NIH Orders Halt To Embryonic Stem Cell Research 593
sciencehabit writes "Responding to a court order issued a week ago, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Friday ordered intramural researchers studying human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) to shut down their experiments. NIH's action — probably unprecedented in its history — is a response to a preliminary injunction on 23 August from US District Judge Royce Lamberth. The judge ruled that the Obama policy allowing NIH funding to be used to study hESC lines violates a law prohibiting the use of federal funds to destroy embryos."
Buy one get one? (Score:5, Interesting)
The judge ruled that the Obama policy allowing NIH funding to be used to study hESC lines violates a law prohibiting the use of federal funds to destroy embryos."
What if the scientists just charge for the research, but present an itemized bill that throws in the embryo destruction for free?
I'm mostly kidding, but isn't there some decent way to weasel around this?
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:5, Insightful)
Lobby Congress and the President (who are rather in the majority at the moment) to change the law in the first place?
Oh wait... that's not weaseling, sorry.. I'll come in again.
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:5, Insightful)
they need to get rid of that "agree to filibuster" thing they have going on.... if you want to tie things up for hours and hours, then by gum you should have to work at it and ACTUALLY tie things up for hours and hours, not just say "can we agree that we are going to filibuster this so we can all go home and go fishin'?"
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. The Democrats should call the GOP on their threats to filibuster. Make them do it!
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Agree to disagree" acceptance of threatened filibuster stinks, I agree. But the other option is to give the Republicans the pulpit for as long as they wish. I'm not sure the Democrats want that to happen.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
ok, but who watches cspan?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:5, Funny)
It depends. If they misentered the code for "Fox News" or "TV Land", probably Republican. If they misentered the code for "MSNBC" or a porn channel, probably Democrat.
If they actually meant to be watching C-Span, they are probably Rain Man, or maybe Ralph Nader.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why? What do the Republicans have to say that would be convincing to anyone but their fellow travelers? I say let 'em get up there and display their stupidity for everyone to see.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I wish that would work, but I was paying enough attention during the last few Presidential elections to know it won't.
Were you paying attention to Sarah Palin "displaying her stupidity for everyone to see"? How well did that work out for Democrats?
But I still think we should restore the original filibuster.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
She's not the vice president today, so I'd guess that it turned out pretty darned well for the Democrats, didn't it?
Re: (Score:3)
Which was specially surprising to me...
I would think that any Alaskan voter would react negatively to a recommendation from a former governor who resigned.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Except then the GOP gets a stump to stand upon. This is where C-SPAN causes a problem; all the rhetoric during a filibuster would be good for Republican PR, they could use the filibuster time to motivate their base, etc."
So the hell what? Let the democrats motivate their base also! Present your arguments and then turn around and fight for them! It would be damn nice to get back to the days of the progressives actually fighting for their politics instead of just rolling over and playing dead.
d
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:4, Insightful)
So the hell what? Let the democrats motivate their base also! Present your arguments and then turn around and fight for them! It would be damn nice to get back to the days of the progressives actually fighting for their politics instead of just rolling over and playing dead.
You're basing this on the assumption that either side (now, I'm talking about the senators here) has ideas that they can defend. It's become pretty clear that the Democrats don't know how to run a government any better than the Republicans. There's a reason both sides have abysmal approval ratings (Democrats slightly better, but that's like saying horse poop tastes better than cow poop).
I agree with you, they should be forced into trying to filibuster, but I only say it because I would enjoy the sheer spectacle of it all, not because I expect either side to say anything remotely useful.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I see your point, but I still think the Republicans would benefit from actually going through with a filibuster. They're much better at spin than the Democrats. Don't forget the Republicans could do the same thing as the Democrats outside of Congress.
The Democrat
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:5, Informative)
This is a lawsuit that cites Federal statutory law which Obama signed [wikipedia.org].
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:4, Funny)
At least in US pro-wrestling they actually take a chair from outside the ring (even if it's a stage prop) and smack someone with it. Rather than a wimpy fake "agree to chair"[1] somebody, they take the trouble to make a half-decent show of the whole thing.
[1] I hear in nerdland Microsoft they even use real chairs (and it's not just a token ring either).
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:4, Insightful)
If they have the votes to filibuster, why waste everyone's time by making them go up there and read the telephone book?
Basically, because you have to stick your neck out more to actually filibuster vs. to refuse to vote for cloture.
