Critical news in the development of Stem Cell technology

[spike]

Who cares who I quote if they are correct and the evidence backs up their statements? She is wrong because of who she is? The evidence is wrong because of who is stating it? Sounds like Spike logic.

The evidence is highly suspect because it comes from a highly biased source who is very wrong often. She is also is not an authority on the matter. It's about as useful as if I posted Carrot Tops ideas on stem cells. By posting it you are using no logic.

 

[MrBishop]

Genetic research was set back fifty years by Hitler and the likes of Josef Mengele. Anyone who attempted any research in genetics was branded a "Nazi". It was only in the recent past that this stigma has been overcome.

Hitler? You should read more about America's Eugenics and forced sterilization programs before you start bringing Hitler into that argument.

And all efforts at using fetal stem cells have been met with failure.

You fail to understand that there are more than 2 types of stem-cells.

Then how do you hear about them?

AMA news feeds for one, there are others. I like RSS...

A mere pittance compared to the delay caused by the Nazis and the stigma which they caused in the minds of people worldwide.

Bringing up germany isn't helping your point. If stem-cell research was being used to sterilize people and create a master-race, I can see it as being affected by the Nazi example. As it is, the church is providing the big block and not fear of another holocaust.

How many years?

Depending on how fast they can get approved for human trials. Off hand, I'd say 2-3

 

[jimpeel]

Hitler? You should read more about America's Eugenics and forced sterilization programs before you start bringing Hitler into that argument.

Forced sterilization and eugenics had nothing to do with genetics by science. They tried to control through breeding.

Hitler, and Josef Mengele, were trying to change genetics through science -- bad science -- to change such things as eye and hair color and other characteristics. Anyone who tried to do any research from post WWII through about the eighties was branded a "Nazi" by those who had memories of the horrors of WWII. Saying that it was the church is a specious argument. Common people related the two without any help from the church.

As time wore on, and people who lived through WWII died off, the stigma died with them.

You fail to understand that there are more than 2 types of stem-cells.

Yep. One that works and one that doesn't.

Bringing up germany isn't helping your point. If stem-cell research was being used to sterilize people and create a master-race, I can see it as being affected by the Nazi example. As it is, the church is providing the big block and not fear of another holocaust.

Germany was the focal point for horrific attempts at genetic restructuring through bad science by quacks like Mengele. They weren't using stem cells to attempt the restructure. All that is needed in the minds of people is the perceived relationship between Mengele and stem cell research -- perception vs reality.

The church has nothing to do with anything other than preventing fetal stem cells from becoming a crop that is harvested.

Your bringing up the Holocaust does nothing to help your point. You threw it out there for mere sensationalism; because I know you know the meaning of the word and your usage fails to fulfill that use.

Depending on how fast they can get approved for human trials.

The Tuskeegee experiment was "human trials".

The atomic testing of soldiers was "human trials".

The atomic testing of unsuspecting Americans being injected with isotopes was "human trials".

Off hand, I'd say 2-3

I'll hold you to that. We were supposed to have depleted the ocean's fish population to zero within ten years -- thirty years ago.

 

[2minkey]

holy shit who knew that jim was such an expert on eugenics?

you know, i'd ask some questions about it and he'd just scurry off to google and suddenly he'd be an expert on sir francis galton.

and who knew the world's stock of fish was so plentiful? certainly the poor goat fuckers in newfoundland living off government subsidies are reaping the windfall of plenty!

pass some bacalao, man!

 

[Gonz]

tell me, have sperry-rand or IBM ever been the recipients of wisely-placed government monies?

By whose authority?

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

I'm still waiting...what has a government lab discovered? Invented? that wasn't a by-product of military spending?

 

[spike]

Sure, research only works when it related to military.

Study Traces Impact of Government-Funded MIT Research on Biotechnology and Drugs

Nine of top ten biotech drugs in 1994 were developed by companies founded by MIT faculty or alumni 30 biotech companies in state trace their founding or technology to MIT

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1996/biotechmitgov.html

You done now?

 

[2minkey]

and of course i'd already mentioned MIT, but gonz didn't quite find that one to his liking.

1. it doesn't matter if it is military.
2. there are plenty of examples.
3. anyone who has ever actually worked in a research field (that would be me, not you, gonz) knows how strangely intertwined government is, through defense-related stuff and otherwise. e.g. robert macnamara, MIT "whiz kid," automotive industry, vietnam, blah blah blah.

so gonz, you are the one "still waiting" eh? hmmmm. that's not how the thread looks to me.

 

[MrBishop]

Forced sterilization and eugenics had nothing to do with genetics by science. They tried to control through breeding.

Hitler, and Josef Mengele, were trying to change genetics through science -- bad science -- to change such things as eye and hair color and other characteristics. Anyone who tried to do any research from post WWII through about the eighties was branded a "Nazi" by those who had memories of the horrors of WWII. Saying that it was the church is a specious argument. Common people related the two without any help from the church.

As time wore on, and people who lived through WWII died off, the stigma died with them.
<snip>

Germany was the focal point for horrific attempts at genetic restructuring through bad science by quacks like Mengele. They weren't using stem cells to attempt the restructure. All that is needed in the minds of people is the perceived relationship between Mengele and stem cell research -- perception vs reality.

The church has nothing to do with anything other than preventing fetal stem cells from becoming a crop that is harvested.

Your bringing up the Holocaust does nothing to help your point. You threw it out there for mere sensationalism; because I know you know the meaning of the word and your usage fails to fulfill that use.

Mengele was a 'physician' who didn't dabble in genetics per se, but through physical and surgical tests/trials. He was using injected dyes to change eye colour, not genetics...ink. In either case, he was a sick fuck. I mentioned the Holocaust merely because you brought up Hitler and Mengele..not because I was trying to form a lien between Hitler and stem-cell research.

