Bush is no expert on stem cell research. What Bush did was consult with experts who were, and he incorporated their advice in his decision.
He picked and chose his consultants to fix the outcome ofthe advice. He wanted a compromise position he could point to (only fund
some, not funding
more) and didn't give a rat's ass about how actually practical his position was.
MirariNefas wrote:
You know, the whole giant academic establishment, that thing which you hate so much because it's socialistic.
It is a problem, but "hate" isn't the correct word. "Disdain" is probably more accurate, but I think it lacks the punch you were looking for.
Disdain, whatever. I'm not interested in punch. I'm not interested in discussing the merits of the academic establishment either. I simply wanted to point out that this is part of a larger structural system which I think you take issue with. If you
fix the stem cell issue by denying it public funds, it is only logical to
fix the rest of the system as well, or your position isn't as balanced as you'd perhaps like it to appear.
MirariNefas wrote:
And then the feeder cell issue, meaning that we could culture up infinite numbers of cells that would never be considered fit for human use. Real boon to medical practice, that.
Contaminated with mouse goo, if I remember correctly. Sounds like some scientists found out they were screwing up, and so Bush is the bad guy for not letting them use Government money to go back to the source. Embryos.
Yes. Techniques evolve. They knew it would be a problem when they started, but they didn't know any other way of advancing the research. But Bush looked at the early state of the research, and on the bad advice of his consultants said, "Well, it looks like they've finished that portion of things, they can stop right there and move on."
From some people's perspective, it is like Mengele asking for another jew. ... Like it or not, Genetic experiments on human beings is a highly emotionally charged issue, .
This is not genetic experiments on humans. That's a different thread. We're talking about human embryos used for cell therapies. But your factual inaccuracies and scientific illiteracy aside, I know your point. Yes, it is a thorny issue which pisses some people off due to how they define human life.
That being said, It is my understanding that some researchers have developed methods to eliminate the mouse cell contamination, and have stabilized the mutations of the stem cell lines they are working with.
Tell me this is not true.
Okay. This is not true. Eliminate is a poor word... they've developed an alternative which can (and is) applied to any new cell line, they have not developed a way to go back in time and remove murine contamination from previously derived lines. The Bush lines are crap. Thankfully that is now a mute point.
Other researchers (in Japan I think. Not a subject I care greatly about, so I don't keep up with it as much as other subjects.) have learned to transform Adult cells into plurapotent stem cells, which are effectively the same thing as embryonic stem cells.
Tell me this is not true.
Induced pluripotent stem cells have great promise, and I hope they will end this debate. The technology has developed both in Japan and the states, though the Japanese were the first to try it with human cells. The technique they were using for the first few years produced cells that were more useless than those contaminated with "mouse goo", but nobody was restricting funding to their research so they powered through and developed some better strategies. See how that works. This was not possible without years of research using human embryos.
I thought Stem Cell researchers were more competent than they apparently are. I'm disappointed to find that they are not.
Incompetent, or the problems they face aren't easy. Science is like that you know. It gets dumbed down for the masses, and then the masses get confused and angry when a complicated problem shows up. This is a serious problem, especially when things get dumbed down for our leadership.