Physically, because there is at least a little bit of an endurance trial to get up there and speak, and politically, because now there's video of you personally as a specific senator A) being so against the passage of a specific bill that you would rather read the telephone book for hours than allow a vote on it and B) being so against the passage of a specific bill you would rather make sure that the Senate could do nothing rather than vote on it.
Now, maybe Bill X is very unpopular in your specific state even if it enjoys support elsewhere. In that case you're still good to filibuster. In a lot of other cases, you're taking a much bigger political risk than is currently necessary as part of a filibuster threat.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And it's completely, utterly futile. Can anyone name a filibuster that failed because they simply couldn't find anyone to talk anymore?
Mostly, it doesn't work out that way -- instead, they just don't filibuster at all.
I can't, offhand, point to a filibuster that failed because no one wanted to talk anymore. I can, on the other hand, point to the frequency of filibuster use's meteoric rise in the post-actually-standing-up-and-talking era. Correlation doesn't equal causation; nonetheless, here there is caus
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
One reason was that the Republicans threatened to revise Senate rules to completely remove the filibuster. In some ways I rather wish they had. It was a fairly arrogant threat based on the premise that there had been a complete sea change in American politics and the Democrats would never regain a majority in the Senate. It would have probably resulted in even more laws getting through during the Republican majority, but it would have been kinda funny to watch after they lost the Senate.
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I refuse to allow the beliefs of anybody to get in the way of scientific research.
The end justifies the means.
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If you're talking about the Christian bible when you say 'some book', I don't even think you can use that as a source for the belief that abortion is wrong. The bible is pretty clear that an unborn fetus is not a person.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't know what this "some book" says about abortion.
If I kick a pregnant woman in the belly and she miscarriages should I be charged with:
A. Murder
B. Battery
Think hard on this. What if she was only 1 week in? What if she was 8 1/2 months in? Does it make a difference?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:5, Insightful)
> Can you explain to me why dehumanizing is okay if the results are for the good of all?
All you have to do to "dehumanize" an Embryo is merely show a picture of one.
Do you even know what that term means?
Calling an embryo a person is much more of a stretch than calling a homosexual a non-person.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm positive. If the brain's gender is determined by non-genetic means, then genetic tests won't be capable of determining the brain's gender. There may be other tests that can be performed early on - I'm unsure just how visible the structural differences would be at an early stage of development and 9.2T MRI scans are probably inadvisable - but genetic tests won't be amongst them. Notice I said "if" both here and in my prior post. This is all conditional on this being the mechanism. If it is not the mechan
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you know what embryos we're talking about here? They're little clumps of cells that were going to be flushed down the toilet anyway.
Seriously, do you not get that? Here's a little sketch of where they come from: a couple of rich people walk in the door of a fertility clinic and say "doctor, we can has babiez?", the doctor is like "sure, let me do science to you", science is done to them, the couple say "okay no more babiez", and the doctor says "well now what do I do with all these extra fertilized eggs? do I give them to researchers for to science them, or do I throw them away?" and the parents are like "sure whatever, we has babiez to deal with now".
You're saying that they must be destroyed without science being done. Everyone else is saying do science and then destroy them.
Do you not see where there's no difference in eventual outcomes? Do you not see where this is a tremendous waste of potential?
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:4, Insightful)
If other people do not understand your ideas, whose fault is it - the other people for not understanding your ideas, or you for making your ideas unclear?
I mean, when you responded to my post you just made some vague noises about not doing something we'll regret, asked some relatively meaningless questions, and included an insipid quote from Jurassic Park (of all things). Whose fault is it, exactly, that we didn't immediately leap to the conclusion that you hold the (relatively extreme) view that modern in-vitro fertilization should be banned?
Further, slippery slopes work both ways; in your case, would you be willing to charge a woman with unintentional or negligent homicide because she miscarried? Would you be willing to mandate that all women do whatever it takes in order to ensure that they carry their babies to term, including doing things like banning the use of cigarettes and alcohol and heavy exercise by pregnant women? Because that's where your position, that life begins at conception, leads.
Super Way to Leap Logic in a Single Bound! (Score:3, Informative)
I heard you like "Candy" and "Ice Cream". Just substitute "Penis" for "Ice Cream" and you will see why substituting something only tangentially similar to something else in a sentence is a bad idea.
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:4, Insightful)
The end justifies the means.
