Adult Stem Cell Growth Treats Cornea Disorders 128
stemcellar writes with a link to the ScienceDaily site, reporting on a method for adult stem cells to grow cornea stem cells. This use of differentiated stem cells in therapies on specific parts of the body is fairly novel, the article states, and could have numerous applications in medicine. "The research undertaken by the ophthalmologist has shown that, from a small biopsy sample, the new growth technique enables the growth of the number of stem cells thus obtained to the point of obtaining sufficient for the treatment to be effective. The cell sample is taken from the limb of the healthy eye - the ocular structure responsible for the transparency of the cornea. The importance of this growth method lies in the fact that it enables the characterization of the cells obtained, i.e. determining the quantity and viability of the units to be used."
Look Ma no anti-rejection medication! (Score:5, Interesting)
Now bring on the clones and grow me a new liver! I just bought a new bottle of Jim Beam!
Nick Powers
Not Globally Approved (Score:3, Interesting)
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I don't know what the GP is all about, maybe just an advertisement?
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The company that I spoke of actually picked up shop and moved to Thailand, had their research approved, and have a working fully approved product today. So this research in the US is already a reality for others.
I do not want to supply links or mention the company again as it may be construed as advertising and I do not wish to abuse my privileges here. Do
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OTOH, the US colludes with companies that want to suppress unpleasant results. By this I mean results internal to the company that have shown a treatment that a company is proposing is dangerous.
So, yes, there's more red-tape in the US. But it doesn't necessarily help the end-user. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't. Combine this with SLAPP lawsuits, and you have a system that tilted significantly against the average end-user (n
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I don't think that it's too bad when on average the FDA revokes drug approvals less than once a year - while approving dozens a year.
FDA approval is tough and getting tougher.
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Have no fear though, if a Republican wins in 2008, America is sure to head in that direction eventually.
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Ah nice, you hit the 'ethical' mark spot on (Score:4, Insightful)
(I know you meant the last remark in jest, but it helps making my point
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The one day I don't get mod points...
Our health care system, shrinking middle class, hell, shrinking working class, are signs that the American-type of capitalism is losing its relevance. Lately, the ones benefiting the most from it are spreading the canard that somehow, capitalism is "ethical". Every week, I hear on talk radio somebody say that capitalism is somehow "biblical". That's usually followed
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I feel I have to point out that, after legislation after legislation is passed to chase God OUT of the country, people can't complain when He's no longer there to protect it.
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Like many people, I think you are mightily confused about the nature of endorsement and accommodation and what people want.
The basic doctrine that most SOCAS groups advocate is that the government should not use its authority to specially privilege one religion over another: it should be religiously neutral. That doesn't mean, however, that it cannot give reasonable accomodation to the n
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Please, keep your stupidity to yourself. We passed legislation keeping YOUR god from trampling on the rights of the brainwashed followers of other gods as well as those who don't believe in any of your fairy tales or voodoo. As for his "protecting" it, thanks, but I can do without his "protection". His protection means people fly planes into our buildings, millio
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Exactly. Your flawed attempts at logic by extrapolating to include cars notwithstanding, the banning of religion would be the greatest achievement mankind could hope to achieve. As to banning cars...nyuh-uh, not the same. A car is an inanimate object, religion is a set of codes designed to promote evil behavior. To follow the logical course of the argument, you'd have to say "murder is bad, we should ban all murder!" We don't
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Really? Love thy neighbor. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Do not covet thy neighbor's wife, neighbor's ass, neighbor's wife's ass. Honor thy mother and father. Turn the other cheek. All that is Evil? I think your definitions are a bit skewed. My church feeds the hungry, clothes the poor, and gives aid to those that need it. We do not force religion down their throats in exchange either. Su
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Oh, I get it, the one or two sentences in the whole book that might be construed as "good" are the end-all and be-all of your religion, then? How 'bout...
Do not covet thy neighbor's wife, neighbor's ass, neighbor's wife's ass.
The penalty for which, is death (Leviticus 20:10).
Honor thy mother and father.
The peanalty for which, is death
Do you follow the 10 commandments, too? If so, how many people have you personally put to deat
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I know the feeling. Look at it this way, you're at least not arguing with someone completely delusional. Let's face it, you can defend your religion all you like, but the simple fact of the matter is your religion is responsible for the German holocaust, Jonestown, Waco, Salem, the Inquisition, the Crusades, etc, etc, etc, etc. Defend as you like with wh
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No, you're making them up, and that's why I'm angry. In this day and age when information is available by just typing a couple of keys, people are not only still ignorant, but making up their own facts as well. For example, by taking 30 seconds and looking up the stats on Google, you'd see school violence has been decreasing [virginia.edu]for a long time. You might want to claim isolated incidents show things spiraling out of control, but anecdotes don' [ed.gov]
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What they did understand, however, was that religion and government were both better off the more they were allowed to simply operate without any special secretarian authority over the other.
