To set the Record Straight about Stem Cell Funding

Jeannine

Pioneer Founding member
Just to set the record straight. This is not intended to be political but merely to provide the facts.

Here's an newspaper article from 2001 when Bush provided funding for stem cell research. I keep reading news article that claim he banned it.

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/08/09/stem.cell.bush/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010809/aponline213342_000.htm

One other point to keep in mind, Bush never banned stem cell research of any kind - only the amount of taxpayer dollars that would be used. Stem cell research has been ongoing for at least the past decade. Private companies and universities have been free to conduct stem cell research on their own dime.

It's one of these cases of something repeated often enough becomes fact.
 
stem cell funding?

You would think that Bush would have put our money where his mouth was by supporting Adult stem cell research back in 2001 rather than giving grudging approval to embryonic stem cell research on a limited basis. Missed opportunity that plagues us today.
 

Jeannine

Pioneer Founding member
I think our government officials and the media are in the dark about stem cells and different types of stem cells. Then you get people like Irv Weissman out there as the "media expert" who downplays adult stem cells as "snake oil" and you can see why this has happened.

Another thing to note is how the NIH is the recipient of the federal dollars and decides who will get the money. Here's a list of the potential recipients

http://grants.nih.gov/stem_cells/registry/current.htm

Seems to me the money isn't being spread around to many colleges and universities. It takes several years for the NIH to give out the grants too.

One other point - other countries are way ahead of us and many of the worthwhile stem cell clinical trials going on in the world (see http://clinicaltrials.gov ) are happening in other countries.

Someone has to expose what's happening. It's all about government funding for embryonic stem cells even though nothing has been proven to work while zero attention is paid by the NIH to adult stem cell treatment research which has already proven to improve many diseases especially, heart damage, MS and Cerebral Palsy. It is truly appaling.
 
comparing the two web links.

When you click on the US Gov't funding for embryonic stem cell link and imagine the millions of dollars being sent to those institutions and then click on the clinical trials link and see all the other countries actually engaged in learning what is helping people by supporting clinical trials, it is astounding how disconnected from the reality of adult stem cells the US Gov't is in this regard.
 

Jeannine

Pioneer Founding member
michaelsdad0

It is truly appalling. We have to try and get this out to the media somehow. This needs to be exposed to the American people.
 

barbara

Pioneer Founding member
Opposition Among Mich. Gubernatorial Candidates To SC Research Prompts Concerns

This is another prime example of politicians and the media not getting it. What a perfect opportunity for a candidate to come out strongly in favor of adult stem cell research and treatments.


03 Aug 2010

In the lead up to Tuesday's gubernatorial primary in Michigan, researchers in the state are concerned that just two of the seven Democratic and Republican candidates support embryonic stem cell research and that recent progress on the issue statewide could stall, the Detroit News reports.
Citing moral and religious reasons, four of the five Republican candidates -- Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard, Attorney General Mike Cox, state Sen. Tom George and U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra -- and state House Speaker Andy Dillon (D) have expressed opposition to embryonic stem cell research. Rick Snyder, a businessman and the fifth Republican candidate, and Democratic Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero are in favor of the research.

Michigan voters approved a state constitutional amendment permitting such research in 2008. Since then, the state Senate has since passed several bills for the creation of reporting requirements and regulations, which the researchers oppose, according to the Detroit News. Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) -- who is not seeking re-election because of term limits -- supports stem cell research, and she has pledged to veto the Senate-approved regulatory legislation.

Researchers' Concerns

Sean Morrison, director of the Center for Stem Cell Biology at the University of Michigan, said there is broad concern that state leader opposition to stem cell research could create implementation and image problems. Morrison said, "People voted to constitutionally protect this type of research," adding, "It would be an open question if we get a governor who is opposed to this, whether the governor and the Legislature could find a way to impede this research."

Morrison noted that Michigan competes with numerous other states, like California, Massachusetts and New York, for scientists that specialize in embryonic stem cell research, adding that the "best young researchers" might not come to Michigan if there is uncertainty about the research environment. "Other state governments are not bickering," Morrison said, adding, "[T]hey're actually helping to fund the research" (Hornbeck, Detroit News, 7/29).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org.
 

Jeannine

Pioneer Founding member
Unfortunately, this has become strictly politics and religious beliefs and even worse is it's the politics of ignorance. Both sides are so stuck on embryonic stem cells that they're ignoring cord blood and autologous stem cell research completely.

Who loses? The American people. Which of these politicians has the slightest clue about stem cells? Does anyone know?
 

barbara

Pioneer Founding member
Townhall Magazine
August, 2001
***
A Right Wing-War on Science? Really?

The Left has launched an all-out assault on scientific integrity and evidence-based decision making, all the while accusing the Right of opposing science.