I can't exactly tell what you are trying to say by pointing out the underlying philosophy... but I'd like to mention that I think you have correctly identified it, and that many people's worldviews seem to include believing that the end does not justify the means.
Of course, people then justify all kinds of actions by the end result, but most people seem to be willing to SAY that the end doesn't justify the means.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There shouldn't be a need to weasel around this.
I totally agree, but yet, here we are.
It just seems like, if people can find loopholes in the laws to do bad things, surely they can find one to try to cure diseases. (Up to a point.)
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:4, Interesting)
No, what these people are saying is that "obey the laws we agree with, disobey the laws we don't agree with".
Nope. What I'm saying is, in any system of laws, there are usually ways to obey the letter of a law while violating its spirit. These loopholes are, in many cases, eventually closed.
If we accept that, for example, many people don't pay as much in taxes as the spirit of the law says that they should by finding ways to get deductions or shelter income -- all things allowed within the letter of the law -- why couldn't we also accept that scientists might obey the letter of a law preventing them from doing research while violating the hell out of the spirit of it?
I'm sorry if my position is too nuanced or irreducible to a false dichotomy for you, but, there it is.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'm all for that.
Unless, of course, you aren't going to live up to the rest of what being Amish entails, in which case you're committing fraud rather than having discovered a clever loophole.
If you never post again, I'll assume you've decided to give up electricity and go through with it. :)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I refuse to allow the beliefs of anybody to get in the way of scientific research.
While I agree in general with the rest of your post, I feel like I have to caution you about this point. There are a lot of arguments (some more valid than others) that a human embryo is a potential person and is deserving of the rights and protections of any other human. I don't necessarily agree with this, but I don't know that it is completely untrue either.
We would not terminate a person for the purpose of harvesting their organs. An adult human is capable of expressing a desire to donate their org
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:4, Insightful)
I have no religious problem with embryonic stem cell research, just don't use my money (taxes) to do it.
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:5, Insightful)
Would you rather all work be paid for and patented by large organizations who will then control who gets to benefit? "Sorry Mrs. Jones little Johnny's is most likely going to die of Leukemia. Yes there are some incredibly promising and successful gene therapies but you can't afford the price that Merck set for the treatment. No, no the actual treatment isn't that expensive but its like HIV drugs, big farma owns the patent and even though the marginal cost is low they get to set the price. Well yes insurance would have covered it but you don't have any, maybe you should have accepted the job as a corporate officer rather than a hotel maid."
I apologize for taking the argument to an extreme, but this person claims not to have a moral issue with the research (a position I can at least respect if not agree with,) rather they seem to have high school civics level view of the world that says the US federal government should not pay for anything. It's not like this is research for a malarial drug that will primary help poor black and brown people, this is research that has the potential to save the life of someone the poster knows and loves(even if it is themselves.)
What makes it so much worse is that since now being a Tea-Tard is acceptable and so many people agree with the bind mantra of no government spending this somehow got modded insightful.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I refuse to allow the beliefs of anybody to get in the way of scientific research.
That is until the tables are turned, right?
Would you subject yourself to dangerous radiation RIGHT NOW so that scientists could study the harmful effects?
That is basically what you are stating. The whole debate about whether an Embryo is a person gets real messy real fast - since there is no real line to draw it at, as everyone develops differently at slight variances. When they are born? What about during labour, moments before their first breath? Until they have a cerebral cortex? But they'll have one if
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's that you don't believe an Embryo is a person, then I have to ask where it is that YOU draw the line, because right now no one has agreed on it.
I think birth is a pretty reasonable place to draw the line legally, given that most modern laws implicitly roll with that. For example, the date on which it's legal for you to drink isn't based on when you were concieved, when you entered the second trimester, etc. It's based on when you were born.
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, when it comes to stem cell research, they'll never have a cerebral cortex. That's 'cause the stem cells are left over from IVF treatment. Abortion only enters the picture because the anti-abortion people have decided to make stem cell research part of their cause, not because the stem cells are connected to abortions.
Too late (Score:4, Informative)
The ruling applies to cell lines derived from more recent embryos -- they're already destroyed and would have been anyway, but the cell lines are already harvested. It's a strange ruling since it doesn't prevent any new embryo destruction (and wouldn't anyway, since they're excess IVF embryos and are headed for the biowaste system either way.)
