U.N. Delays Debate on Cloning 746
hedpe2003 writes "'The General Assembly on Tuesday ducked for a year a polarizing debate over human cloning that has set the Bush administration against some allies like Britain and much of the world's scientific community.
All 191 United Nations members agree on a treaty to prohibit cloning human beings, but they are divided over whether to extend such a ban to stem cell and other research known as therapeutic cloning.
Opponents say total prohibition would block research on cancer, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, spinal cord injuries and other conditions. The White House says that enough stem cells from human embryos exist for research and that cloning an embryo for any reason is unethical.
United States was happy to go along with the one-year consensus but would not alter its stance. 'We will continue to work for a total ban,' he said.'
I was just wondering what everyone thought about this. To tell the truth, I didn't know that the US was pushing so hard to ban stem cell research all together."
Re:cloning a human being is unethical (Score:3, Informative)
Re:wait wait wait... (Score:1, Informative)
Bush administration has been up to this for years (Score:5, Informative)
The present US administration has been attempting to bury stem cell research and therapeutic cloning - both fundamental technologies in regenerative medicine - since it came to power. Therapeutic cloning is essential to many stem cell therapies and much related research. Immense damage has been done. Christopher Reeve and many stem cell scientists (including the founders of the field) believe that the actions of this administration alone have set the field back by 5 years.
Some nasty math works out from here. There is currently an 80% effective stem cell therapy for heart disease that has been demonstrated in the US, Germany and Japan in human trials. It saves lives. 2000 people die EVERY DAY in the US from heart disease, yet the FDA is currently blocking any application of this working therapy. For more, see:
http://www.longevitymeme.org/projects/protest_fda_ interference.cfm [longevitymeme.org]
A stem cell/therapeutic cloning cure for Parkinson's has been demonstrated in mice, as have stem cell cures for nerve damage, diabetes, cancer (yes, a cure for cancer based on stem cells has been demonstrated in mice:
http://www.betterhumans.com/News/news.aspx?article ID=2003-12-10-3 [betterhumans.com]
) and many other conditions. This isn't pie in the sky science! Real, working cures based on stem cell medicine are in the labs, only 5-10 years from being available for us. This is the science that the US administration is trying to drown. It's sickening that any group of human beings would try to enforce so much suffering...
The US house of representatives passed a therapeutic cloning ban last year, but the US senate has been sitting on it. More on that here:
http://www.longevitymeme.org/projects/oppose_the_t herapeutic_cloning_ban.cfm [longevitymeme.org]
The Bush administration basically went over their heads to try and get what they wanted now from the UN, and damn near succeeded. You can read more about that here:
http://www.longevitymeme.org/projects/oppose_globa l_therapeutic_cloning_ban.cfm [longevitymeme.org]
This stopped being about human reproductive cloning a long time ago - there is a large, influential group of organizations, politicians and factions who stand opposed to any medical progress that will lead to longer, healthier lives. If cures for cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes and other things get thrown away as well...well, too bad. You can see these views in their raw, ugly forms in the pronouncements of Leon Kass and the President's Council on Bioethics:
http://www.bioethics.gov [bioethics.gov]
In their view, living healthily for longer is bad. Working to cure suffering is bad. Medical progress is bad.
Time to kick these people out of power - if we don't stand up for our right to develop and use better medicine, we're all going to be paying for it in years to come. See more at:
http://www.longevitymeme.org/projects/ [longevitymeme.org]
Speak out!
Reason
Re:wait wait wait... (Score:5, Informative)
Congratulations. You just managed to be even more stupid than them. No small feat, I reckon.
Embryos are not gathered at abortion clinics (Hell not !). They come from in-vitro fertilization, mostly. When you fertilize eggs in a tube, you end up with more embryos than needed. Excess eggs are often stored in liquid nitrogen. Sometimes these eggs are simply abandoned (because the parents part, or one of them dies, or they simply don't want any more children). These eggs are stem cells (indeed a "real" stem cell is equivalent to an egg). Bush & Co. say that they should be the only source for stem cells.
Their opposition to human cloning, including for stem cell research, has the same origin as their opposition to abortion: they consider eggs and embryos as living, human beings.
Thomas Miconi
US has denied nanotech funding too (Score:5, Informative)
A few weeks ago, the US effectively denied government funding of nanotechnology despite its public position of wishing to support it. The funding initiative (NNI) which was set up expressly to fund US research into nanotechnology was hijacked by US big business interests through a hilarious or appalling (depends on your point of view) technicality which resulted in nil dollars going to molecular nanotechnology. Yes, nil.
This sleight of hand was performed by first defining nanotechnology as being the application of nanoscience, and then positioning the huge US presence in chemical, biotech and materials sciences as already operating in nanoscience. As a result, 100% of NNI funds were allocated to those megacorps, and zero dollars to the small and powerless sector that currently does the real research into molecular nanotechnology.
It makes you wonder what the hell is happening in the US when such key research areas are blocked through government being concerned entirely with the protection of big business's current interests instead of being allowed to plan for the country's future.
Re:wait wait wait... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:wait wait wait... (Score:5, Informative)
Smart move .... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:It's not the US, it's the BUSH administration (Score:2, Informative)
CBS [cbsnews.com]
And for you Canadians
CTV [www.ctv.ca]
Re:Bush administration has been up to this for yea (Score:2, Informative)
True, you can produce stem cells without cloning. However, as far as I know of the research, there are no known means for making general-purpose stem cells (IE, that could become either nerve, heart, or any other kind of cells) identical to Person X without making a clone of person X and harvesting it at around 1000 cells.
And while Bush has not outlawed embryonic stem cell research, he has banned the production of new stem cell lines. Furthermore, last I heard the extant cell lines have a major problem with them [go.com].
Now, mind you, I think cloning a human and bring the clone to term at this point would be a BAD thing to attempt. I also think that messing with embyonic-only cloning is something not to undertake lightly. But the blind bans are a Bad Idea.
cloning trevor (Score:2, Informative)
Umbilical Cord and Placenta (Score:2, Informative)
So, when having our child recently, we said, "Sure, why not donate them to medical science?" and checked the box on her medical forms asking us just that.
Without attaching ANY other arguements, you can reasonably say that if every woman engaging in hospital birth in the US checked that box, there would be more stem cells going around than researchers could use.
I'm mildly curious why I never hear about this tidbit of info in any stem cell debates, since it's the perfect human solution: Group A gets what they want without being in moral opposition to Group B.
Re:science and politics don't mix (Score:2, Informative)