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Title: Kathleen Parker: The research Obama doesn't want to discuss
Source:
SacBee
URL Source: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/story/1688545.html
Published: Mar 11, 2009
Author: Kathleen Parker
Post Date: 2009-03-11 13:45:26 by farmfriend
Keywords: None
Views: 250
Comments: 10
By Kathleen Parker As he lifted the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research Monday, President Barack Obama proclaimed that scientific decisions now will be made "on facts, not ideology." This sounds good, but what if there were other nonideological facts that Obama seems to be ignoring? One fact is that since Obama began running for president, researchers have made some rather amazing strides in alternative stem cell research. Science and ethics finally fell in love, in other words, and Obama seems to have fallen asleep during the kiss. Either that, or he decided that keeping an old political promise was more important than acknowledging new developments. In the process, he missed an opportunity to prove that he is pro-science but also sensitive to the concerns of taxpayers who don't want to pay for research that requires embryo destruction. Unfortunately, the stem cell debate has been characterized as a conflict between science (as though science is always right) and religious "kooks" (as though religious folk are never right). In choosing sides, it is, indeed, easier to imagine lunch with a researcher who wants to resurrect Christopher Reeve (whom Obama couldn't resist mentioning) and make him walk again, than with the corner protester holding a fetus in a jar. Moreover, as Obama said, the majority of Americans have reached a consensus that we should pursue this research. Polling confirms as much, but most Americans, including most journalists and politicians, aren't fluent in stem cell research. It's complicated. If people "know" anything, it is that embryonic stem cells can cure diseases and that all stem cells come from fertility clinic embryos that will be discarded anyway. Neither belief is entirely true. In fact, every single one of the successes in treating patients with stem cells thus far – for spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis, for example – have involved adult or umbilical cord blood stem cells, not embryonic. And though federal dollars still won't directly fund embryo destruction, federally funded researchers can obtain embryos privately created only for experimentation. Thus, taxpayers now are incentivizing a market for embryo creation and destruction. The insistence on using embryonic stem cells always rested on the argument that they were pluripotent, capable of becoming any kind of cell. That superior claim no longer can be made with the spectacular discovery in 2007 of "induced pluripotent stem cells" (iPS), which was the laboratory equivalent of the airplane. Very simply, iPS cells can be produced from a skin cell by injecting genes that force it to revert to its primitive "blank slate" form with all the same pluripotent capabilities of embryonic stem cells. But "induced pluripotent stem cells" doesn't trip easily off the tongue, nor have any celebrities stepped forward to expound their virtues. (If only Angelina Jolie would purse those pouty lips and say "pluripotent.") Even without such drama, Time magazine named iPS innovation No. 1 on its "Top 10 Scientific Discoveries" of 2007, and the journal Science rated it the No. 1 breakthrough of 2008. The iPS discovery even prompted Dr. Ian Wilmut, who cloned Dolly the sheep, to abandon his license to attempt human cloning, saying that the researchers "may have achieved what no politician could: an end to the embryonic stem cell debate." And, just several days ago, Dr. Bernadine Healy, director of the National Institutes of Health under the first President Bush, wrote in U.S. News & World Report that these recent developments "reinforced the notion that embryonic stem cells … are obsolete." Many scientists, of course, want to conduct embryonic stem cell research, as they have and always could with private funding. One may agree or disagree with their purposes, but one may also question why taxpayers should have to fund something so ethically charged when alternative methods are available. Next comes a move to lift the unfortunately named Dickey-Wicker amendment in Congress, which prohibits using tax dollars to create human embryos for research purposes. If the amendment is rescinded, then human embryos can be created and destroyed with federal tax dollars. Good people can disagree on these things, but those who insist that this is "only about abortion" miss the point. The objectification of human life is never a trivial matter. And determining what role government plays in that objectification may be the ethical dilemma of the century. In this case, science handed Obama a gift – and he sent it back.
