US Stem Cells Contaminated

Croaking Toad writes "According to The Register, US-based scientists using stem cells has hit a brick wall. The stem cells apparently have been contaminated for quite a while with animal proteins rendering them useless in the treatment of human illnesses. New stem cell harvesting was outlawed in the USA by a 2001 Executive Order from President Bush." To be precise, stem cell harvesting wasn't outlawed; the usage of federal funding was outlawed. Several states and research institutions have been using their own money to undertake research. The AP coverage is up as well. Update: 01/24 19:40 GMT by J : Carl Zimmer has a fascinating description of the sugars we humans lack that contaminated the stem cell lines. What a curious genetic heritage we have...

"New stem cell harvesting was outlawed in the USA"

[by Anonymous Coward]

That's not true. Federal funding for harvesting embryonic stem cells was cut off. Huge difference.

Re:"New stem cell harvesting was outlawed in the U

[odyrithm (461343)]

"As a result of private research, more than 60 genetically diverse stem cell lines already exist" I have concluded that we should allow federal funds to be used for research on these existing stem cell lines " where the life and death decision has already been made", This allows us to explore the promise and potential of stem cell research" without crossing a fundamental moral line by providing taxpayer funding that would sanction or encourage further destruction of human embryos that have at least the potential for life."
-- George W. Bush

Just thought I'd help back up the parent there.

Re:"New stem cell harvesting was outlawed in the U

[Valegor (693552)]

Bush was the first President to fund stem cell research at all so those saying that he cut funding are not accurate either.

Re:"New stem cell harvesting was outlawed in the U

[jayhawk88 (160512)]

Which is itself a bit of a misleading statement, as stem cell research is a very recent thing. It would be like saying "President Britany Spears III was the first president to fund time travel research" in the year 2145.

oh geez

[AviLazar (741826)]

thank God, Allah, Buddah, Abraham, the Latter Day Saints, Harry Krishnah, and even Brian Boytano i'll be dead by then.

Re:oh geez

[iamacat (583406)]

Come on, that's one case where it's not going to help. They'll just come back to when you still living.

Re:"New stem cell harvesting was outlawed in the U

[LordNimon (85072)]

Did the Clinton administration receive any requests to fund stem cell research? If it didn't, then your point is meaningless. Maybe stem cell research didn't really exist before Bush became president?

Re:"New stem cell harvesting was outlawed in the U

[Rei (128717)]

Not really true.

The ban (in place since 1995) was pushed through as a rider on an appropriation bill by the GOP. NIH sought help from HHS on how the ban applied; in 1999, HHS responded that research on stem cells can be funded by NIH (public funds) so long as the stem cells themselves were produced via private funds. In short, so long as government funds weren't used for the first step, any ethical research could be conducted. Government funds *were* going into research on these cells, just not at the creation stage.

However, under the Bush guidelines, this is changed. If the stem cells are not part of the original "64" lines (not really 64 lines, but that's beside the point), no government funding can go into research involving them. So, apart from the fact that it doesn't change the fact that government funds couldn't be used for the creation of stem cell lines, it bans research on any line that hasn't already been created - in short, making it a more restrictive policy, not less.

Here's some details about the history of the lines and their current status:

AAAS Policy Brief: Stem Cell Research [aaas.org]

It also explains why there is animal contamination.

Re:"New stem cell harvesting was outlawed in the U

[AK Marc (707885)]

Bush was the first President to fund stem cell research at all so those saying that he cut funding are not accurate either.

That is a campaign speech lie. He was not the first president to fund stem cell research. Under previous presidents, stem cell research was undertaken with federal funds for that purpose. However, to prevent controversy, they projects were labled "paralysis research" or such.

So, Bush was *not* the first president to fund stem cell research. He was the first to say that it was ok to call stem cell research "stem cell research" on the grant application.

Re:"New stem cell harvesting was outlawed in the U

[TGK (262438)]

"The potential of embryonic stem cells became apparent in the late 1990s, and in 2000 the National Institutes of Health announced that it would fund stem-cell research as long as the actual extraction of cells from embryos was done by someone else. President Clinton strongly supported this policy." [Source [msn.com]]

And if you think Slate is too liberal a source to trust on this, here's a venom spitting concervitive to back me up.

