Stem cell facts

  • This is an update to the last post. I was a lit­tle too flip, and I wanted to be clear about stem cell research. There IS promise in stem cell research, but there’s also a GOOD alter­na­tive to destroy­ing embryos.

    Cou­ple things from this list of the media-reported myths about stem cell research, just to help us keep things straight:

    Myth 1. Stem cells can only come from embryos. In fact, stem cells can be taken from umbil­i­cal cords, the pla­centa, amni­otic fluid, adult tis­sues and organs such as bone mar­row, fat from lipo­suc­tion, regions of the nose, and even from cadav­ers up to 20 hours after death.

    Myth 3. Embry­onic stem cell research has the great­est promise. Up to now, no human being has ever been cured of a dis­ease using embry­onic stem cells. Adult stem cells, on the other hand, have already cured thou­sands. [empha­sis mine] For exam­ple, bone mar­row cells from the hip­bone have repaired scar tis­sue on the heart after heart attacks. Research using adult cells is 20–30 years ahead of embry­onic stem cells and holds greater promise. This is in part because stem cells are part of the nat­ural repair mech­a­nisms of an adult body, while embry­onic stem cells do not belong in an adult body (where they are likely to form tumors, and to be rejected as for­eign tis­sue by the recip­i­ent). Rather, embry­onic stem cells really belong only within in the spe­cial­ized microen­vi­ron­ment of a rapidly grow­ing embryo, which is a rad­i­cally dif­fer­ent set­ting from an adult body.

    Do we all get how weird this is? There’s a way to do this that doesn’t involve the destruc­tion of nascent human life and doesn’t put us into the eth­i­cally murky waters of har­vest­ing the unborn for their body parts. We don’t have to do this in order to get stem cells, and yet the sci­ence and pro­gres­sive com­mu­ni­ties want us to and want to silence the oppo­si­tion by say­ing they’re being moral­is­tic and obstructive.

    I think what’s behind this com­pul­sion among the non-scientific elites is that it shores up the case they want to build for abor­tion being some­how a more com­pas­sion­ate choice than bear­ing chil­dren. That’s always been a ludi­crous thing to say, but if any­one is capa­ble of repeat­ing an insane state­ment often enough that you start to have doubts, it would be these guys. And look at what a jump for­ward it is for them if they can say that the really car­ing woman is the one who not only treats con­cep­tion as if she was order­ing take­out food, but fun­nels the dis­carded embryos to lab­o­ra­to­ries in order to fur­ther the march of progress (and pick up a check in the bargain).

    As for what the sci­en­tists want out of this, who knows? The brand of athe­ism in that com­mu­nity is fairly leg­endary, but it’s just guess­work to say what else is going on.

    BTW, here’s another more involved fact­sheet. Both of these are from ’06, so some­one else might know of more recent information.


    Related posts:

    1. Stem cells and Frist’s inconsistency
    2. Those silly restric­tions on infanticide
    3. People-animal embryos
    4. Bloggy round-up
    5. Got the red state blues

    March 9th, 2009 | Grace | 4 Comments |

4 Responses and Counting...

  • Kyra­lessa 03.09.2009

    And baby teeth! You can find stem cells in baby teeth too!
    http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn3643-baby-t…

  • Grace

    Rats! Too bad I didn’t hold onto mine. :-)

    Inter­est­ing that that arti­cle just says in pass­ing that adult stem cells have more lim­ited abil­i­ties than embry­onic stem cells. If that’s true, it would at least explain why we’re so gung ho for those stem cells.

    It doesn’t change the fact that you’re still destroy­ing life in order to try to enhance life, which is (cap­i­tal b) Bad. But it’s just as well to know the argument.

  • Mimi

    Baby teeth? Really. Cool.

    I think that there are such places of promise that don’t involve embryos. Sigh. Lord have Mercy.

  • Kyra­lessa

    Not to men­tion that the more lim­ited capa­bil­i­ties of adult stem cells can be a *good* thing: It means you have more cer­tainty that you’re going to get a spe­cific type of cell, instead of a mish­mash of teeth, skin, bones, hair, the sort of thing that has some­times hap­pened in embry­onic stem cell experiments.

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