Adult stem-cell research sees another success

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow -

Chinese scientists are producing live mice from adult stem cells, and experts call it an exciting discovery.
It represents another breakthrough for adult stem-cell research, according to Ben Kinchlow of the Adult Stem Cells Information Coalition.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=625300

When they say ‘stem cell research’…

Sheila Liaugminas

…..first ask ‘which kind?’, to clarify if the topic is embryonic or adult or cord blood (or other) stem cells.
If it’s embryonic research, says bioethics expert Wesley J. Smith, look further into what the ultimate goal of that science actually is.
http://www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/when_they_say_stem_cell_research/

Destroying life for science

Journalist Charles Kraut-hammer quotes Dr. James Thomson, discoverer of embryonic stem cells as saying, "If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, then you have not thought about it enough." I'd add, or there's something wrong with your sense of ethics.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/Destroying+life+science/1719495/story.html

New York May Use Taxpayer Money to Buy Human Eggs

New York's Empire State Stem Cell Board is expected to vote Thursday on a plan that would use state money to pay women for their eggs, which would be used for research. It would make New York the only state to tacitly endorse a cash-for-eggs scheme.
Jennifer Lahl, founder and national director of The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, said called the plan a "twisted sort of logic."
"The egg donation process has well-documented risks associated with the dangerous drugs taken," she said in a statement. "Added to these dangers are the longer-term risks associated with cancers and damage to the donors' future fertility."

http://www.citizenlink.org/CLNews/A000010210.cfm

Texans rally support for adult stem-cell research

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

The Texas legislature is working on a bill that could make it a leader in research using adult stem cells, rather than research that involves killing human embryos.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=538298

Skepticism over announced embryonic stem-cell 'cure'

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

British scientists want to begin experiments using stem cells from human embryos who are then killed to treat a serious eye problem.

The process would be used to treat macular degeneration, a common cause of blindness among older people. According to a Times report in London, the team of British researchers have demonstrated that stem cells can prevent blindness in rats with a similar disease, and also successfully tested elements of the technology in pigs.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=501262

'Poor science' undergirds new stem-cell regs

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

The Obama administration has announced new guidelines for government-sponsored embryonic stem-cell research.

The guidelines, issued by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), stop short of permitting scientists to create human embryos for research or pursuing techniques for cloning, but they do open the door for greatly expanding research involving human embryos. Critics argue the proposed regulations ignore gains made in adult stem-cell research, and create an incentive to "cannibalize" embryos from couples who do not wish to have any more children.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=496888

More on Embryonic Stem Cells (For the not-so-dummies)

E. Christian Brugger, Ph.D., Senior Fellow in Ethics

Because of heightened interest in my last piece, Stem Cells for Dummies, I decided to pursue further questions pertaining to scientific interest in embryonic stem cells (ESCs).

Pluripotent stem cells: elixirs of lifeRecall we said that ESCs possess the quality of pluripotency, that is, the ability to develop themselves from an undifferentiated cellular state into most any differentiated cell type in the human body. This wide-ranging capacity for differentiation—this pluripotency—is the coveted property of ESCs. Defenders of the research dream of a day when the powers of ES cell pluripotency have been fully harnessed. They reason: since degenerative diseases (such as Parkinson’s, Leukemia, Alzheimer’s, cardiac, liver and kidney disease, Lou Gering’s Disease … you name it) are caused by various kinds of tissue failure; if we can just control the regeneration of tissue by controlling the differentiation mechanisms of ESCs, we can definitively conquer degenerative disease! The lame shall walk, the blind shall see, and all sick persons know the good news. But we need embryos, lots of embryos.

http://culture-of-life.org//content/view/554/1/

Trickery alleged among ESCR proponents

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

The National Right to Life Committee is warning members of the House that they believe there's a bait-and-switch operation in the works.

Douglas Johnson, spokesperson for the National Right to Life Committee, tells OneNewsNow that for years the advocates of embryonic stem-cell research have been giving assurances to the public that they only want to use the so-called "leftover" human embryos for infertile couples that are no longer needed. However, he disagrees.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=477038

Good video clip on Stem Cells with Oprah, Dr. Oz, Michael J Fox

http://www.oprah.com/media/20090319-tows-dr-oz-brain

The Big One

Sheila Liaugminas
No, not the California earthquake.
The one on the deniers-of-life landscape. The shock waves are being felt far and wide.
Within the last month, former president Bill Clinton has done two jaw-dropping interviews at CNN on the subject of embryonic stem-cell research — one with Larry King and one with Sanjay Gupta — that indicate a stunning level of confusion on the basic biological facts of what an embryo is, what stem cells are, what “fertilization” in reproductive biology refers to, and even what can be fertilized or used to fertilize something.

http://www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/the_big_one/

Adult stem-cell use proves successful again

Charlie Butts and Marty Cooper - OneNewsNow

UCLA researchers report a major breakthrough using adult stem cells to treat Parkinson's disease.

LifeNews.com reports the results were published in the February issue of the Bentham Open Stem Cell Journal. Dr. David Prentice, a fellow with the Family Research Council, says the research features only one patient.

Continue...

Another medical breakthrough with adult stem cells

Bristol University scientists in England have created a living bandage from adult stem cells that will be used to heal common sports injuries. Dr. David Stevens of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA) says knee injuries have, until now, been limited to surgical treatments such as removal of torn tissue and transplantation. However, he believes this new medical success could make knee and hip replacements obsolete.

"What they're doing with this living bandage is actually creating a collagen framework, putting adult stem cells from the bone marrow directly on that and using it as a patch in the leg, in the knee joint," Stevens explains. "And what happens is that it grows in and heals a tear that usually is unhealable in many patients."

He adds that researchers have made discovery after discovery for successfully treating illness through adult stem-cell therapies, even at a time when doors are getting ready to open for federal funding of research on human embryos, which are tiny human beings. "

And once again we're reminded that real cures for real people are going to come not through embryonic stem-cell research, which has been very difficult to move forward, but through using the ethical [use of] adult stem cells, which all of us have in our own bodies," the Christian physician concludes.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=335068

Adult Stem Cells and Arthritis

Researchers have discovered that stem cells within a person's own body have the potential to offer relief from arthritis:

Scientists at Cardiff University have successfully identified stem cells within articular cartilage of adults, which although it cannot become any cell in the body like full stem cells, has the ability to derive into chondrocytes - the cells that make up the body's cartilage -- in high enough numbers to make treatment a realistic possibility. The team have even been able to identify the cells in people over 75 years of age.

No babies were killed in the creation of this cartilage.