"the feds are not going to actually get involved -- will not spend appropriated funds -- until after the pluripotent stem cells have been already recovered from the process." [Source [worldnetdaily.com]]

I think we can safely take the above paragraph to indicate that Clinton approved the use of federal funds to research embryonic stem cells, though did not approve said funds to actualy extract the cells.

Anything else you need me to prove?

Where's the logic ???

[Dave21212 (256924)]

I've seen about a hundred posts arguing about why or why not the research is something that is equivalent to killing babies, and as many arguing the federal research ban only stops institutions asking for money for the research...

First, to get it out of the way, the "ban" is not a law against research, but a funding rule that is implemented such that any facility receiving federal dollars (every public hospital, college, reasearch center, ~99.9% of the US research facilities) is barred from conducting the research on new lines. If you get federal dollars for anything at the facility, you can't do the research, period.


Now, the type of stem-cell reseach being debated uses discarded eggs from In-Vitro Fertilization [babycentre.co.uk]. Regarding the radical right religious regime's belief that a Day 5 blastocyst is a person, complete with a soul, etc... Sure, if they want to 'believe' this, they can. The problem arises when they try to selectively (read: politically) apply laws to support their religious beliefs.

Apparently, many people (including a bunch of folks here on /.) believe that stem-cell research is a crime because babies get killed in the process. Here's a news-flash, as part of any IVF cycle, there are some fertilized eggs that are implanted, and some that are not. The extras are either put into cryo, or more often simply destroyed. (Some of those are donated to test the nutrient medium that's used - basically if they don't survive, that batch of medium is bad, if they do survive they are discarded anyway). To give you an example, during an IVF cycle, there might be 17 eggs retrieved, of them 16 fertilize, of them 12 make it to day 3, then of them only 2-3 are implanted (the other 9-10 go to Day-5 then get destroyed). Instead of being forced to destroy them, people should have the freedom to donate them to stem-cell research if their beliefs allow.

So, shouldn't the radical right religious regime be even more adamantly against IVF ? While a handful of cells used in research seems to get them in a panic, they ignore the simple fact that thousands of fertilized eggs are destroyed every month as part of normal IVF treatments. Why aren't they calling for the elimination of fertility clinics ? Are these couples who pursue IVF mass-murders ?

Where's the logic here ? If stem-cell research should be banned because allowing a Day-5 blast to arrest is killing a baby, why do they not have any issue with, or even debate over the effects of the IVF treatments where the stem-cells for this research are obtained ?

Correction:

[Meostro (788797)]

"...any researcher who touches them can kiss his [Federal] funding good bye."

Very important distinction.

criminal purposes

[Doc Ruby (173196)]

Whose purpose? The "purpose" of sex is to make a baby, so rubbers are illegal? All those living, human sperm cells (and that lonely egg cell), doomed to death when they were faithfully obeying their purpose. The purpose of marriage is to make a baby, so childless couples are criminals - divorce is a crime, girls who don't put out on dates where my purpose is to get laid are criminals.

Re:"New stem cell harvesting was outlawed in the U

[Seoulstriker (748895)]

You forgot another important word: human.

The research beginning first on humans simultaneously with animal embryonic stem cells is the first time that I can recall in medical research. The normal research process has animal testing prior to human testing. The idea is that we should invest in learning how the cells are able to differentiate and how the lab can use the process to an advantage in animals. Only after this has been turned into a political issue has the reearch process reversed from animal testing first to human testing first.

MOD PARENT UP! Animal embryonic stem cells funded

[Seoulstriker (748895)]

Animal embryonic stem cells are well funded by the US government. Mod parent insightful!

Re:"New stem cell harvesting was outlawed in the U

[Phat_Tony (661117)]

Yes, as everyone points out over and over, Bush opponents regularly blow this totally out of proportion- it's not a "ban," stem cell research is not "illegal." This is simply a restriction on using Federal Government funding to support research that develops new lines of human, embryonic stem cells, and all four of those items in italics greatly reduce the impact of Bush's executive order compared to what is often claimed.