Nope. The Court has ruled. Unless and until a higher court reverses the ruling, it's binding.
Re:Buy one get one? (Score:5, Informative)
And so we take another giant step (Score:5, Insightful)
... Backwards ...
Re:And so we take another giant step (Score:4, Informative)
The Nazis took great leaps forward in science and medicine, but look who they experimented on in the process. I'm just saying...
Scientific research != being a Nazi.
Just sayin'.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You do realize that these embryos are going to be destroyed, whether or not any science is done with them, right?
Embryos used for research are left over from IVF treatments. If they aren't used for stem cell research, they are incinerated with the rest of the bio waste.
Lets be fair then, (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Lets be fair then, (Score:5, Insightful)
As a biomedical researcher, I wouldn't want the fruits of my labor to be withheld from anyone who needs medical treatment on the basis of their ideology. I would, however, like to see more people living up to their putative beliefs by refusing to make use of technology derived from practices they claim to find morally objectionable. If you're opposed to stem cell research, then refuse any treatment based on such research; if you're a creationist, then refuse any treatment based on modern biology at all; etc. This applies outside the medical realm, too -- consider the number of people who bitch about open source on Slashdot, or more generally, people using the internet to complain about how terrible the internet is. Put your money where your mouth is, folks.
Re:Lets be fair then, (Score:4, Insightful)
ETHICS are indeed outside of biology. Are you suggesting that ETHICS has no basis deciding how we experiment in biology at all?
So the ends justify the means? To what end and by what means are you willing to gain knowledge?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You're going to have to draw an arbitrary line where a bunch of cells becomes human. No matter where you draw that arbitrary line it'll be stupid, but not drawing the line is even more stupid. Erring on the safe side is a good way of symbolically saying that "human life is special".
Most human societies have agreed that human life is special. So even if some idiot takes a GPS, wande
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Mendel wasn't by any stretch of the modern imagination a "creationist".
He probably would take to task modern creationists for sloppy thinking if nothing else.
Not all clerics are raving anti-intelectuals. Carlin experienced this firsthand.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you sure that monk was a creationist? Would he have said that Darwin is full of crap? Or would he have said that "Hey this Darwin guy is taking my research to the next step. This is pretty cool stuff!"
It seems to me you're effectively putting words into his mouth.
There are many "creationists" by your definition that only believed in it because it was the only known thing. The difference is those that vehemently say evolution is full of crap. I can understand the ones that say God helps steer the ev
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Lets be fair then, (Score:5, Insightful)
You are using the word "creationist" in an absurd fashion, to describe everybody who existed before Darwin (or were his contemporaries). Most people here on Slashdot and in general use it to describe people in the *modern* era who reject the large body of scientific work that has followed from Darwin's work and that of some of his contemporaries. This evidence has been built up over the last hundred-and-fifty years or so, and is more-or-less impossible for a rational scientific person to reject at this point in time.
A young-earth-creationist is somebody who rejects more than just that, but also much of the rest of physics, chemistry, geology, etc. Those are the serious loons. But a few hundred years ago, plenty of scientists might have believed in a young earth - doesn't mean we'd call them "young earth creationists" in the modern sense.
The point is that in order to label somebody for rejecting something, they had to have had access to a similar body of evidence.
Re:Lets be fair then, (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lets be fair then, (Score:4, Insightful)
A bit of history: the laser was first theorized in 1917, by Albert Einstein. In 1947 Lamb and Retherford demonstrated the first actual laser. The first practical use of lasers that most people are aware of was the CD-Rom drive; the Yellow Book standards that described CDs were published in 1985. That's what, 68 years from theory to practice?
For comparison, research into stem cells started in the 1960s. You're complaining that no treatments have been derived from it yet? Despite the fact that biological research is far trickier than physics? Despite the fact that the funding for stem cell research in the United States has all but dried up?
Seriously, it's like some people don't understand self-fulfilling prophecies. If you stop funding stem cell research and focus on other things, of course you're not going to get results out of stem cell research.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah! I feel the same way about people who are against the military.
Your proposal is utterly idiotic. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ideology-testing for anything and everything is really, really stupid. It is mean-spirited and spiteful, as well as impossible to enforce. Let's suppose, just for fun, that the law is changed (as it will be) and federal funding for embryonic stem cell research is allowed. The people whom you wish to deny treatment are now having their tax dollars taken from them to do research they disagree with. Will you still deny them treatment? What if someone is opposed to war. Would you deny them any medical treatment
Re:Lets be fair then, (Score:5, Insightful)
Much of the objection is due to religion, religious types thinking we shouldn't be messing with stem cells and everything to do with life.