Kathleen Parker: The research Obama doesn't want to discuss
Published: Wednesday, Mar. 11, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 19A
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#1. To: farmfriend (#0)
(Edited)
In this case, science handed Obama a gift – and he sent it back. The Devil incarnate or the antichrist. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition You think the people of this country exist to provide you with position. I think your position exists to provide those people with freedom.~~William Wallace ALAS, BABYLON
The mulatto Jimmy Carter is how I view him. He is in way over his head trying to fix problems he didn't cause. He won't be any more successful than Carter. The disaster he has inherited is arguably even worse than the Vietnam-Watergate, LBJ-Nixon-Ford debacle Carter tried to clean up after.
“I would give no thought of what the world might say of me, if I could only transmit to posterity the reputation of an honest man.” - Sam Houston
Obamalamadingdong is one of the most wicked people I've ever seen selected, if not *THE* most wicked.
Carter was either an innocent idiot, or played one. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition You think the people of this country exist to provide you with position. I think your position exists to provide those people with freedom.~~William Wallace ALAS, BABYLON
He played some small theoretical role, I suppose, in facilitating some of the problems the U.S. government caused from 2005 until 2008 while a U.S. Senator. But I think being one Senator out of 100 and in the minority party for half that time is not a significant role. So I do not think it is inaccurate to say he "inherited" 99 percent of what he is now saddled with. But I don't feel sorry for him. He asked for the job, campaigning nearly two years for it.
“I would give no thought of what the world might say of me, if I could only transmit to posterity the reputation of an honest man.” - Sam Houston
He is a puppet doing the biding of masters who created this problem. With a purpose, I might add.
I remember someone else who was into human experementation. Gun control, Taxing, Spending, Printing Money, Human Experementation and baby killing == NATIONAL SOCIALISM Change: We do NOT need!!!
He will be fighting to correct the world he 'inherited from Bush' even as late as January 19, 2013.
_________________________________________________________________________ Amen!
bingo!
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition You think the people of this country exist to provide you with position. I think your position exists to provide those people with freedom.~~William Wallace ALAS, BABYLON
every single one of the successes in treating patients with stem cells thus far – for spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis, for example – have involved adult or umbilical cord blood stem cells, not embryonic
I haven't quite decided which Omessiah is yet.
Ever get the feeling something just isn't right?
"Corporation: An entity created for the legal protection of its human parasites, whose sole purpose is profit and self-perpetuation." ~~ IndieTx
#2. To: farmfriend (#0)
#3. To: IndieTX (#1)
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams 
#4. To: Sam Houston, ALL (#2)
Obamalammadingdong only has the idiot in common, not the innocence.
And to stop this MYTH right now, he is NOT trying to fix any problems!!!
"The disaster he inherited" is a fallacious idea in that it just isn't completely true.
How long will the Messiah shift blame? As long as it is expedient.
"Corporation: An entity created for the legal protection of its human parasites, whose sole purpose is profit and self-perpetuation." ~~ IndieTx
#5. To: IndieTX (#4)
"The disaster he inherited" is a fallacious idea in that it just isn't completely true.
#6. To: Sam Houston, rotara, lodwick, indietx (#2)
The mulatto Jimmy Carter is how I view him. He is in way over his head trying to fix problems he didn't cause. He won't be any more successful than Carter.
"Controlling carbon is a bureaucrat's dream. If you control carbon, you control life." — Dr. Richard Lindzen, MIT Professor of Meteorology
#7. To: farmfriend (#0)
Oh what a DUFFLE-HEAD that Barack Obama is !!! Duffle-Head (As used in a Felix the Cat cartoon) A wicked person of limited intelegence but with pretenses of intelectual grandeur. Their only successful endevors are usually the invention of self punishment machines.
#8. To: IndieTX (#4)
How long will the Messiah shift blame? As long as it is expedient.
"This man is Jesus,” shouted one man, spilling his Guinness as Barack Obama began his inaugural address. “When will he come to Kenya to save us?”
-Schweizerische Schuetzenzeitung (Swiss Shooting Federation) April, 1941
#9. To: Coral Snake (#7)
Change: We do NOT need!!!
"Controlling carbon is a bureaucrat's dream. If you control carbon, you control life." — Dr. Richard Lindzen, MIT Professor of Meteorology
#10. To: X-15 (#8)
He will be fighting to correct the world he 'inherited from Bush' even as late as January 19, 2013.
"Corporation: An entity created for the legal protection of its human parasites, whose sole purpose is profit and self-perpetuation." ~~ IndieTx
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