Never the less, the executive order in question is reprehensible. Bush is using tenuous, illogical, religious grounds to justify denying a large category of funding to a promising area of scientific inquiry. Hundreds of potential stem cell lines for research are being destroyed daily from aborted fetuses. If Bush is in favor of destroying existing resources (human tissues) instead of using them to advance science and save lives, why not ban organ donation? Does anything in the bible say "thou shalt not help fund researching [new, human, embryonic] stem cells if thou art the [federal] government?" If this research is immoral, why only ban government funding, as opposed to all funding, or the research itself? If this is about abortion, why not oppose abortion, rather than research? Can anyone make sense of this policy? It scares me, not in how sweeping the effects are, but because The President, the "Leader of the Free World," is using executive orders [64.233.161.104] to dictate where scientific research funding goes based on personal, nonsensical, unpopular religious motives.

I think the rest of government should do what the Pentagon [wpda.org] does, and ignore it. There's no basis in law for "executive orders" anyway. I doubt any president would allow a case based on violating an executive order to go to court, in case the Supreme Court ruled that Executive orders don't exist. Chances are, Bush can't do anything but get grumpy if the whole Federal Government simply ignores his ban.

Re:"New stem cell harvesting was outlawed in the U

[Jeremy Erwin (2054)]

The embryonic stem cells have certain desirable biological characteristics, such as pluripotency. In practice, it's somewhat difficult to separate non-federal funding from federal financing. E.g, previous federal grants may have been used to build and equip a laboratory, necessitating the building of separate, redundant facilities.

Re:"New stem cell harvesting was outlawed in the U

[monkeydo (173558)]

The NIH stem cell funding FAQ [nih.gov] might help you out with some of your misconceptions. Past funding is of no consequence. The prohibition only applies to current funding.

Q: I am an investigator who receives NIH funding, and I am planning to derive new human embryonic stem cell lines. Can I conduct the derivations in my laboratory, or do I need to find a non-university-funded laboratory to do this work?

A: You may do the derivation in your university laboratory as long as: 1) you carefully and consistently charge all direct costs of doing the derivation to a non-federal funding source and 2) your university or research center has in place a method of allocating the costs of supporting your laboratory so that this activity's appropriate facilities and administrative (F&A) costs are charged to non-federal accounts.

That's correct

[FreeUser (11483)]

That's not true. Federal funding for harvesting embryonic stem cells was cut off.

That's correct, but also misleading. The executive order banned embryonic stell-cell research by any organization, group, or researcher receiving federal funding.

Not federal funding for stem-cell research. Federal funding for any research, related or not. Nearly every research organization in the country receives federal funding in one form or another. If the lab across campus doing physics has a federal grant, you can't do embryonic stem-cell research (except using the existing, contaminated lines).

The effect is the same as outlawing stem-cell research for 99.9% of all research facilities, a fact the fundies and Republican apologists like to play down or dismiss entirely. However, it doesn't make distortions like those in the summary any less obnoxious or inaccurate. There is at least one entirely privately funded research facility in California that is doing embryonic stem-cell research, our superstitious, less-than-intelligent, ever-so-less-than-competent president notwithstanding.

Re:"New stem cell harvesting was outlawed in the U

[Ralph Wiggam (22354)]

It's amazing how many people believe that stem cells come from abortions. The religious right does an amazing job of spreading bad information and nobody ever promotes correct information with as much zeal or money.

Stems cells are very much "byproducts from fertility clinics". When married couples pay for in-vitro fertilization, the clinics fertilize many eggs in a lab. After a certain ammount of time, the healthiest embryos are chosen and implanted. The rest of the embryos are destroyed as medical waste. That's it. No abortions. Those embroys were never destined to be born. Why not help people with them?

-B

So the Religious Right is Humpty Dumpty?

[Engineer-Poet (795260)]

The religious right position on life is that life begins at conception (when a sperm and egg unite). Under this definition, any embryo destroyed is most certainly an abortion.

Funny, in biology abortion is defined as the termination of a pregnancy. There are spontaneous abortions (miscarriages) and induced abortions. Induced abortions may be classified as therapeutic, elective or criminal.