I thought it was because they thought embryonic stem cells came from human embryos which they believe to be humans, because they have decided at what point a human embryo is a human... whereas it seems the rest of the society refuses to answer that question, apparently putting it "somewhere" before birth... because nobody seems to think killing a baby post-birth is ok.
Yes, there are some who say that we shouldn't be "messing with [...] everything to do with life." There are people who say all medicine is bad. There are people who say that we came from aliens and that they have been trying to contact us but the government is blocking it. But I would raise a definite [citation needed] on your assertion that MUCH of the objection is due to should-not-be-messing-with-life ideas.
Re:Lets be fair then, (Score:5, Insightful)
Do I have to be a religious nutcase to object to breeding human beings to be used for spare parts and then discarded as trash?
No, but you have to be an ignorant fool to believe that's how it works.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So denying treatment to people based on an ideological argument is enlightenment? You are contributing to the problem. Ask yourself: Do you want to live in a society where EMS checks your political, religious, and social affiliations to provide treatment instead of triaging your medical condition?
When Religion Meets Science (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:When Religion Meets Science (Score:4, Insightful)
Turn the argument around for a moment, though. Why must your beliefs mandate that another individual fund (via mandatory taxation) research they view as fundamentally unethical? (And yes -- there are other things taxes may pay for folks may find unethical... I have nothing but empathy for a true pacifist who has to help fund the War Department, etc.) Can you blame them for petitioning those who both impose the taxation and fund the research about their grievances (you know, participating in the democratic process and all)? If you feel they can be and should be outvoted -- get the law changed. If they can't and you want to fund it anyway, then don't use mandatory taxation funds to do so (fund it yourself, do it at the state level where you can get the law passed, etc.) The ruling isn't that the funding is unconstitutional -- you have reasonable redress here.
Re:When Religion Meets Science (Score:5, Interesting)
Why must your beliefs mandate that another individual fund (via mandatory taxation) research they view as fundamentally unethical?
I think the answer has to simply be: that's where we've chosen to draw the line in our Constitution.
That is to say, we've set it up so that (in theory), the majority doesn't get to take your individual rights away, but they do get to decide what we collectively spend money on. (And in that context, I don't consider anyone to have a right to not have their tax dollars spent on something the majority agrees with, excepting, of course, when it abridges another individual right.)
Overall I think that strikes a pretty good compromise between a government that can't do anything (even when it should) and a government that can do too much. It's not perfect, but it beats any alternative we've tried so far.
Re:When Religion Meets Science (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you can see from the adult (or from placental/umbilical) stem cell research being much less controversial (I want to say unopposed.. but I'm sure there's someone, somewhere that has some problem with it -- I haven't heard of any widespread objection, though) that if you removed the source of the ethical concern that there would be less resistance. Seems rather obvious, really.
But no, I disagree that there's a distinction here. Those who have an ethical issue with stem cell research that destroys the embryos can still disagree with funding it, regardless of what benefit society supposedly receives (in the same manner that while we may ask citizens to volunteer their lives for their country -- not many would volunteer others to benefit society. And this is one of the fundamental points of disagreement that makes this an ethical issue -- is an embryo at this point an "other"? Does that matter if so? Those who answer "Yes" and "Yes" are not going to support this no matter what benefit is claimed -- in the same way that (if they're consistent) they wouldn't support harvesting organs from prison inmates to better society, etc.).
From that ethical perspective any reduction of an individual or individuals to "property" to be disposed of by society as a whole is a regression of liberty (and really a return to a slave class) which outweighs the benefits to those who profit from the activity. As such, like the war protesters -- the activity from their perspective is NOT in the public's best interest.
Re:When Religion Meets Science (Score:5, Insightful)
As with abortion, it all comes down to your fundamental assumptions - pro-life groups (largely) view an embryo as human at conception. Pro-choice and ESC supporters view it as not yet human. Killing a human who has done no harm is morally reprehensible, as is restricting the actions of humans due to something less than human. Unfortunately, without a true shared premise to reason from, there is no way to settle this.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:When Religion Meets Science (Score:4, Informative)
Riiight... which is why the Catholic Church is such a proponent of IVF [catholicinsight.com].
