What Religious Liberty?
The Incredible Ever-Expanding Dead End
Anti-Cure, Anti-Life
Whose Values in
Education?
Toppling
Dominos
Anti-Christians
don't have to be Hypocrites but Many Volunteer
Intolerant Tolerance
The Emperor's
Clothes or a Cheap Tuxedo
The Myth of
Hitler's Pope, Part I
The Myth of
Hitler's Pope, Part II
Embryonic
Stem Cell Research Again
The Madness of
Secularism
"Don't Impose Your
Religion on Me"
Dictatorship of Relativism
Two Babies at Christmas
Living Will or Death
Warrant?
Court Ordered
Slow Motion Torture-Death Sentence
Men in Black
A Lot of Hot Air
The Culture War
Battles
"Stay with us, Lord"
Secular-to-English Dictionary
Moral Guidance for
Catholics in this Election
Christians
Losing America
Stem Cell Wars
Catholic
Pro-Abortion Politicians and Communion
Useful Idiots
Who Killed Jesus?
A Primer on Gay
Marriage
Whose Side are You
on?
Vouchers Revisited
Real and Fake
Cloning Bans
Broken Compasses
No Room in the Inn
Killing Fields
Revisited
Gay but not Merry
Adam and Steve?
The Battle for the Court
Victimless Crimes
More Salt, Please
The Next Big Fight
When Religion
Becomes Evil
Virginity Making a Comeback?
You've Come a Long Way,
Baby
The Incarnational
Approach
The Many Meanings of ACLU
Things Your Media Never Told
You
A Nasty Little Secret
Two Points of View on the Birth of Jesus
You Gotta Kill Them. How Else
Are They Going To Learn?
Perplexing Christmas Questions
How Do You See Christ Today?
Now that there is Another Ewe, will there be
Another You?
What is Conscience Anyhow?
Divorce of Love and Life
What Counts as a Mass?
What is a Covenant?
I Wish I had Your Faith
Are there Too Many Decrees of
Nullity?
Dutch Treats
Ecumenism
Going from Baby Doe to Granny Doe
Comments of Evangelium Vitae
The Exception Corrupts the Rule
Good Morality or
Good Medicine
Generation-X'ers Smart in Every Way But
One
A Matter of Good Breeding
Herod and Pontius Pilate at the
Polls
Hitler's Pope or Righteous Gentile?
The Unknown God
What exactly is wrong with
homosexuality?
Ideology Trumps Science, Reality,
and Common Sense
What Exactly is an Indulgence?
Infallibility and Error in the Church
Pilate Asked, "What is Truth?"
The Truth about Families
New Killing Fields
Choice of Language and Language of
Choice
A Lexicon for Our Day
Why are there so many bodies?
Marijuana, Medicine or Menace?
Medical Research and Ethics
Meditation
"You Taught me well,
Mommie dearest"
Moral Fallout
Neutral on the Wrong
Side
"These are the
Nineties After All"
Many are Wed but Few
are Married
"...Prepare him for
additional obligations"
A Useful Lie
A Partridge in a
Pear Tree
Religious Persecution in
the U.S.?
What Makes a Person a
Person?
The Point of a Point of
View
Politically Correct,
Morally Depraved
Population
Controllers out of Control
Practical Dreamers
Social Progress
through Immorality
Shall we Do Evil for
Goodness Sake?
Reason and Faith
Resurrection Glory
Same Sex Marriages?
Pearl of Great Price
"I used to be
schizophrenic, but we're all right now"
Sexual Morality
Irrelevant in Judging Public Officials?
Undesirable Side Effects
Some News is Good News
SOSSLQ's, not POSSLQ's
Spoils of Splits
Why Attend Mass
Every Sunday?
Is it All Right to Pull
the Plug?
An Appeal for Intolerance
Topics Catechetical
A Voting Catechism
A Moral Guide to
Voting
Vouchers: Has Their Time Come?
What Child is This?
What did they die of?
You are the Man
You may be a liberal
if...
Get Rid of that Worthless
Relative
Planned Un-Parenthood
Weighing Pro-Life Issues
Prior to Voting
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by Monsignor James C. Brunner |
Faith Points |
The Incredible Ever-Expanding Dead End
Proponents of embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) say that adult stem cell research (ASCR) is at a dead end. ESCR is not at a dead end for the simple reason its beginning is dead. There have been zero therapies using ESCs while the dead end ASCR is enjoying absolutely frenetic activity and boasts 65 therapies with more on the way.
The list of therapies is far too long to reprint here and so I recommend clicking on the website, http://www.stemcellresearch.org for a complete list. While there you can educate yourselves on the basics of stem cells. Adult stem cells now offer 23 therapies for cancer including brain, ovarian, and breast cancer. There are 14 ASC therapies for auto-immune diseases like multiple sclerosis and Crohn’s disease. ASCs have helped to repair heart damage and been used for corneal regeneration. Three therapies are available for immunodeficiencies. Three more for neural-degenerative diseases/injuries. Ten therapies are available for anemias/blood conditions including sickle cell anemia. ASCs help in wounds/injuries including jawbone replacement and skull bone repair. Finally there are six therapies for metabolic disorders.