A zygote in a Petri dish is not part of a pregnancy. Without a pregnancy, you cannot have an abortion. It's patently obvious that the attempt to classify the discarding of unused IVF zygotes as "abortions" has nothing to do with the facts, and everything to do with political posturing to an ignorant public. This resembles Humpty Dumpty redefining "glory" to suit his whim of the moment; it debases the very purpose of language, which depends on agreed-upon meanings.

you are equally misinformed.

I could get rich mining irony ore here.

This is the crux of the entire stem cell issue (from the religious right standpoint), and I'm amazed you don't understand this concept, yet choose to talk about this issue as if you are well informed.

If you mean that it's an issue (and a problem) that a large part of the American public is taking a highly-emotional political position based on what amounts to a large number of partial truths and outright falsehoods, then you begin to understand. Your problem is that the facts are opposite the stance you appear to be backing.

Re:Aborted Fetuses = Murdered Children

[phyruxus (72649)]

>>I mean, the Germans during the holocaust had no idea what they were doing was terrible.

Not true. Some Germans cared, some didn't. To say that no Germans thought that mass murder was wrong is simply wrong.

>>The slaveowners actually thought they were doing a service by beating their slaves and forcing them to labor.

Only those who believed their own lies. Just because you keep up a front doesn't make it the truth.

What I find most ridiculous is that the same group of people who said that a black man is less than a white man and that kidnapping and enslaving africans was the "white man's burden" are the same group who pretend that they are the worlds single moral authority, and claim that as the basis for everything they are for. Infanticide has a longer history than civilization. Longer than our species. As far as opinions go, mine is that the fetus isn't a child until there's brain activity. None of this "potential" tripe that so many people bandy about. Until then it's just a lump of flesh.

You want to rail against "child murder"? How about the foetal deaths caused by pollution? How about all those dead kids in Iraq? Conservatives have no moral authority because they have continuously contradicted themselves.

If murder is murder, why have a death penalty? Why start preemptive wars? Political convenience, that's why. It's all a lie.

Re:Aborted Fetuses = Murdered Children

[WIAKywbfatw (307557)]

That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. I guess it makes you feel superior to those on the other side of the debate by defining a pregnancy, even one in its embryonic stage as equal to a fully-formed and developed baby regardless of whether or not that pregnancy has developed to the stage where it has a viable chance of life outside the womb.

I find it funny that the same people who are so adamant that abortion is murder are almost always the same people that are opposed to the dissemination of methods of birth control as well as the same people who are quick to make single mothers the scapegoats for all of society's ills.

And what right do you have to tell a pregnant woman, regardless of how her child was conceived, just what exactly she is allowed to do with her own body?

Re:Aborted Fetuses = Murdered Children

[Raunch (191457)]

Abortions are one thing; stem cells are another. Stemcells do not come from abortion; nor do they have anything to do with them. Stem cells are infact harvested when a couple undergoes IVF(in vitro fertilization).

It goes like this:

A couple goes to IVF(in vitro fertilization) clinic; an operation is performed to extract oocytes(unfertilized embryos). These oocytes are all fertilized and then frozen. The (now)embryos are thawed one at a time and incubated. When they have passed a critical point (the stage at which a genetic disease would develop for instance); the embryo is surgically implanted in the female.

The embryos that are unused are very much THROWN AWAY. So all of those activists out there that are attempting to convince you (including the president who said that stem cells crossed a "fundamental moral line by providing taxpayer funding that would sanction or encourage further destruction of human embryos that have at least the potential for life.")

I'm sorry jgardn, but that line gets crossed every time an embryo from an IFV clinic gets thrown away. So your problem is not with stem cells but actially with in vitro fertilization.

Here's a good primer:
http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics3.asp [nih.gov]

A correction.

[analog_line (465182)]

New stem cell harvesting paid for with federal funding was prohibited by the executive order. Private and state funding can still be used for that purpose (like the money that California will be pumping into stem cell research).

