acorn that falls into the street and rolls down the storm drain is not an oak tree.
I have no idea what that means.
Insulin doesn’t contain the divine spark of life, nor does transfused blood. Millions of people would be thoughouly screwed without them.
Well, that’s certainly an interesting theory. I think it’s a good idea because I like things that help sick people, regardless of their position on the political spectrum. I think therapies that save lives are pro-life. I think positions protect embryos from destruction so that they can be discarded intact are rife with ideolgical blindness, logically unsupportable, and ultimately anti-life. YMMV.
Pablo on October 24, 2006 at 5:52 AM
If you ever hear me say that, you be sure to let me know, okay? And if you ever see Congress pass that like they did HR 810, let me know about that, too.
Pablo on October 24, 2006 at 5:56 AM
BTW, WTF does that mean? Is there some research behind that?
Pablo on October 24, 2006 at 5:57 AM
Pablo, like the “fact” of global warming theories, ESC-based treatments are based on junk science.
If the technology’s so promising, let private industry research, test and develop it and leave the federal government out of it and out of my pocket!
It’s bad enough that our taxes are as high as they are, but to tax us more on scientific research that many of us find morally unpalatable is even worse.
Michael J. Fox should host a telethon like Jerry Lewis for his disease and his potential cures and stay out of domestic U.S. politics!
Add yet another Hollywood Leftie to my boycott list.
Jen the Neocon on October 24, 2006 at 9:13 AM
We’re talking about a seperate issue here. I was speaking of experimenting on ESC all together, not just on the issue of whether or not to use embryos which will otherwise be thrown out.
On the topic of using embryos that would otherwise be thrown out, I have reservations due to the possibility of life being created for the purpose of its destruction and the potential for the slippery slope argument.
Because let’s face it, once we tell people like Fox that embryos hold the key to their cure, do you really think it would bother them to create life for the purpose of using it as their cure?
Esthier on October 24, 2006 at 9:25 AM
What is your basis for that statement? Why do you think this is the case? (Hint: It is not.)
First, the Federal government is already in it, albeit to a limited degree. Secondly, we have a $28.6 Billion per year medical research apparatus set up to forward the field of medical knowledge, and your view on the subject is in the minority. The House passed HR 810 by a 238-19 vote and the Senate by a 63-37 vote. This will become the law, though probably not until 2009.
Pablo on October 24, 2006 at 10:17 AM
Make that a 238-194 vote in the House.
Pablo on October 24, 2006 at 10:18 AM
The proposed law prohibits creation for the puropse of destruction. See my 4:52 PM post above for the specifics in the Bill. No one serious is proposing embryo farming.
Pablo on October 24, 2006 at 10:22 AM
Pablo, I think it’s junk science, because as others make more clear, the research to-date doesn’t show that the benefits the proponents of ESC use claim are either attainable or certain.
They can promise the sky with ESC therapy because they literally don’t really know what they’re talking about.
That being said, this thread is not to discuss the merits of the scientific research, but it does speak volumes that the Left is whining that the Government should fund it.
President Bush has used his (one and so far only) veto on the Stem Cell Research Bill and there are plenty of Americans that are against it for moral reasons and implications and no, we’re not in the minority.
Sure, you say embryo farming and clone “farms” aren’t on tap now, but kick open this Pandora’s box and it won’t be long before they will be.
The real point of this thread was to point out the Democrats’ unconscionable use of Michael J. Fox and his illness to attack the Republican incumbent for Senate, Jim Talent.
Ann Coulter was right: apparently, the only way that the Dhimmicrat opponent feels she can win is to use a Hollywood star as a human shield for her Leftie views.
I hear she’s falling behind badly, too and has run a nasty campaign.
My own curiousity is piqued that the Dems chose to use this issue at all and why in Missouri?
Should Hillary! run for Prez, you’ve gotta know that she’ll push for ESC research and development big time for the “womb-to-the-tomb” universal healthcare that will be a huge pillar of her 2008 platform.
Jen the Neocon on October 24, 2006 at 11:24 AM
No one is yet. That’s my point.
But again, if people begin to believe that ESC are the godsend many people already believe it to be, do you sincerely believe it will stop where it currently is?
Esthier on October 24, 2006 at 11:26 AM
Source, please.
