Slog - Comments on Republican Wishful Thinking on Science

Comment by schoolgirl crush

schoolgirl crush — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 13:52:08 -0800

swoon.

Comment by kinaidos

kinaidos — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 14:07:19 -0800

Not to mention downright falsification of lab results in two recent prominent papers proporting to demonstrate omnipotency in differentiated somatic tissue cells.

There would be no contention between the two lines of research were it not for the religiotards. Embryonic stems cells are promising but the need to clone to the host is a huge hurdle. Pluripotent somatic cells don't require host-cloning but they are only limitedly pluripotent at best. The one line of research complements the other, for everyone who's not a religiotard.

Comment by Missed a word

Missed a word — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 14:21:19 -0800

Okay so adult stem cells suck at stuff as probably all except idiots know by now but the ones found in the umbilical cord are pretty much as good as embryonic ones. And the dude mentioned those too in his speech.

Comment by maw

maw — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 14:27:07 -0800

I understood like 2 sentences of what kinaidos said. Chill dude, we're not all Biology majors here.
Also we really don't need to be inventing new words to insult people. C'mon you're better than that, right?

Comment by Will in Seattle

Will in Seattle — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 14:30:41 -0800

If you had actually read the scientific papers the articles were based on, you'd see the actual yields are more like one or two proto-stem cells for millions of skin cells.

Time to face reality, children - and I do call neocons children, since they act like it - and fund science fully.

Comment by Jonathan Golob

Jonathan Golob — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 14:44:51 -0800

@3. I'm working on a future column about umbilical cord stem cells.

The short of it: They are little different than adult blood stem cells. Great if you have leukemia or aplastic anemia, but not close to being as "good" as embryonic stem cells.

Comment by chunkstyle

chunkstyle — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 15:12:38 -0800

Well, of course your citation of Chuck Murray and the quoted block indicate data from the 90's and early part of this decade. Whereas many of the promising adult stem cell results are more recent in the past year or two. I fail to see where the 'gotcha' is on George Voinovich's quote, other than standard R-bashing. There's some selective representation going on here.

From Chuck's own paper you link, he mentions what is one of the greatest problems for ESCs, namely:

As appealing as this approach might be, subsequent studies, including our own, have shown that this method leads to the formation of teratomas (a tumor type composed of cells derived from all three embryonic germ layers) (80 and 81). Teratomas are arguably the greatest risk associated with ESC-based therapy. In fact, recent studies have shown that the formation of teratomas can counteract the benefit provided by the intended cellular therapy (82 and 83).

I think it is more responsible to approach these complicated issues in an even-handed and methodical way. I know this is slog, and you're probably contractually required to throw some red meat out there, but adult stem cells do not 'suck' for everything as another poster said. Similarly, ESCs are not the cure-all panacea that politicians would have you believe.

Comment by Fnarf

Fnarf — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 16:42:05 -0800

But the point is, the only possible reason for objecting to the use of embryonic stem cells is religiotardation. Opposition to embryonic stem cell research should be a criteria for not being allowed to discuss it. The grownups have work to do. It's like creationism.

Comment by Chuck

Chuck — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 17:02:33 -0800

just got the call -- they want to start a stem cell transplant on me, next month.

i haven't researched the current state of my disease or my diagnosis, percentages of this or that, and the scheduler actually called before the doctor called so i didn't even know we were going to be at that stage. i am not up on whether this stem cell stuff actually relates to the discussion in this thread. but i now know this:

this republican b.s. hurts real people.

maybe someone you know.