Old News

[ackthpt (218170)]

Geez, let's discuss old news, shall we? This was discussed by Kerry during the debates. From The Lantern, Oct 25, 2004 [thelantern.com]

The Kerry/Edwards campaign said there are many reasons to explore the possibilities that come with stem cell research: broad bipartisan support from 58 Senators, fewer cell lines available today than in 2001, cell contamination from mouse cells used to help culture some cell lines, lack of cell availability, dated technology, and the loss of U.S. leadership in the area as scientist go overseas to work.

See ya later, Johnny (1925-2005) and thanks for the memories!

To eliminate some FUD

[Dachannien (617929)]

Since the OP didn't seem to bother reading the executive order:

"Federal funds will only be used for research on existing stem cell lines that were derived: (1) with the informed consent of the donors; (2) from excess embryos created solely for reproductive purposes; and (3) without any financial inducements to the donors. In order to ensure that federal funds are used to support only stem cell research that is scientifically sound, legal, and ethical, the NIH will examine the derivation of all existing stem cell lines and create a registry of those lines that satisfy this criteria. More than 60 existing stem cell lines from genetically diverse populations around the world are expected to be available for federally-funded research.

No federal funds will be used for: (1) the derivation or use of stem cell lines derived from newly destroyed embryos; (2) the creation of any human embryos for research purposes; or (3) the cloning of human embryos for any purpose. Today's decision relates only to the use of federal funds for research on existing stem cell lines derived in accordance with the criteria set forth above."

Harvesting of new stem cell lines is not prohibited - a PI merely cannot continue to expect to receive government funding if s/he does so.

Re:To eliminate some FUD

[stupidfoo (836212)]

And since everyone is claiming that research using these stems sells will cure every known ailment, the major drug companies should be fighting each other to give money to every last researcher.

Oh wait... they're not? And the $4 billion in funding in California was heavily pushed and lobied for by the private research companies who will be getting the funding?

This is not news

[DaHat (247651)]

This is something that was known, albeit not well known at the time of the executive order. Sadly this fact was not very widely publicized at the time and forces me to wonder why it is big news and such a shock now.

This is news?

[Enry (630)]

This was mentioned back in the Presidential debates. Bush said we have X Stem Cell Lines available, while Kerry said that the available lines are contaiminated with mouse DNA and probably other DNA.

Embryonic Stem Cells

[Orne (144925)]

Last I checked, it was still ok to harvest adult stem cells for research.

Oh, and even if you could harvest any embryonic stem cell in the world, you would still have the "transplantation" immune response problems that you see with those contaminated cells; after all, you are taking the DNA of a human (we can argue if that human was ever "alive" later) and implanting it into another "live" human, you better be sure that your significant proteins match [healthgoods.com].

Stem cell harvesting not outlawed.

[Greg@RageNet (39860)]

New stem cell harvesting was outlawed in the USA by a 2001 Executive Order from President Bush.

This is slashdot, with the journalistic integrity of Dan Rather.. I should not have expected any different.

Stem cell harvesting is not illegal, so harvest away. What you can't do accoring to that 2001 executive order is harvest stem cells and expect the government to pay for it. It's like saying Bush outlawed cars because he won't buy you one.

That's fine with me anyway, it's beyond me why the government pays for reasearch that does not go into the public domain. Let pfizer pay for their own research! They don't need my subsidy.

-- Greg

Re:Stem cell harvesting not outlawed.

[DunbarTheInept (764)]

The executive order does not withold funding from the just harvesters of stem cells. It witholds funding from the entire organization that an experiment using those cells is a part of. In other words, if your university's biochemistry department is doing such an experiment, the entire university can lose funding - including, say, the physics projects, the engineering projects, the biology projects, the chemistry projects, etc. By making that "viral" association, it makes it so that organizations doing this kind of research cannot be part of any larger group. It messes up more groups than just those that people think it does.

Cordblood,

[orion41us (707362)]

Everyone seems to forget that embryos are not the only sorce of stem cells.... bood from the ambylical cord contain stem cells, these cells are already being harvestead and used to treat spinal cord injuries.... as posted in this Slashdot Artical [slashdot.org].

Contaminated?