……………
Esthier, that’s why we have laws and legislatures. The practices you’re concerned with are already illegal and those laws are not likely to be repealed. I’m also not too sure where else you’d expect it to go given that there will not be a need for endless new lines, as stable ESC’s lines can reproduce indefinitely.
As for the ’slippery slope” argument, they were making that one about putting a born again Christian in the White House, and six years later we’re still not a Theocracy. I think we can risk it.
Pablo on October 24, 2006 at 11:35 AM
The slippery slope argument isn’t the best answer for any debate and hardly one I rely on, but look at the fanatics on the side of ESC that we currently have.
And give me a break. Any slippery slope argument about Bush was clearly idiotic. He wasn’t our first Christian president and will not likely be our last.
Funding the use of embryos as spare parts or medical experiments is at the very least, uncharted territory.
Fox was willing to play a puppet on now two political ads for something that hasn’t even brought any results yet. Seriously, I have a hard time believing anyone will be more retrained once/if ESC show any actual results.
And whether or not it is illegal now hasn’t stopped people from attempting to change that law. And if they are able, they’ll do exactly what they’re doing now, parading sick well-loved celebrities before the camera to perform tricks with their diseases.
Fox isn’t interested in the law as it stands.
Esthier on October 24, 2006 at 12:13 PM
No, we’ve been doing it since August 2001, when Bush authorized the first ESC funding.
Fox is irrelevent. The substantive debate is taking place in the center. Take a look at the Senators who voter for the bill Bush vetoed. The list includes Frist, Lott, Lugar, Hatch, Cochran…
This legislation has significant bipartisan support.
Pablo on October 24, 2006 at 12:29 PM
Pablo,
Noone is OPENLY proposing embryo farming. Noone OPENLY supports embryo farming. Guess what, noone openly supports organized crime either. Why? Well, because it’s….wrong.
“Oh, sure, you can have that, I was going to throw it out anyway.”
Nothing to see here, move along…
Play the fool all you want, but wrong is wrong. Use any color lipstick you want, that pig doesn’t get any prettier.
Freelancer on October 24, 2006 at 12:35 PM
Esthier, your remarks are very much on message, as I just heard Rush Limbaugh explain on his show that the measure up for passage in Missouri is about cloning, but the public is being misled (especially by this ad) that the issue is ESC research.
Freelance, right on, my brother!
Jen the Neocon on October 24, 2006 at 12:44 PM
I appologize, I meant to write “relatively uncharted teritory”. Considering many of the Founding Fathers openly spoke of their faith when this country was founded, Bush expressing a similar faith is, at the risk of being redundant, familiar teritory.
Stem Cell research, specifically within the relm of public opinion, is not.
Esthier on October 24, 2006 at 1:44 PM
Even worse, embryonic isn’t even a word heard throughout either of these political ads.
If you cannot even say Embryonic Stem Cell research, then maybe you shouldn’t be doing it.
Esthier on October 24, 2006 at 1:46 PM
Freelancer,
And that’s why we prosecute people who do it. You can play the fool all you like, but the law is the law and it’s perfectly legal to do ESC research, but not at all legal to do all the hysterical stuff you’d like to conflate into the issue. This debate doesn’t change a molecule of that truth. It’s a strawman. Something very much like HR 810 is going to be the law sooner or not much later. You can bank on it.
Jen,
I’m not up to speed on the Missouri measure which I believe is a pending ballot initiative, but what does it have to do with this Senate race?
Pablo on October 24, 2006 at 1:50 PM
And almost nobody was talking about this whole internet thing ten years ago. Your point?
Pablo on October 24, 2006 at 1:53 PM
Pablo, as the big proponent for ESC research, I thought you and the DNC knew.
Does it really matter?
Their point is to imply that Jim Talent is a mean Republican who wants America’s sweetheart Michael J. Fox to be sick and die and that his Dem opponent Claire McCaskill really cares about Fox and doesn’t want him to sway around anymore and if ESC research and cloning will make that happen, well then by God, why are we even having a debate about it?!?
It’s an attack ad about an icky, evil issue (or really several icky, evil issues–to wit: abortion, the use of human embryos for mad science, cloning, eugenics) that makes good God-fearing Americans barf.
Praise the Lord that I live in Texas where Hutchinson and Cornyn have no real opposition in this election and mercifully, I won’t have to suffer watching this damn ad anymore!
