OK, you say this is true. Scientists say this is not true. Who do you think is more likely to accurately assess what is needed to do scientific research?
I mean, if you’re against stem-cell research on the basis of ethical grounds, that’s a legitimate position, but at least have the stones to accept the consequences.
I think the real question is whether or not Kerry is bigger than the Beatles.
Duffer, do you ever learn? Will you open up one or two of these fucking threads a week and get slammed when you misquote, improperly distill, or plain old buy into the bullshit of the right?
Look, Asshole Bush has cut off funding for additional stem cell lines. He has in effect brought the entire fucking field to its knees. What are there, 22 fucking stem cell lines? It needs to be opened up again and good Americans like yourself need to take your heads out of your asses and take the president’s dick out of your mouths.
Sam
Does the federal funding really matter? If a private company thinks that it’s worth researching, say a big pharmaceutical company, then they could put all the money they wanted into it. Doesn’t matter if they do it in-house, fund a research program at an university, or do something else, does it?
The problem is that a lot of corporations don’t do pure research any more, so if the government doesn’t pick up the slack, then who will? Also, many of the companies that do invest in pure research (which is what would be needed for stem cells) get the government to pick up the tab.
And it’s possible, though I’m not certain on how the wording of the regulation is, but I think that if an institution which gets government money for anything does stem cell research using any than the approved lines, they lose all their funding from the government for everything. Which, if this is correct, and I’m more than willing to admit that it might not be, would mean that a university couldn’t enroll students who were getting student loans or Pell Grants.
Can we look at the loaded phrase “harvesting embryos” for a minute? Fact: Right now, today, hundreds of embryos created for implantation by couples having trouble conceiving are destroyed each year when they are no longer needed. They throw them in the furnace. They are wasted, get it? They could supply more than enough stem cells for research without having one new abortion performed or one embryo created just to harvest the cells. These embryos are being destroyed to no purpose. Wouldn’t it be better to learn something from them rather than just tossing them out because the phrase “embryo harvest” has a high ick factor?
Big pharmaceutical companies are about profits. That’s why they spend more on marketing than they do on research and development (according to a book coming out by the former editor of the one of the major medical journals. I think that is the New England Journal of Medicine, but it might have been JAMA.)
I doubt that Christopher Reeve would have objected to his name being used. The day before he died, he called Kerry and left a message for him to keep on pushing for the research.
duffer, did it ever occur to you that there might be more than one moral and ethical take on the issue? Some of us find that it is George W. Bush who has “damned the consequences.” You have obviously never cried with a friend who is a full time caregiver for an Alzeimer’s patient while she herself has cancer – or loved a child whose head was burned in a fire – and had some chime-head politician who uses religious issues preach about how unethical it is to take a microscopic embryo out of the freezer with the hope that it might bring life to someone who is dying.
What are the options? I would seriously like to know what becomes of the remaining embryos that are created but not used during in vitro fertilization? (If this was answered elsewhere and I didn’t see it, please excuse my asking again.)
Your title went beyond hyperbole. It was an out and out lie.
And you didn’t read where I said my grandmother died of Alzheimer’s and both my parents died before I was 30 of cancer. Fuck you. I’d let you know how I feel but I want to avoid being banned.
How fucking dare you try to equate something that has affected my family in such a way to a friend of yours. I hope your friend knows what kind of person you are.
I wanted to read about John Edward crossing over and talking to Jebus. 
I’m genuinely sorry to hear that. It can’t have been easy. But it makes your attitude on the whole question of stem cell research all the more puzzling, since you, more than most here, have been affected by the diseases that that research might help cure. I just don’t understand that at all.
I’m not confused in any way about stem cell research. I’m about to concede the cascade of anti-Bush dopers and just give up the argument. I don’t know how to make it any more clear. That said, I’ll make one more argument to the rest of the dopers here.
The current situation is that there are some embryonic stem cells available for research, and the Bush administration has portioned <some> billion (or million, not sure) amount for it. In addition, there are studies using adult stem cells. Also paid for with federal funds.
What I want (before I lay the bomb)* is some proof that using stem cells from people that can say “Yes, doc, use the cells for research with the federal money” to actually come up with something that works.
Granted, embryonic stem cells** MIGHT** be a cure all to human fraility, but I think we should take a safer approach and make damn sure it’s viable. This thread is starting to get long and I have yet to see a cite where stems are proven to do any good in practical applications.
Now, I understand the arguments coming about using embryonic tissue, but the theory also says adult stems can be used for some ailments. Give me a study proving it that way, and I guarantee the embryonic phase will be implemented within 2 years by all to the left of me. (The general population, apparently)
People have to realize this is a huge ethical case for doctors. Whether you want it to be or not.
*Now for the bomb. I’ve alluded to it before and still not sure what forum to put it in (suggesstions?). My wife and I have to do in-vitro and were asked what to do with any embryos that were unused. We had the option to freeze them for later use or discard them. I asked if they could be donated for another couple. (Hey, I’m not a complete asshole). The nurse told us it was better to either freeze for later use or “discard” them. We asked if the embryos could be donated to another couple.
Nope. No chance there. There is no donating embryos to couples that have that as a last chance.
(Getting on a Pit skew here, so I’ll end it. More to come. Maybe)
Shoot.
Ah always love it when fall comes and we’re a harvestin’ the embryos.
This has been my understanding ever since the Prez’s pen touched the bill.
Sam
Can anyone back this up? I don’t think I’ve claimed proof of the OP (yes, chefguy it was supposed to be GD) but I’d like to see something. Especially a University that has lost funding (not a cut) because of embryonic stem cell research.
Duffer, the title of your OP is shitting me. You deliberately made an inflammatory statement you knew to be false for the purposes of provoking argument. There’s a word for this…
Ummm…The OP was a play on preachers that promise to heal the lame during revivals. Your post is accusing me of being a troll. Just a bit of a difference. But thanks for playing.
Now there’s a reasonable Republican.
I was going to come in here and say this, but you beat me to it.
Duffer, you are absolutely, positively, the most bizarrely bat-shit loonball crazy-ass mother fucker that I have ever met in my entire life. Bar none.
Embryos are being trashed. Thrown away. Completely and utterly fucking wasted. You oppose any federal money from being used to look at them and their possible therapeutic effects because we can’t prove that it will work.
You want absolute, uncontroversial proof that something will work before even a dime is spent upon researching it.
Insane
I get the joke, moron. That’s not my complaint.
My complaint is that you misstated someone’s reasonable position just so you could beat a straw man. The Kerry-Edwards campaign says something like “Let’s do the following things to improve the health system…” and you represent it as “Kerry says he’ll fix everything that’s wrong and we will live in a utopia and never die! What a liar!”. This isn’t the first time you’ve done this, even not the first time you’ve done this in response to Kerry-Edwards campaign statements.
You’re a moron who deliberately misstates another’s position in your OP in a cack-handed attempt to piss off the board’s lefties. That’s pathetic.