[by Anonymous Coward]

From The Corner [nationalreview.com]:

Well, fundamentally it's an effort to make an argument for new stem cell lines, by undermining the viability of all the existing lines, including those federally funded. There's not much new to it, except now it's dressed up in a "new" study, when everyone has always known that these lines (not just the Bush-approved ones, but almost all ES cell lines developed past a certain stage) were developed with so-called mouse feeder cells. To call this "contamination" is simply dishonest. A good number of cell products used in humans are developed with feeder cells from animals, and some of these (not embryonic cells, but other cell products) have been successfully developed into medical treatments in the past.

A couple of key points. First, it is not true that all the Bush-approved lines were developed with these mouse feeder cells. There are sixteen lines (not counted in the LA Times's "20 or so" available lines) that have been frozen in an early state, so as to wait for better cell development techniques. These have never been exposed to mouse feeder cells or any other cells, they are frozen and could be used if these folks had a better method to suggest.

Second, the FDA has a lot of experience dealing with cell products (again, not embryonic stem cell, but others) developed with such animal cells. Then-administrator of the FDA Mark McClellan, in testimony before [the president's bioethics council] in September of 2003 [found here] was asked about the mouse feeder layer issue in embryonic stem cells, and he replied: "We've certainly had experience, successful experience, in thousands of patients in documenting the safety of cells that have been exposed to animal feeder cells, mouse feeder cells, and the like."

This new study strikes me as a partially dishonest repackaging of old worries in an effort to put new pressure on the Bush administration's funding policy. The trouble with it, as with all similar efforts by the researchers, is that the policy is based on a moral conviction, not a scientific assessment. Even if what they are saying were correct, it doesn't change the moral problem with embryonic stem cell research, and so will not change the policy. And from what I can see, it isn't correct either.

Par for the course, alas. What a course!

This puts an end to some brain-drain

[Larsie (740598)]

The Belgian scientist, Catherine Verfaillie, who was leading the Stem-cell research department of the University of Minnesota is coming back to Belgium because of the whole anti-stem cell research climate in the US and because it is becoming harder and harder to find appropriate funding. If this kind of thing goes on, the US will quickly lose its leading position in some kinds of research. And I think that another four years of Bush might quickly accelerate this trend.

Probably offtopic, but very newsworthy IMHO...

[Lisandro (799651)]

...some Argentinian doctors are working [ipsnews.net] on a diabetes treatment [blogicus.com] using adult stem cells (from the same patient) injected in the pancreas. Apparently a test patient pancreas' subjected to the procedure, which is said to be fairly simple, started to produce insulin again.

I submitted this twice and for some reason it wasn't accepted. Not that i'm holding a grudge, but i have diabetic friends and this is major news for me, and perhaps could change some people minds' about stem cell research (not embryonic stem cell research though, which is a more delicate subject).

Why The War Over Stem Cells

[Effugas (2378)]

It really comes down to this: "Imagine if abortion saved lives."

There's an astonishing report out of China; it can be read here [guardian.co.uk]. (The story, already quite poignant, is made even more so by the realization that the author is himself tetraplegic and is considering the procedure himself.) Essentially, the Chinese have already abandoned stem cells, and have moved onto nasal cells from four month old fetuses. They're working. Read this:

His patients - foreign and Chinese - and their families appear to adore him, and to accept what he does with foetuses. Huang has already operated on 500 people. Every month, at least a dozen more fly in. He gets hundreds of new inquiries a week and his waiting list for foreigners now stretches until next December. So many Chinese patients have asked for treatment that he says he could be busy for 10 years, even though he has trained at least five other doctors in the procedure.

"We need 100 more Dr Huangs," says Laura Jackson's father Daryl. "And we need more cells. It's a different government over here. They have to trim the population. There are 15 to 20 million abortions in China a year. If everyone who was aborted could save a life, there would be no sick people left in the world." Golden's Christian wife, Debbie, also sees Huang as an idealist - particularly in comparison to the US doctors who charged her husband almost $1m, but were able only to make him more comfortable in his wheelchair.

"In the US it's totally about money, but China is more ethical," she says. "They work harder. I'm American, so that is very hard to say.