People who go against things like organ transplants, blood transfusions, immunity shots, mechanical hearts, IVF, cloning, GMOs, stem-cell research etc aren't bringing up the spectre of Hitler and Mengele when they hold their plackards high..they're claiming that we're 'playing god', or 'going against god's will' or other varieties thereof. It's a moral argument..not a historical one.

Eugenics has more to do with genetics than anything Mengele did.

The Tuskeegee experiment was "human trials".
The atomic testing of soldiers was "human trials".
The atomic testing of unsuspecting Americans being injected with isotopes was "human trials".

All medical and drug treatments have to go through clinical trials, animal-testing and eventually human trials before they get approved for sale/use. Vitamin-C tablets had to go through human trials. Your examples are the GVT jumping the gun, with no respect for humanity, in order to fast-track some 'science' they want to push through.

I'll hold you to that. We were supposed to have depleted the ocean's fish population to zero within ten years -- thirty years ago.

Yes, and since then controls have been brought to bear in order to help stave off depopulation of fish-stocks...some successfully, some not. The same can be said for Whaling, and whales came pretty damn close to extinction before those laws came into effect.

 

[Cerise]

Oops! You bet your sweet Dickey-Wicker amendment he did.

On Wednesday, only two days after he lifted President Bush’s executive order banning federal funding of stem cell research that requires the destruction of human embryos, President Barack Obama signed a law that explicilty bans federal funding of any "research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death."

The provision was buried in the 465-page omnibus appropriations bill that Obama signed Wednesday. Known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment, it has been included in the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services every fiscal year since 1996.

 

[MrBishop]

Slipped in again, did it?

 

[jimpeel]

Mengele was a 'physician' who didn't dabble in genetics per se, but through physical and surgical tests/trials. He was using injected dyes to change eye colour, not genetics...ink. In either case, he was a sick fuck. I mentioned the Holocaust merely because you brought up Hitler and Mengele..not because I was trying to form a lien between Hitler and stem-cell research.

People who go against things like organ transplants, blood transfusions, immunity shots, mechanical hearts, IVF, cloning, GMOs, stem-cell research etc aren't bringing up the spectre of Hitler and Mengele when they hold their plackards high..they're claiming that we're 'playing god', or 'going against god's will' or other varieties thereof. It's a moral argument..not a historical one.

Eugenics has more to do with genetics than anything Mengele did.

I'm sure Mengele thought he was proceeding in a most scientific way. That is why I said it was "bad science".

All medical and drug treatments have to go through clinical trials, animal-testing and eventually human trials before they get approved for sale/use. Vitamin-C tablets had to go through human trials. Your examples are the GVT jumping the gun, with no respect for humanity, in order to fast-track some 'science' they want to push through.

The Tuskeegee Experiment was done in the face of full knowledge of the effects of syphilis yet they did it anyway. There was no knowledge gleaned from the experiment that was not already well known and fully documented. The "experiment" will remain a black mark on this nation's history.

Yes, and since then controls have been brought to bear in order to help stave off depopulation of fish-stocks...some successfully, some not. The same can be said for Whaling, and whales came pretty damn close to extinction before those laws came into effect.

The point was that the prediction was wrong even though it was the esteemed oceanographic scientist Ted Danson who made it. The press glommed onto his words like they were taken from scripture.

Global cooling never happened either; and we did nothing to control that. If we had, GW would be much worse because one of the "remedies" was to melt the Arctic ice fields.

 

[MrBishop]

If you make an estimation and then the variables change, yet you're not allowed to re-estimate based on new criteria, then your estimate will always be wrong. If nothin had been done to stem the tide of over-fishing, I wouldn't be surprised if many more species of fish would've died out entirely.

 

[jimpeel]

If you make an estimation and then the variables change, yet you're not allowed to re-estimate based on new criteria, then your estimate will always be wrong. If nothin had been done to stem the tide of over-fishing, I wouldn't be surprised if many more species of fish would've died out entirely.

[Carny voice]Fish fahms, m' boy! Invest in fish fahms! Wave of the futuah![/carny voice]

The Japanese never stopped fishing while the rest of us went all gooey for the poor little fishies. If you want to see an area overfished, simply outlaw the harvesting of harp seals and watch the fisheries close by the hundreds.

 

[Gonz]

3. anyone who has ever actually worked in a research field (that would be me, not you, gonz) knows how strangely intertwined government is, through defense-related stuff and otherwise. e.g. robert macnamara, MIT "whiz kid," automotive industry, vietnam, blah blah blah.

Which takes us back to the beginning. Government intrusion into private affairs. Overstepping their authority. I am really surprised that you defend that so readily.

 

[spike]

Like when you suggested the government should enforce marriage?

 

[Gonz]

I never said the government ought to enforce marraige.

 

[spike]

You wanted them to not allow divorces.

Talk about intruding in private affairs.

 

[Gonz]

Not to allow or to limit? What was the context? However, as long as the government issues licensing, it (we) has the right to limit licensing.

 

[2minkey]

Which takes us back to the beginning. Government intrusion into private affairs. Overstepping their authority. I am really surprised that you defend that so readily.

oh for fuck's sake gonz. can't win with the facts, so now you're looking for an ideological objection?

"overstepping their authority???"

yeah. always the drama.

 

[Gonz]

It's people like you that have allowed this massive governmental expansion into our personal lives as well as into the private sector.

Shit like "what's the harm?" "Hey, it'll help", "Somebody needs to pay for it".

What's the harm?

Here

The National Debt is $10.9 Trillion! Updated 6 March 2009.

Ideology & it's enforcers keep this country afloat. Rolling over & playing dead is what keeps us going in the toilet. Too bad ideology is losing because that means we all are.