Transplanted ASCs can improve vision in eyes that have been damaged by retinal disease. This holds great promise for potential treatments for people suffering from macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and other retinal diseases.
Texas researchers believe they have perfected a way to deliver cancer treatment directly to tumors. While the initial experiments have been done on mice, human trials could begin soon. The researchers used ASCs which move like guided missiles, targeting tumor cells.
In a Virginia study ASCs taken from human fat have been used to improve the functioning of damaged hearts. ASCs therapy has been found good for the heart in a study by John Hopkins. Among the many benefits of ASCs is their ready availability, meaning they can be extracted from the patient, no donor is required, and the cells can be simply reproduced if more are needed.
Scientists in Vancouver, Canada have isolated stem cells form the breast tissue of mice that can regenerate an entire milk-producing mammary gland. The discovery is a landmark achievement for adult stem cell research because adult stem cells have been purified from an adult tissue other than bone marrow or blood. If the research can be duplicated on humans, the discovery could enhance the usefulness of adult stem cells continuing to make them superior to embryonic stem cells.
Cord blood, which is one of the easiest sources from which to obtain stem cells, have the potential to be like embryonic stem cells. “We think cord blood is the next best thing to embryonic stem cells,” David Harris, University of Arizona microbiology professor, said. “These cells are versatile and robust. Neonatal stem cells are fairly equivalent to fetal stem cells, without all the controversy and hindrance.” Harris expects that heart attack and Type 1 diabetes patients will routinely be treated with stem cells within the next five years. Within 10 years, stem-cell applications will include treatments of cancer and viral infections. Arizona is focusing on neonatal and ASCs and excluding ESCs.
“We’ve cured almost every single disease there is in mice,” Stuart Williams, University of Arizona professor and chairman of biomedical engineering, said. “Now it's translating it from mice to humans. Fifteen years from now, I foresee patients not needing heart transplants. We’ll replace tissue that has become damaged with healthy tissue.”
Williams said he settled on fat cells because they’re a sufficient source for everybody.
In a single operation, stem cells are harvested, prepared and reimplanted in a patient. Once extracted, the stem cells are ready within 30 to 90 minutes. The patient’s new organ is undergoing its development right there in the operating room.
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have used adult cells from the spleen to regenerate insulin-producing cells and show “permanent reversal of diabetes” in mice. Essentially the spleen cells “retrain” the body’s immune system to stop attacking its own islet cells, and new cells then naturally regenerate from the spleen cells and the body’s own cells, eliminating the need for any further cell transplant. The Harvard team, headed by Dr. Denise Faustman, now has FDA approval for clinical trials in human juvenile diabetes patients. These and other advances promise new approaches to treating diabetes that require no destruction of human embryos, and offer real hope to diabetic patients.
A South Korean woman paralyzed for 20 years is now walking again after scientists repaired her damaged spine using stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood. Thirty-seven-year-old Hwang Mi-Soon told the media she considered her ability to walk nothing short of a miracle. “I never dreamed of getting to my feet again,” she said. Ironically this occurred while John Edwards, former Democratic candidate for vice-president, promised that once the federal government funded ESCR Christopher Reeve would rise from his wheel chair. No English-language publication thought that such an incredible breakthrough as allowing a paraplegic to walk again was newsworthy—probably because it involved the politically incorrect kind of stem cell.
There is a widening gulf between the promise of ESCs and the reality of therapy from ASCs—those already in our bodies and umbilical cord blood. ESCs get publicity; ASCs get results. Therapeutic progress with adult stem cells will continue to come fast and furious. Just when the public will be allowed to hear about it is another thing entirely.
Is it possible that the difficulties of ESCR can be overcome and that ESCs offer unique therapeutic qualities that will never be supplied by ASCs? Most assuredly, but I hope that we will never learn the answer to that question. Scientific progress should not come at the cost of killing fellow human beings. During World War II the Nazi scientists possibly advanced scientific knowledge by their freezing/hypothermia experiments. The object was to discover how to prepare troops for surviving the Russian winters and for pilots to survive after being shot down at sea. Men were placed into ice vats or exposed naked in sub-zero temperatures to see how fast they would die. Some were exposed for a shorter time to test revival methods. Dr. Sigmund Rascher reported the findings of the experiments at a 1942 medical conference entitled “Medical Problems Arising from Sea and Winter.” The experiments may have advanced scientific knowledge but it was at the cost of killing human beings. The prevailing attitude was that those killed in the experiments, Jewish and Russian prisoners, were slated for death anyhow. So, “Why not profit from them?” Using human embryos, very young human persons, for medical experiments or as raw material for cures is essentially identical with the Nazi attitude: “These embryos are going to die anyhow. So why not profit from them?”
Now that ASCs have done everything that ESCs promised but failed to deliver, are superior in culture, do not cause tumors and teratomas, have proven their value in an ever-growing list of therapies, do not present rejection problems, are abundant and readily available without dependence on donors, and above all, do not require killing of anyone and so are not burdened with ethical problems, there is simply no excuse for a continuation of ESCR. Unless one is eager to make a contribution to the culture of death.
Thanks to ASCs regenerative medicine will be an exciting field for years to come. If ASCs are at a dead end I hope that all my dead ends prove to be equally expansive.
(Printed July, 2006)
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St. Mary's Church Pastor & Vicar
