Bone Marrow Stem Cells Used in Spinal Cord Surgery
Stories like this are finally breaking the back of the CURES! CURES! CURES! ESCR/cloning hype brigade: A patient is being treated with bone marrow stem cells as part of spinal surgery to help in healing. From the story in the Sacramento Bee, no less:
They are not from human embryos, but the stem cells being packed into Perry Anderson's spine may help him heal from a surgery that failed to heal the first time, leaving him hobbled and unable to work for nearly three years.The same type of cells, derived from bone marrow, one day may help heart attack patients recover, ease the misery of inflammatory bowel disease, and allow diabetics to continue producing insulin.
While the ethical debate rages over the use of stem cells taken from discarded human embryos, bone marrow stem cells, harvested both from cadavers and from live donors, are being developed for use against a range of illnesses.
This was the kind of story that rarely made it through the news blockade until recently. But the progress in this field in human work is so undeniable that the blockade is beginning to crumble.
Of course some die-hards, like Ellen Goodman--as in this bitter column denying Bush any credit for promoting non-embryonic stem cell research--refuse to open their eyes. She writes:First of all, the Bush administration bet on the wrong horse--adult stem cells.That's what comes from only listening to one side of the debate. Ignorance, they name is Goodman.
Labels: Adult Stem Cell Success.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 11:44 AM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
We saw Goodman's column in the Reno paper two days after ours that praised the president for sticking to his principles. The line about making the wrong bet on adult stem cells was laughable beyond belief.
But after people like her and our Senator Harry Reid who accused the president of "putting politics ahead of safe, responsible science," said the veto was a "most un-American thing by turning his back on science;" that Bush was "putting the politics of his narrow ideology ahead of saving lives," had decided that curing diseases "was not as important as catering to his right-wing base," vetoed the bill "with the health and hope of millions of Americans hanging in the balance," and said "our best scientists continue to work with one hand tied behind their back-" when you have said those kind of nutty things and you have the kind of investment like they did politically and ideologically, I guess you have to say the things Goodman said hoping that someone will believe you.
But then again, when you say stuff like this and risk everything on it for so long, maybe you come to believe it. Whatever her reasons, it's one of the most pathetic statement from someone who should be obligated to know better.
I think some people are frantic at the thought that one more reason to dehumanize people before you can see them and thus keep abortion legal is gone, and that the legality of abortion itself is on rocky ground.
I hope they're right.
Laura, I think that too, though I've tried to be like SHS and divorce the two and not think about it.
I wonder if stories like the ASC story here will make it through the blockade, not (just) because there are so many of them and they no longer can be denied, but (also) because the importance of ESCs and ESCR may be deflated by the new iPS discovery/technique. The suppression of these stories were ideological and political as well as financial. The ideological reasons for supressing ASC and non ESC stem cell discoveries may be gone now. There's little to defend. If there's no more ESCR and cloning to protect and to be used as a political weapon, then there's little reason to suppress stories like this. I'm hoping the iPS find is going to be like the collapse of the Berlin Wall. I suspect though that just as people who opposed the policies that led to its destruction will try to jump on board and say they were part of it too. I know this is far from over, but I think there's been a huge breach with iPSs.
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