Comments on: What Bush Got Wrong on Stem Cells

By: niepłodność

niepłodność — Thu, 26 May 2011 12:50:52 +0000

Incredible… I wonder how this thing will work with in vitro methods.

By: IVF Clinic India

IVF Clinic India — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:00:13 +0000

Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!

By: Seven Years of Shackled Stem Cell Science « Clashing Culture

Seven Years of Shackled Stem Cell Science « Clashing Culture — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 01:30:58 +0000

[...] that the policy was founded on some (other than his own) good ethical grounding. As one of my stem cell researching colleagues recently reminded me, this policy overlooked what should be the basic objection to hESC research in [...]

By: Jonathan Golob

Jonathan Golob — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 18:26:34 +0000

Angsuman,

I agree with you that from a patient seeking therapy point of view, Bush’s entire policy was incredibly callous. Isn’t it intriguing that even from a social conservative’s point of view–someone who really believes life starts at fertilization of the egg–the policy is also a failure?

By: Angsuman Chakraborty

Angsuman Chakraborty — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 10:08:19 +0000

I agree with you that Bush got wrong on stem cell research but for entirely different reasons. I think Bush’s policy pushed back embryonic stem cell research in US by decades. People desperately looking for stem cell therapy are now forced to seek treatment in far off countries like China and India, simply because Bush and his conservative zealots don’t care about the human life, about diseased and suffering millions in US and worldwide. People who have suffered like Christopher Reeves understand the value of stem cell research and ESC. Unless you suffer or better yet watch your near and dear ones suffer and die, most conservatives wouldn’t understand the importance of ESC research. ESC hold the promise to literally cure any disease. I think the pro-life arguments like potentiality arguments are baseless drivel when millions of embryos are destroyed anyway every year in US, not to mention sperms.
Religious interference in US is pushing back real science as it did in the pre-renaissance era (Giordano Bruno etc.).

By: kevin

kevin — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:22:53 +0000

Just imagine if democratic was in power, then many of disease would be able to be treated by stem cells such diabetes , Alzheimer and many others.

By: Fran Heiser

Fran Heiser — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:13:52 +0000

It appears this administration has an attitude of ‘keep them sick to sell more pills”, obviously to repay the big pharmaceutical companies for their huge monetary support of the election processes.
Why am I bitter?? My husband was in need of stem cell therapy to keep him alive as he suffered for years with a weakened enlarged heart. The demand from Americans is so great he could not get scheduled OUT OF THE COUNTRY, until March 4 of this year but his poor heart gave out while waiting. There should have been no controversy as the procedure he was to have had was entirely with the use of his own blood, no embryos, just take your blood, ship it to lab in Israel to incubate and enhance cells, return it to patient a week later, for heart via catherization. Success rate proven at 78%. What happens to the other 22%? Nothing, they don’t get worse and there is no rejection as this is the patients own blood, nothing foreign.
I hate that I have to be all alone now and my best friend for 40 years wasn’t given the chance he deserved. He was a 22 year Viet Nam disabled veteran who loved his country. If he was here to ask now, he might not be such a gung ho proud American now. I love our country but literally hate the direction and downward spiral it has taken.

By: flamingbanjo

flamingbanjo — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:11:58 +0000

Emblematic, indeed. It successfully encapsulates all the maddening planks on the neocon platform, several of which you touch on (contempt for reason, empty moral posturing absent any consistent ethical argument), and a few you missed. For instance, the mania for privatization: As you mention, rulings like this put private researchers at an enormous advantage. While the position "do what you want, but not with our dollars" may seem ethically inconsistent, it is perfectly consistent with the Grover Norquist era where governmental oversight is replaced by "market forces." If private research yields treatments that only the very wealthy can afford, hey that's just the magic of the marketplace, right? At least Dick Cheney will be able to afford life-extending gene therapy. The glaring ethical contradiction of declaring stem-cell research to be murder only after a certain date and only if it's publicly funded is perfectly consistent with the reality of abortion laws for the wealthy: If it's your mistress or your daughter who needs an abortion, time for a little European vacation! The wealthy have always maintained this option for themselves, even while simultaneously decrying abortion as murder in public. And, for those truly opposed to abortion, there's always the Strom Thurmond option, where you pay the mother some hush money to keep quiet about your indiscretions. Needless to say, these are not options available to anybody but the most privileged. Opposition to stem cell research is just a natural extension of the post-Reagan Republican platform of pandering to evangelicals in order to get poor people to vote against their economic interests. The only silver lining is many of those who have the luxury of opposing abortion because they don't see it as their problem (this encompasses the aged and those without uteruses as well as a whole host of people who are in some profound state of denial) stand to benefit from stem cell research. Some of the most prominent voices in favor of stem cell research are older conservatives who suddenly realize that it might actually extend their lives or the lives of their loved ones. It's amazing how a personal stake in outcomes leads to such epiphanies.