For those of you who will not likely invest the time in reading through ALL my ESCR material, I thought I would list 10 quick hit points. If these points intrigue you though, I guess you’ll just have to read the rest of my ESCR pages
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1. Our family supports Stem Cell Research – ADULT Stem Cell Research. We also support FEDERAL funding of Adult Stem Cell Research. In the past 2 years, the federal government has funded over $360 million dollars in this research. 2. Adult Stem Cell Research has been used in over 45 successful clinical trials to treat humans. Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis, Cancers such as leukemia’s, Renal Cell Carcinoma (which my mom had last year), Liver Disease, and yes even Spinal Chord Injuries (these are just a few from the list).
3. Embryonic Stem Cell Research has not been used in any human clinical trial.
4. Scientists have favored ESCR over ASCR because ESCells are pluripotent (meaning they can become any type of tissue). Scientists have now proven that there are Adult stem cells that are just as efficient. They are called Multipotent Adult Progenitor Cells (MAPCs) and are stem cells that can be found in bone marrow. They can “differentiate into pretty much everything that an embryonic stem cell can differentiate into”. These cells may turn out to be the most important cells ever discovered. ESCR has lost its edge but the press isn’t highlighting that fact. Big surprise.
5. ESCR is 20 to 30 years behind ASCR and certain geno-tech industries won’t privately fund it because it doesn’t make financial sense.
6. ESCR would require the recipient patient to be on costly immuno-suppressive drugs to prevent immune rejection. This does not occur in ASCR as the cells can be obtained from the patients own body.
7. The frozen embryos currently leftover from IVF patients are not truly the embryos the scientists are after. Because of what I mentioned above in point 6, the only way around the rejection issue is Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer otherwise known as Cloning. As conservatives lobbied against partial birth abortion FIRST because it was a battle we felt we could win, those supporting Therapeutic Cloning are trying to put their chink in the wall by fighting the “their going to die anyways” battle first before lobbying for their true end goal – therapeutic cloning.
8. Of the 400,000 embryos cryopreserved, only 2.8% of those embryos have been determined available for research by their parents. Only 25 % of these 2.8% would survive to the blastocyst stage necessary for stem cell removal. This means that of the small percentage that is technically available in the entire United States as of this date (May 2005), the maximum number of stem cell lines that could be created would be 275. Scientists will agree that is not enough for what they want. They will have no choice but to pursue therapeutic cloning as their next step. (Side Note: Tanner was transferred into my womb when he was at a 4 cell stage. If Tanner would have been given to research, scientists would have actually had to GROW Tanner another 3 to 5 days in order to remove his stem cell. He was transferred into my womb before he was even old enough to have his stem cell removed. Interesting?)
9. President Bush was actually the FIRST American President to fund ESCR. In 2001 he approved federal funds to research more than 60 embryonic stem cell lines that had already been created. (For the record, this was not a decision that I supported but I still want to point this fact out because the media continually misrepresents this).
10. The issue under national debate is only related to FEDERAL FUNDING. It is not about whether or not ESCR should be legal (which it should NOT be for the record but in fact it is). The bill on the table pertains to whether or not United States tax payers want their hard earned dollars to fund research that kills members of our own species. This point is even harder to defend when there are morally acceptable alternatives like ASCR.
Curious now? If you want to understand more about this and read my references, I guess you’ll have to study those pages. Better go get yourself a cup of coffee
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One response to “ESCR – Doni’s Quick 10”
Thank you for those Doni. I have been interested in finding out more facts just not alot of time and or knowledge as to where to get them. I never know what Im reading if its true or not so I will absolutely love the ESCR pages Thank YOU!