The notion of a Republican or conservative "war on science" has been advanced by liberal politicians and commentators for decades. The phrase, which captures conservatives' alleged attempts to undermine or interfere with the scientific process for political or ideological reasons, was heard on the 2008 presidential campaign trail almost as often as "hope" and "change."

Conservatives have rarely mounted a defense against such claims. Yet on many science-related issues, the conservative position has either prevailed or gained considerable ground. What's more, there is increasing evidence that the Democrats, faced with the burden of governing, are doing precisely what they accused conservatives of doing: dismissing the best science, creating false consensuses and otherwise putting their preferred policy goals ahead of the best available evidence.



In the August issue of Townhall Magazine, Daniel Allot, a senior writer at American Values and a Washington fellow at the National Review Institute, debunks the left-wing claims that conservatives are anti-science and offers evidence that it's the Left that is actually waging a war on science, placing political correctness in the driver's seat ahead of actual evidence.

Of the many major "science fights," one of the most politicized has been the one over embryonic stem-cell research. Pro-lifers who believe life begins at conception oppose the destruction of life in the name of science, but they've been all for adult stem-cell research. They would say that it's not science they oppose -- but immorality.

From the feature, "A Right-Wing War on Science? Really?":
The War That Wasn't

During George W. Bush's presidency, the popular perception was that Republicans were trying, as Hillary Clinton put it, "to turn Washington into an evidence-free zone." Bush and his congressional allies were regularly rebuked for allowing religious faith and political ideology to trump the prevailing science.

But it was a weak argument. President Bush funded scientific research proportionate to past administrations, and science funding increased steadily through his two terms.

And on many of the issues raised by liberals as proof of a Republican war on science, the evidence now vindicates the conservative position. For instance, Bush's 2001 executive order limiting federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research (ESCR) was decried by the Left as "anti-science." But not only does ESCR destroy nascent human life, it also has failed to produce any medical cures or treatments. Dr. Bernadine Healy, a former National Institutes of Health director, wrote last year, "Embryonic stem cells, once thought to hold the cure for Alzheimer's, Parkinson?s and diabetes, are obsolete."

Meanwhile, ethical adult stem-cell research, which President Bush funded, is thriving. Dr. David Prentice, a leading expert on stem-cell research and a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, recently told me that adult stem cells treat more than 70 conditions in more than 50,000 people a year.

The 2006 successful "re-programming" of human skin cells to behave like embryonic stem cells was lauded by the science community. It won Science magazine's 2008 "Breakthrough of the Year." ESCR pioneer Dr. James Thomson predicted, "A decade from now, [ESCR] will be just a funny historical footnote." The conservative position on stem cells, it turns out, is not only the ethical position but also the "pro-science" position.
Read the entire in-depth report in the August issue of Townhall Magazine.

And yesterday, CBS had this report that adult stem-cell research is, as conservatives have long noted, leaving embryonic stem-cell research in the dust.
For all the emotional debate that began about a decade ago on allowing the use of embryonic stem cells, it's adult stem cells that are in human testing today. An extensive review of stem cell projects and interviews with two dozen experts reveal a wide range of potential treatments.

Adult stem cells are being studied in people who suffer from multiple sclerosis, heart attacks and diabetes. Some early results suggest stem cells can help some patients avoid leg amputation. Recently, researchers reported that they restored vision to patients whose eyes were damaged by chemicals.

Apart from these efforts, transplants of adult stem cells have become a standard lifesaving therapy for perhaps hundreds of thousands of people with leukemia, lymphoma and other blood diseases. "That's really one of the great success stories of stem cell biology that gives us all hope," says Dr. David Scadden of Harvard, who notes stem cells are also used to grow skin grafts.

"If we can recreate that success in other tissues, what can we possibly imagine for other people?"

Adult cells have been transplanted routinely for decades, first in bone marrow transplants and then in procedures that transfer just the cells. Doctors recover the cells from the marrow or bloodstream of a patient or a donor, and infuse them as part of the treatment for leukemia, lymphoma and other blood diseases. Tens of thousands of people are saved each year by such procedures, experts say.

But it is harnessing these cells for other diseases that has encouraged many scientists lately. In June, for example, researchers reported they had restored vision to people whose eyes were damaged from caustic chemicals. Stem cells from each patient's healthy eye were grown and multiplied in the lab and transplanted into the damaged eye, where they grew into healthy corneal tissue. ... And on Friday, Italian doctors said they'd transplanted two windpipes injected with the recipients' own stem cells.

Some of the new approaches, like the long-proven treatments, are based on the idea that stem cells can turn into other cells. ... [ESCR]cientists say they're harnessing the apparent abilities of adult stem cells to stimulate tissue repair, or to suppress the immune system.

"That gives adult stem cells really a very interesting and potent quality that embryonic stem cells don't have," says Rocky Tuan of the University of Pittsburgh.
 
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