Jen the Neocon on October 24, 2006 at 2:21 PM
I made my point originally. My point was just that the slippery argument (while admitting it’s a pathetic argument in most and arguably all cases) cannot apply to something that has been around since the founding of this country.
It’s assinine to say having a Christian in the White House is going to create any slippery slope towards theocracy since our country was founded by Christians/Deists/religious people (I’m only putting the slashing because I don’t care to have the debate on what specifically the founding fathers practiced).
We already knew before Bush became president that Christians can be president without turning America into a theocracy. So obviously the slippery slope argument had no merit when people were making it in reference to Bush and theocracy.
However, seeing as ESC research has not quite been around as long as America, the argument has significantly more credence than the one that was made about Bush.
That’s all.
And Pablo, you keep saying that because it is illegal, no one will go down the path of creating life for the purpose of destroying it, but abortion, alcohol, illegal immigration (joke–kinda) and many other things were once illegal as well. So what is illegal now will not always be illegal in the future.
That’s the point I am trying to make. I have no reason to believe that creating life for the purposes of destroying it will always be illegal, and I will feel even less secure about this if ESC actually produces any results.
Our laws change. Do you have some guarantee this one won’t? If so, don’t hold back here.
Esthier on October 24, 2006 at 2:22 PM
Esthier, no one has any guarantee that our laws won’t change, thank God.
It used to be that women couldn’t vote, waaay back when our country was founded. It also used to be that Blacks had to sit in the back.
Ultimately, I’d like to think that we change our laws to reflect our acquired wisdom, though it ain’t necessarily so.
But arguing that if we expand a federal funding mechanism it might make us change our laws in the future…well, there’s no there there. There’s no slope to slip on.
Pablo on October 24, 2006 at 2:39 PM
And why is that? We are a country that has already said the life of an embryo is not even worth the discomfort of a woman who decided to engage in an act of procreation.
You’re telling me we’ll stop at creating life for the purposes of destroying it even if ESC are the panacea MJF seems to believe it is?
Esthier on October 24, 2006 at 2:49 PM
Roe v. Wade was supposedly about a woman’s “right” to choose (to kill her baby). I don’t see any argument that would cause the majority of people to support embryo farming.
You’ve also got the problem that you can’t sell eggs. Where does the supply come from? Then there’s this which, if they’re right, may eliminate the need to destroy embryos for ESC’s at all. Then, I guess we’ll go back to throwing them away when they’re not going to be used.
Pablo on October 24, 2006 at 2:57 PM
Pablo, I’m getting real tired, as I’m sure Esthier is too, of arguing this with you.
Roe v. Wade is in trouble and could be either overturned by SCOTUS and/or banned by the plurality of the states very soon–huzzah!
The Left/Democrats wouldn’t present embryo farming and cloning on their own evil terms, they’d couch it in cozier, caring and disingenuous language and images like this ad under discussion.
Honesty has never been the Left’s strong point.
And the bottom line of virtually all of this—abortion, cloning, Dr. Frankenstein’s Lab experimentation with the very building blocks of life like ESCs, DNA “choosing”–is EUGENICS.
Ever read about the core principle of the people who founded Planned Parenthood? Eugenics.
Hello, Hitler.
Jen the Neocon on October 24, 2006 at 3:09 PM
If that’s true, then why do I see ads in my paper every day asking for people to sell their eggs for as much as $3,500?
And seriously? You think the people are more likely to support a selfish act (abortion) rather than an act that could possibly save lives?
Personally if I had to choose one (currently I’d choose neither), I’d take the latter, but that’s just me.
Not that what the people think matters anyway, since Roe was decided by 9 unelected judges and not the American people.
Esthier on October 24, 2006 at 3:16 PM
Selling eggs, or surrogate mothering? Huh. I stand corrected. Perhaps I’m thinking of local law, but I thought the actual sale was prohibited, just as you can’t sell organs.
True. Sad, but true.
There’s no reason to support embryo farming. There’s no real benefit involved that couldn’t be derived otherwise.
Pablo on October 24, 2006 at 3:25 PM
You may quit whenever you like. You’re not doing a very good job anyway.
I really don’t give a rat’s ass what the left wants or how they frame their positions.
Which is why nobody is buying into their policies.
It’s official. You’re an idiot.
Godwin’s Law. Thanks for playing and don’t let the door hit you where the good Lord split you.
Pablo on October 24, 2006 at 3:32 PM
After all that, you won’t go the full distance?