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Since we're talking about the way religion influenced the founding of the country, I'd say that a requirement would be some intellectual connection to the concepts and values that formed the basis of the new Nation. Since we call them "fathers", I'd say that having a part in the "conception" of the nation would be an absolute requirement.
Washington was a brave general and a great President. I don't count him as one
Re:Ah nice, you hit the 'ethical' mark spot on (Score:5, Insightful)
Most so-called Christians are nothing like an actual Christian.
The first and most important admonishment is that you Do Unto Others as you would have them Do Unto You. This is not a passive sort of activity. This is an instruction to go out and do things. Help that old lady across the street. Pick up that hitchhiker. You know what I'm talking about.
Now, this sort of activity puts you out - it's inconvenient. And it can even be dangerous! But the whole point of this is that you can't create the kind of world you want to live in without acting as you want people in that world to act. Some eggs will be broken in the pursuit of this omelet. But what the hell? That's how it always works.
I would say that just as you are not a true patriot if you are not willing to be arrested for your political beliefs, you are not a true christian unless you are willing to die for your world.
The corollary to that is that it must not be a violent death, at least, not by violent actions on your part. Anyone who is bombing abortion clinics or dragging a man behind their truck is quite simply not a christian. It's turn the other cheek, not throw the other fist.
This is not a Christian nation. There isn't one, and there never has been.
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Most so-called Christians are nothing like an actual Christian.
That's the stupidest thing I've heard today :-P Who are you to define who is a Christian and what they should act like? Nobody, that's who! Terms like Christian are entirely self-defined terms!
:-P What if allow abortions? the truth is there are many hundreds of thousands
It's great that you have a strong idea about what being Christian means, and that--in your view--it's a positive thing. However what about the person who says if you let gays marry you're not Christian? What if you suffer a witch to live?
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That's the stupidest thing I've heard today :-P Who are you to define who is a Christian and what they should act like? Nobody, that's who! Terms like Christian are entirely self-defined terms!
Those are very convenient weasel words, but this is one of the most important admonishments from a man who is considered to be an avatar of their god, and cited from a sermon considered to be one of his most important. It is in fact considered to be a central tenet of christianity.
Christianity is organized religion, and it definitely is not intended to be self-defined; they will in fact tell you specifically what you need to believe, both in the majority of churches and in the "good" book itself. Of cour
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Those are very convenient weasel words
I don't know what that means!
from a man who is considered to be an avatar of their god
Wow, what kind of nonsense is this? Just because you've seen a word in a video game clearly doesn't mean you know how to properly use it--this also shows a distinct lack of understanding in Christianity. This coming from a person attempting to DEFINE christian? Color me less than impressed!
It is in fact considered to be a central tenet of christianity.
Ok, great, you've isolated "a central tenet" of Christianity. Do I take it to mean that you're backing off from the claim that that this one thing is the SOLE definer of Christian or not?
Christianity is organized religion, and it definitely is not intended to be self-defined; they will in fact tell you specifically what you need to believe, both in the majority of churches and in the "good" book itself. Of course, there's many versions of that book and all in common use today are pretty heavily bastardized -- which should tell you as much as anything else what fucking charlatans the people selling the faith are.
O
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Ok, great, you've isolated "a central tenet" of Christianity. Do I take it to mean that you're backing off from the claim that that this one thing is the SOLE definer of Christian or not?
Show me where I said it was the sole determiner of whether or not you are Christian. Come on, show me.
Can't do it? There's a reason for that.
There's actually a number of things that you are required to believe by all major sects of Christianity to be considered a Christian - otherwise you're a heretic. For example, you have to believe in the holy trinity. If you don't, you're a heathen. But that's not even what I'm talking about. I'm talking about demands attributed to god, either through his own words
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Show me where I said it was the sole determiner of whether or not you are Christian. Come on, show me.
1) Most so-called Christians are nothing like an actual Christian. (followed by 2)
2) The first and most important admonishment is that you Do Unto Others as you would have them Do Unto You. (followed by explanation of how this works)
3) you are not a true christian unless you are willing to die for your world.
Ok, so as I understand your points 1,2,3. ACTUAL Christians (#1) must obey this doctrine (#2), or are not true christians (#3).