Oh wait -- that's in Bizarro land.
As far as fertility drugs, they're apparently generally fine with them -- simply cautioning that large multiple pregnancies put both mother and infants at risk.
Sorry to burst your bubble but some of these "arrogant and self centered" folk are more consistent than you think. (And I would think on at least the "arrogant" front that there's a little speech about not worrying about the mote in your neighbor's eye....)
Re:When Religion Meets Science (Score:4, Insightful)
> Riiight... which is why the Catholic Church is such a proponent of IVF [catholicinsight.com].
Except Catholics aren't included in the term "Christian".
If you're not aware of this then you really haven't been keeping up with any of this stuff.
The fundie nutbags that try to declare a monopoly on the term "Christian" think that Catholics are going to hell just as much as they think atheists are.
Law's the Law (Score:5, Insightful)
Before you flame me into a crispy marshmallow, answer me this: Is the NIH the sort of institution you want playing fast and loose with any law or court ruling that isn't blatantly, obviously unconstitutional or an instantaneous danger to human lives? I want NIH crossing their T's and dotting the shit of out their I's, for my own safety and peace of mind, and while I hope they fight this ruling (because stem cells will save lives in the long run) I'm grimly satisfied they obeyed it while it's legally binding.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So when will they put a halt to all IVF treatments that destroy embryos?
The fact that this can be applied very very broadly is a reason to worry, and hope.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
and while I hope they fight this ruling
After reviewing the law this ruling references, there is no benefit to fighting this ruling. This ruling is an accurate reflection of the wording (and almost certainly the intent) of the law it is based on. This was not a judge stretching the law to get the answer he/she wanted. This was a judge making a ruling on the clearly expressed intent of Congress. Not only that but the law in question is clearly within the Constitutional authority of Congress. The only group with the Constitutional authority to chan
Maybe know they'll change their focus (Score:3, Insightful)
to adult stem cells - you know, the ones that have actually led to productive therapies.
Embryonic stem cells are said to have a lot of "potential". Strange, by this time I would think they would have come up with something for all the hype made over them.
Re:Maybe know they'll change their focus (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Maybe know they'll change their focus (Score:5, Insightful)
By your logic:
Cancer has been researched for decades. People still die from cancer. Therefore, the research was pointless.
As another point - many times research bears no fruits initially. Just because there haven't been any results yet doesn't mean there will never be results
.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Remove all the legal limitations to embryonic stem cell research and then we can compare results on an equal footing.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Maybe know they'll change their focus (Score:4, Insightful)
Then again, maybe not. Because of the federal policies which blocked most funding to hESC research prior to the Obama policy, there's already been far more funding available to adult stem cell research, which is why research in that area is more developed, even though the basic research that has been done on both suggests that embryonic stem cells have greater utility and are easier to leverage for many uses. As there has been no barrier to funding for research around adult stem cell research, its unlikely that people with high-value ideas for adult stem cell research have been suppressing them to focus on lower-value embryonic stem cell research. Indeed, its more likely that the reverse has been the case, historically.
But, even with the funding differential, enough research has been done with hESC-based therapies that at least one is in clinical trials.
Your argument would make perfect sense if basic research to develop potential therapies, plus research to test those therapies in model organisms, plus human clinical trials are all essentially free, so that the availability of funding makes no difference to the pace of progress.
In the real world, though, that doesn't seem to be the case.
Sickening (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sickening (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not necessarily that. The belief that a fertilized embryo is a human isn't necessarily linked to religion (and I'm not sure how anyone can assume that link). I'm personally not religious, but I do hold that belief.
We're not talking creationist "maybe some guy in the sky created everything but we can't prove it" sort of ideology here. We're talking about a BIOLOGICALLY IDENTIFIABLE marker in the stage of the creation of a new life: the fertilization of of a cell and the forming of a unique DNA sequence. To me as a non-religious person that is actually a much less vague point of definition as to use birth as the marker is too variable - a baby can be born at 5 months into the term or 10 months into the term and still survive in some cases. Some say viability outside of the womb, but the reality is that NO baby is self-sufficient outside of the womb (all of them need additional assistance from others). Even if you take it down to the level of "able to survive with external assistance outside of the womb" then you have a situation that will vary depending on the technological environment present. A baby born in a well-equipped modern NICU can survive MUCH earlier than one born into a 3rd world backwater.