Surely, you jest!
As Esthier and I have been maintaining, cloning, embryo farming, and body farming are the next “logical” step–they’ve already cloned cats, but because they’re plentiful and not quite as important as people, there was no market for them. But human cloning?
Oh, some psychos would see enormous economic potential for cell, embryo and body farming, not just for the cure of diseases but possibly to clone oneself or make a human clone to be a source for all kinds of spare body parts.
Why keep just an embryo on ice when you can keep cells on tap to make a liver, lungs or a heart?
I suggest you see a film from last year called “The Island” which illustrates this nightmare of the future rather well.
Jen the Neocon on October 24, 2006 at 3:32 PM
Maybe it is a local law where you are, but in Texas, it seems to be legal and financially lucrative. I even considered it for a brief moment, but I doubt my husband would be alright with it.
Sure you can’t sell organs, but you can sell plasma (though I don’t recommend it, been there and all) and even sperm, so I can see where eggs could slip in.
Some would argue that the results would be made quicker with embryo farming, but maybe you’re right.
Even still, that’s the same argument I’m making about ASC versus ESC anyway. I fail to see why the argument holds weight with you here but not when I made it earlier for ASC.
Esthier on October 24, 2006 at 3:49 PM
Pablo, yes, the end goal is Eugenics and Darwinian pre-selection.
Abortion, embryonic gene selection and amniocentesis, cloning and even ESC-type therapy are all designed to prolong certain selected lives and to use and destroy others to that end.
All of it is predicated on the Orwellian principle that “All men are created equal but some are more equal than others.”
In this case, the preservation of you and Michael Fox are apparently worth offing the rest of us for our genetic and biochemical parts because you just declared those who oppose you like me an “idiot” and therefore Ground Zero for your first harvest of my usable bodily materials.
Jen the Neocon on October 24, 2006 at 3:53 PM
ESC’s are ESC’s. Once there’s a fair number of stable lines, there’s not going to be a need to keep going back to the well. Each line we’re currently using came from an embryo that was destroyed well over 5 years ago. One of the biggest things we’ve learned is hot to NOT process them…like in contaminated mouse media.
There is a significant difference in benefit between ASC’s and ESC’s. ESC’s are undifferentiated and can be coaxed into an unlimited number of directions. ASC’s will only do so many different things, depending on the type. ESC’s are far more versitile. then there’s cord bllod, which may wind up doing the much of the heavy lifting without the ethical concerns. And there’s the new process than can prune an ESC without harming the embryo. I just don’t see where there would ever be a need to farm, which revolts pretty much everyone.
Pablo on October 24, 2006 at 3:58 PM
Oooh! Movies! Can we go see The Day After Tommorow next?
Oy.
Does anyone want this brain? Anyone? Bueller? It would make a nice stew! Anyone?
Pablo on October 24, 2006 at 4:01 PM
“Pretty much everyone”, but again, that doesn’t always stop a thing from occuring.
And actually, ASC are far more versatile than they were previously believed to be.
From an article I posted above:
And herein lies one of my biggest problems with ESC. They appear to be less effective because of the risk of rejection which ASC do not have as they can come from the patient him/herself.
And this is also why I hate to see things like this ad as they seem to distract from ASC research, which is much further advanced, in favor of ESC, which may not be even as beneficial as ASC.
If people really wanted the cures these stem cells are promising, they’d go with ASC as it would be easier to receive funding (not even a hint of a moral dilema for anyone who might be listening), and it’s much further along in its research.
I can see your argument that two is better than one (though I simply disagree in this particular case), but with that being the case, why is it that the discussions are almost always on ESC while ignoring the benefits of ASC?
Esthier on October 24, 2006 at 4:17 PM
If it’s a thing we have control over it does. It’s all we’ve got, and we’re going to have to live with that.
ESC’s can do things that ASC’s cannot. ASC’s can do some great things, and they have that benefit, that you can over come rejection through autologous stem cell treatment. But they can’t and won’t be able to do the things that ESC’s, and even CBE’s can do.
As for the level of discussion, ASC’s aren’t the least bit controversial. We don’t spend a lot of time talking about genetically targetted drugs like Gleevec, either. But they’re way cool and there’s fascinating science behind them. There’s not much discussion because there’s no argument.
Pablo on October 24, 2006 at 6:20 PM
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