That would seem to me to imply that that's it--the whole shebang right the
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You're right in saying that by the standard of the Bible, American Christians aren't true Christians, but it's not because they are all-round love-spreading machines. If anything, it's because they eat pork and shellfish
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The idea that to be a good christian one also has to be a good jew is actually a relatively NEW idea!
the point is "true Christian" doesn't mean jack shit. There is no one checklist of things that a Christian MUST do/believe and CAN'T do/believe.
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Is it? Matt 5:17-18 disagrees with you. "New Covenant" or not, the laws of the OT are still supposed to apply.
I'll agree that "true
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I'll agree that "true Christian" doesn't mean anything, but not that there's no such checklist. The Bible is just that.
Which is perfectly true except for human interpretation!
Christianity--as practiced by a majority of adherents--has never been a religion in the mold of Islam (or, in the mold of the dominant theological schools about Islam). In Islam, the Qur'an is seen as the literal and exact word of God--the words in the Qur'an were transmitted directly from God through Muhammad to people. Some people--including many Muslims!--would argue that there is no room for interpretation there. I think the vast majority of Chris
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The world *would* be a better place if everyone used common sense in interpreting their religion (it'd be a lot less religious, at the very least). Unfortunate
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Biblical literalists outnumber liberal christians? Hmmm... I don't know, I'm not sure I buy that at all! I mean only around 1 in every 5 americans go to church every week according to most polls I've seen.
I've found that many people seem to think of America as a place where everyone walks around with a bible (and a hamburger...and an SUV...and a gun). Particularly Europeans think this--I've read some BBC articles discussing faith in America that I absolutely had no idea was about amer
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It's like the evolution / creationism de
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Is it? Matt 5:17-18 disagrees with you. "New Covenant" or not, the laws of the OT are still supposed to apply.
Have you noticed Jesus never preached to the Gentiles, and his main audience was the Jews. If you read the book of Acts, following the OT laws was brought up in the early church. Paul, and Peter, argued against placing the yoke of the OT laws on the Gentiles since there forefathers were unable to bare the yoke. If I remember correctly, James, the brother of Jesus, agreed to a point. I will leave finding the answer to this as homework. (Hint: read the book of Acts.) As for a true Christian, that wo
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Hitler was Catholic, and the Nazi regime had the full s
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Compelling reasoning indeed.
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Of course, I don't believe for a second that the reasoning of the actual Paul is in accord with his character in Acts either.
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It would be easy to think one can trust a computer to better guide the economic system, but who makes it? Who maintains it? Do we trust those people to not jury-rig it? In the end, it still comes down to "do you trust the system"?
Even to answer the question that the grandparent post asked, should a physician b
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If anybody needed proof that there is such thing as too much Star Trek....
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What about injury due to birth complications? The mother knew the risk but decided to get pregnant anyway. What about injury in a car accident? The risks of driving are well-known, but someone chose to drive anyway. What about sports injuries? Anyone who plays football clearly understands the risk of injury. What about problems resulting from high blood pressure? The patient clearly should have been eating healthier food.
At some point, we have to decide who is responsible for judging and delivering punish
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Was there an implication that society would pay for this procedure, rather than the one receiving it? I don't have a problem with some idiot buying himself a replacement liver (or pancreas, or whatever) with his own dollars. If we're talking about forcing me to buy it for him, then I agree completely.
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May not quite be ready for prime time (Score:2, Insightful)
Not knowing anything about the risks, alternative treatments available, and potential effects of non-treatment, 60% might not be particularly good. I mean, a 60% success rate is a 40% failure rate. On the other hand, this treatment is new and likely could be further optimized.
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in all likelyhood, people trying this aren't likely to get any blinder if it fails, so who gives?
Not that surprising... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's just kinda creepy to see so many people trying to get government funding of stem cells from the "people who won't vote" (to put it mildly). It's like one party in America loves to put a bounty on the heads of the unborn; ever notice?
I know embryonics are in the grey area, but the willingness of people to cannibalize babies just seems wrong, in general.
i am sick of you bleeding heart liberals (Score:1, Funny)
people like you are what is holding this country back. i suggest you move to some workers paradise like canada, where they dont even know what an MRI machine is, or how to do labial resurfacing, but at least they all get the same crappy free health
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It's a wedge issue (Score:2)
The main utility of embryonic stem cell research is as a wedge issue to portray those who object to it as knuckle-dragging, sister-marrying, holy-rolling retards whose fondest hope is for the poor sick to die of their infirmities. Personally I don't have a problem with the
Gedachtenexperiment... (Score:1, Interesting)
How do we know? Simple thought experiment:
A fertility clinic is on fire, and about to collapse. You have to choose which to save - door number one, a baby in a waiting room. Door number two, a liquid N2 tank with 40,000 frozen embryos. You can't save both. Wh
Thought experiment? Meh... (Score:1)
It also depends on the ethical system you are using.