In short, completely aside from religion, fertilization seems to me like the most obvious point to declare a human life as started without getting into judgement calls and gray areas. Now, that may make certain research topics difficult, but that's the way things are. Experimentation on live humans would likely allow much faster progress too, but we as a society have agreed that the ethical implications of such research outweigh any potential gains.
Indeed I find it much LESS scientific of a matter when many people's definitions basically boil down to condition that "it's not a human if I can't hear it complain", which to me is more of an emotional definition than a scientific one.
Re:Sickening (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm personally not religious, but I do hold that belief.
So I suppose we should keep the shell that once held a now-dead brain alive via life support for as long as possible? I mean, according to your definition it's a human life, right? It still has "a unique DNA sequence". So "pulling the plug" should be universally wrong, period.
Right?
Re:Sickening (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it really so hard for you to see why some people might not see anything wrong with that statement? That treatments may yet become available that will someday restore that person to life? You should go back and have a look at the Terri Schiavo case. Or -- arguing from more of a continuum of gray areas -- that perhaps the destruction of an embryo that could become a fully functional human being today is unsavory for a variety of ethical reasons that don't necessarily share common territory with allowing a brain-dead patient to stop being a burden on perpetually grieving families.
You're going to find a large range of positions both pro and against embryonic stem cell research, and it's a lot more complicated than a mis-characterization that it's just them stupid Christians agin us smart atheists. Oversimplifying this issue only marginalizes groups that don't conveniently fit within your model, and they aren't likely to sit quietly in a corner just to be nice.
And to think... (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately the decision makes sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unfortunately the decision makes sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the problem: the people who are against federally funded ESTR are sometimes vehemently against it; they will vote against a candidate that supports ESTR despite any other issues. On the other side, it's a not a voting issue. People will still vote against a candidate who supports federally funded ESTR.
So you end up with politicians who will not risk taking action on any real issues, because they are afraid of alienating single-issue voters.
Why bother? (Score:3, Informative)
Why is everyone making a big stink about embryonic stell research anyways? Adult stem cell research appears to show a lot more promise and doesn't have all the abortion political baggage tied to it. I don't understand the Obama Administration's stance on this; they spend a lot of political capital on a science that is decades away from producing anything real when a comparable science, Adult Stem Cell research, could be supported without expending almost any political capital.
China (Score:5, Insightful)
Very soon--perhaps even already--China will be the premier center of stem cell research in the world. They are making enormous advances, due to their strong economic position and their lack of being hindered by religious conservatives or a two-party system. Researchers will go there, all the intellectual work will flock to China because they can get their funding and have the collaboration they need. And the US will become a short-lived historical footnote, an intellectual backwater led by a corrupt plutocracy, filled with ignorant evangelical nutjobs and greedy corporatists. Americans are stupid, greedy, short-sighted, superstitious, easily cowed, lazy, obsessed with violence and sex, and fiscally irresponsible.
Make no mistake: I do not condone China's abhorrent record on human rights, politics, foreign policy, censorship, or the environment. I especially despise the way they have so brilliantly manipulated the US into conflicts with other countries and have essentially commandeered the global economy. But they have only done this because, again, Americans are too stupid and played right into the trap.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"As always, not mentioned..."
Unless you RTFA....
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm pretty sure it applies to all of them; IIRC, the judge found that not only the Obama-era but also the Bush-era research violated the law. TFA seems to indicate that all hESC research under the auspices of NIH is covered by the order.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's not exactly the problem. It what happens after the Egg + Sperm stage. The some magic occurs and you have a proto human that various and sundry groups are trying to give full human rights to. Exactly when the embryo becomes legally human is the issue. Not whether or not you can pretend that your travels to the darker side of the Internet is somehow helping the human condition.
Re:Libertarian Approach (Score:4, Interesting)
This is more or less the same debate as over early abortions and chemical contraceptives, it's about when your genetic material becomes an independent and legally protected person. Unless you're suggesting that the libertarian approach is to let people sell their children thus making the question irrelevant, you need to set some defined boundaries of personhood and embryohood.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Your two implications are inherently self contradicting. If, as you imply in your oh so clever "Osama, Obama" inference, Obama is a closet conservative Muslim, then he would object to your second inference. Since conservatives Muslims, like conservative Christians, are generally anti-abortion.