"I don't agree with abortion, but it will happen anyway. In the US, we do abortions but don't use the cells. In China, they don't just take life and destroy it - they give something back. It's like lemonade out of lemons. You take something bad and you make it good." Such reasoning requires a moral somersault, but it is one that can be done easily in China. That is enough to generate hope.

Self-preservation is the strongest instinct, and morality will inexorably be rewritten to allow whatever is required to survive. This is ultimately what will end the abortion wars, and pro-lifers are horrified at this (likely) endgame.

Re:Why The War Over Stem Cells

[ericzundel (524648)]

Dr Huang is pretty famous, and famously evasive about following up on patients that have gone through his procedures. MIT's Technology Review has a subscribers-only article [slashdot.org] about Dr Huang. Basically, the criticism is that he is providing a theraputic procedure that has not really been studied, and he refuses to study the long term results. Although his techniques may have benefits, this is not regarded as the best that stem cell research has to offer.

Re:Why didn't you mention...

[Effugas (2378)]

First of all, embryonic.

Secondly, don't believe the hype. One of the things we learned from Dolly (the cloned sheep) is that adult cells are quite different than fetal cells -- the loss of telomeres creates significant problems with aging and long term survival. We don't know entirely how stem cells are going to work; from the article, the Chinese have already abandoned them in favor of nasal cells from four month old fetuses. (In a counterpoint, I've read there are attempts to harvest the same cells from adults. It might work.)

Fundamentally, we don't really know what cures we're going to get out of stem cells. But this isn't an argument about whether they'll work or not; like you say, it's an argument about whether it's right to take the cells from fetuses. What I'm saying is that if a cure is found, the ethics will be rewritten, because while a fetus might be human, a six year old child and a seventy two year old grandfather definitely are.

So that's the fight. That's why you started by insisting that embryonic cells are useless. That's why the non-embryonic studies are getting funded so richly. Your only hope really is that the non-embryonic cures will be so fantastically effective that embryo-harvesting approaches won't be able to keep up. This is imaginable -- reimplanting one's own stem cells neatly avoids all sorts of rejection issues -- but it's not likely.

Jackelope

[bombadillo (706765)]

I see this as an interesting prospect. If we mix JackRabbit with Antelope stem cells we may finally have the fabeled "Jackelope"! No longer will we have to resort to glueing horns onto a stuffed rabbit!

logic ?

[Jodka (520060)]

I have absolutely no moral or ethical objections to harvesting stem cells. I don't consider undiferentiated cells to be " a human life". I also have a close family member who has Parkinsons disease. I am strongly-pro stem cell reasearch.

But I take issue with Dr Ajit Varki foisting fake science on the public.

from The Register:

"The human embryonic stem cells remained contaminated by Neu5Gc even when grown in special culture conditions with commercially available serum replacements, apparently because these are also derived from animal products.

The argument for the necessity of harvesting new human stem cells goes like this:

Having established that culturing stem cells in a serum replacment derived from animal products contaminates the cells with Neu5Gc, scientists attempt to rid existing cell lines of Neu5Gc by culturing them in serum replacement derived from animal products. This fails to rid the stem cells of Neu5Gc. Therefore, they conclue that existing cell lines can not be rid of Neu5Gc by growing them in a in serum not derived from animal products. It is therefore necessary to harvest new cell lines and grow them in culture not derived from animal products.

Try growing existing cell lines in serum not derived from animals and see if that rids them Neu5Gc. Then get back to us.

So, logically... If... she.. weighs the same as a duck, she's made of wood!

Same thing, different century.

Where is the logic in the argument ?

[Dave21212 (256924)]

I've seen about a hundred posts arguing about why or why not the research is something that is equivalent to killing babies, and as many arguing the federal research ban only stops institutions asking for money for the research...

First, to get it out of the way, the "ban" is not a law against research, but a funding rule that is implemented such that any facility receiving federal dollars (every public hospital, college, research center, ~99.9% of the US research facilities) is barred from conducting the research on new lines. If you get federal dollars for anything at the facility, you can't do the research, period.