From a strictly utilitarian point of view (the framework you seem to set as the standar
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A building is on fire, and about to collapse. You have to choose which to save - door number one, your beloved spouse in a waiting room. Door number two, a liquid N2 tank with 40,000 frozen adult strangers. You can't save both. Which do you choose?
Many people would choose to save their spouse. That doesn't mean that they don't believe those strangers aren't human beings. It's just that one's emotions often influence what one does. It's like how people care about the hunting of c
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Even researchers that are against embryonic stem cell research still admit that embryonic research is extremely promising and important insofar as our knowledge goes.
Saying that because adult stem cells are productive that this invalidates any benefit from embryonic stem cell research is like saying that because we can cure cancer
Re:Not that surprising... (Score:4, Insightful)
Research will use what is available as you say from 'tissue destined for disposal', but a commercial venture based on that research will not be satisfied with simply collecting what happens to be available. They will push for active harvesting to maintain a steady and predictable supply of embryonic tissue. It's a very slippery slope.
I'm imagining that if this became legal that it wouldn't be our own neighbors providing the tissue.. it would be poor people from 3rd world nations. Who knows what evils people will be capable of when the goal of the process is to create genetically anonymous donor tissue?
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Gee, sounds scary, but why anyone might feel compelled to accept a slippery slope argument in the consideration of public policy is beyond me. There is enough demand for IVF treatments to provid
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It's capitalism. If making as much money at the expense of any and everything else was not the core principle of our society, the slope would not be nearly as slippery.
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And the problem with this is what anyway? Last time I checked, it was embryonic stem cells (from a mass of undifferentiated tissue without a nervous system or anything, which is the definition of stem cells), not fetal stem cel
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Ahem--if embryonic stem cell research is promising all the private pharmaceutical firms (and big-time investors like Warren Buffett and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) would put up lots of money without government help to fund such research.
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Doubtful, since they could lose this investment were another pandering President to push through further legislation. (See Human cloning, Clinton presidency.) Of course, since it's unlikely that even this country will elect another Bush, we're likely to see t
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And some of them are already in use for various types of therapies. Like I said earlier, why aren't the private pharmaceutical firms and big investors putting their own money into embryonic stem cell research, instead of waiting for a government development grant? Given the meager results from embryonic stem cell research done in Europe and Asia so far, is it small wonder why people object to government-funded embryonic s
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Most of the basic R&D in the US is really carried out by government funded researchers. Applied companies just pick up the basic results for free and then specialize them into patentable intellectual property.
I'm not 100% sure if this is an issue of socialist R&D pushing out private R&D, or an issue th
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That's the key. While pure research drives our long term innovation, engaging in it for its own sake is a very risky proposition for a company. By its very nature, pure re
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We're trying to protect the lives of innocent children.
Why not do medical experiments on random adults? That would advance science, wouldn't it? But we don't do that, because it would harm innocent people. It would be draconian to perform medical experiments on random adults, even though doing so would lead to more "progress and enlightenm
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Also, careful not to step on that toadstool over there, tiny invisible pixies live inside it that you might crush to death!
Ah the worries of people who live in a fantasy world where a blastocyst is an "innocent child."
"Why not do medical experiments on random adults? "
Hmmm, let me try to explain this in terms you might understand: Because they have magical glowing balls of spirit energy inside them, put there by the wizard Zanzibar, and such experimen
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The reality is that human sexual reproduction i
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The first, since the second is incapable of having any experiences at all if it is destroyed (either through the normal procedures of IVF or through research) before forming that capability, and cannot be said to have lost anything. Indeed, even giving such a potential being the status of a moral agent is certainly arguable.
I don't have any mod points in this thre
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Think about it: my parents ALMOST didn't have sex the night I was conceived, BUT THEN THEY DID!!!!
I really dodged a bullet there: my life was in the balance, but they made the right decision and decided to save me from eternal oblivion. Phew.
sorry for this but... (Score:1)
and then when I did a double take, the first two words looked to be "Adult Swim
Guess I need to cut down on my pointless animation intake! I say that with adoration, by the way.
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perhaps people who oppose experimenting on jews (Score:1, Interesting)
i agree, we have to do something about these moronic bleeding hearts and their soapbox whining about 'ethics' and 'morality'.
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Chill, children.