Now, the type of stem-cell research being debated uses discarded eggs from In-Vitro Fertilization [babycentre.co.uk]. Regarding the radical right religious regime's belief that a Day 5 blastocyst is a person, complete with a soul, etc... Sure, if they want to 'believe' this, they can. The problem arises when they try to selectively (read: politically) apply laws to support their religious beliefs.

Apparently, many people (including a bunch of folks here on /.) believe that stem-cell research is a crime because babies get killed in the process. Here's a news-flash, as part of any IVF cycle, there are some fertilized eggs that are implanted, and some that are not. The extras are either put into cryo, or more often simply destroyed. (Some of those are donated to test the nutrient medium that's used - basically if they don't survive, that batch of medium is bad, if they do survive they are discarded). To give you an example, during an IVF cycle, there might be 17 eggs retrieved, of them 16 fertilize, of them 12 make it to day 3, then of them only 2-3 are implanted (the other 9-10 go to Day-5 then get destroyed). Instead of being forced to destroy them, people should have the freedom to donate them to stem-cell research if their beliefs allow.

So, shouldn't the radical right religious regime be even more adamantly against IVF ? While a handful of cells used in research seems to get them in a panic, they ignore the simple fact that thousands of fertilized eggs are destroyed every month as part of normal IVF treatments. Why aren't they calling for the elimination of fertility clinics ? Are these couples who pursue IVF mass-murderers ?

Where's the logic here ? If stem-cell research should be banned because allowing a Day-5 blast to arrest is killing a baby, why do they not have any issue with, or even debate over the actual IVF treatments where the stem-cells for this research are obtained ?

To me, there is no logic, it's just politics, plain and simple. The radicals pushing for the "ban" don't really respect life so much, they do respect power and influence and seem to want to use it to force themselves on others.


p.s. If you have questions or want more facts on IVF, please feel free to ask me and I'll try to point you to some answers.

Re:Private shops can continue as they see fit

[drgreg911 (741844)]

Most research along those lines is done in labs that are, at least in part, federally funded. Might not stop new lines from popping up entirely, but it certainly makes things very difficult.

Re:Private shops can continue as they see fit

[ivan256 (17499)]

That makes this decision all the better. The current system that allows private companies to profit from research funded with federal grant money is broken. We should stop all such funding until the government gets royalties on discoveries made on it's dime, or until a compulsory license is issued for all patents on inventions discovered using public dollars.

Re:ahem...

[Aidtopia (667351)]

60 Minutes had a piece several weeks ago about the Howard Hughes Medical Foundation. They provide lots of private funding for medical research. And one of the projects they mentioned was the creation of new embryonic stem cell lines for research.

Re:This is pure FUD

[PIPBoy3000 (619296)]

I wouldn't say it's pure FUD. The "small subset" of experiments you're referring to are the ones relating to human trials. So yes, you could do experiments to look into cell development and such, but the FDA wouldn't approve any procedure that used these cell lines.

RTFA

[Concern (819622)]

The contaminants cause human antibodies to attack the transplanted cells. This has been demonstrated in experiments. All of this was covered in "TFA." This makes them dangerous and probably useless for human beings without some dubious attempts to remove the contaminants. I say dubious because they are unlikely to succeed, and in addition likely only handle the particular contaminations we already know about.

Re:This is pure FUD

[anonicon (215837)]

Pardon me? From the story: [theregister.co.uk]

"The problem is that current stocks have taken up a "non-human molecule called N-glycolylneuraminic acid or Neu5Gc" - probably when they were grown in a lab culture containing animal-derived materials from mice and calf foetuses. Neu5Gc is found on the surface of animal cells, but the human immune system attacks it - the major reason for transplanted animal organ rejection in humans."

But hey, if you say they're fine, they must be fine. After all, you're posting to Slashdot.

Re:Make G. W. Bush's head spin...

[aredubya74 (266988)]

I wonder which lobby would have more influence -- corporate or Christian? Right now, I'd say Christian cause the funding is not there.

You'd very likely be wrong. Bush's tax cuts have plainly delivered tens of billions to rich individuals and corporations already (with the deficit climbing precipitously largely due to these changes). His various regulatory policymakers have made it easier for polluters to pollute and tax cheaters to cheat.

As for policies that would suit the Falwell/Dobson wing of the Chri