I am also not against a group promoting a cause. However, I am very skeptical/questioning of the arguments they make, as they are often very one-sided, as I believe I demonstrated with my arguments about the reference you posted.

I totally agree with you about the lack of availability to all for treatments. In this country it is a tragedy that we spend so much of our resources on wars and killing whilst so little on treating and curing the sick and the poor.

Finally, on why I draw the line where I do, which then supports so-called embryonic stem cell research to go forward, see this: http://firststatepolitics.wordpress.com/2007/03/22/guest-post-from-jordan-warfel-of-greenwood/#comment-6302

Thank you for your wishes about my granddaughter with Chron’s. We are encouraged by the early diagnosis of her condition at age 2, and the treatment so far that she has had. So far, she is doing remarkably well.

Would you not expect this list, assuming it is even accurate, to represent a comparison of the results of 40 years of adult stem cell research compared to barely five years of research in the so-called embryonic stem cell arena?

Moreover, esc has been stunted by political decisions in this country in the past five years, so it has barely gotten off the ground.

Let us look a little more closely at your list.

Chron’s disease is on your list. My 8 year old granddaughter suffers from Chron’s, and is being treated at the famous CHOP (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia) — no adult stem cell treatments for her yet.

Rheumatoid Arthritis is on your list. That disorder is in my family — we are not aware of an adult stem cell treatment or cure.

Parkinson’s is on your list. If an adult stem cell treatment or cure for this had been developed, wouldn’t it have made the headline news?

Alzheimer’s didn’t even make your list. In fact, there is nothing I can see on your list regarding many chronic brain disorders that cause immense suffering in a large population of people.

Then if you click on “Peer Reviewed References”, I can guess from the titles that many are reporting research advances in ongoing studies. Reading down the section on cancer, for example, many titles seem to me to be reports of experimentation on terminally ill patients, where some form of adult stem cell therapy is being tried in conjunction with massive doses of chemotherapeutic drugs — hardly established treatments or cures at this point in time.

My point: The list is very misleading unless careful scrutiny is done, much more careful than I have done here. This is the list of a political action group with an anti-embryonic stem cell agenda.

I do not for a second demean the advances of adult stem cell research based on 40 years of work. This research must continue. In addition, due to the pluripotency (having the ability to give rise to any fetal or adult cell type) of esc, we must also support properly controlled esc research, for the sake of those who suffer from the many unresolved chronic disorders. To not do so would be a great disservice to mankind!

http://www.stemcellresearch.org/facts/treatments.htm

My counter to your ethics point is that they it has already been breached, by the practice of in-vitro fertilization followed by the freezing of the resultant stem cells (actually blastocysts which some call embryos in error). There is way more than an ample supply of these frozen blastocysts to do stem cell research, otherwise most will be discarded. What common sense does that make, I ask?

Your logic, therefore, would be to forbid the in-vitro production of blastocysts to be frozen for later possible implantation, growth into an embryo, then into a fetus, finally birthed producing a baby. Following this logic will bar some “infertile” couples from having children of their own. Is this what we wish for?

So my main point is: Should we waste these excess frozen blastocysts, or should we cease in-vitro fertilization altogether?

PS: In passing, it could well be that some of the stem cell research could take place using a cloning process to produce DNA matched stem cells of one individual, specifically using the somatic cell nuclear transfer procedure, like what produced Dolly the sheep. I have great concern about how this research can be effectively controlled to assure against the cloning of humans, which might be one of your unexpressed concerns. I share that concern. Prohibiting stem cell research will not stop unethical people from attempting to clone humans on the sly. So we have to step up to the control issues anyway.

Simply put, adult stem cells are already differentiated to a degree, therefore limited in their potential. This is not the case for undifferentiated embryonic stem cells.

Like Jordan Warfel, you two have arbitrarily drawn your line of acceptablity. So have I, but at a different place for the sake of chronic disease sufferers. http://firststatepolitics.wordpress.com/2007/03/22/guest-post-from-jordan-warfel-of-greenwood/#comment-6245

In contrast, I draw my line where I do because of the greater potential iinherent in embryonic stem cell research. The reason adult stem cell research has produced important advances is because there is already about 40 years of research on them, compared to five years or so with embryonic stem cell research. Yet I continue to see folks who are against the latter promote adult stem cells as if that field has the same potential, clearly not at all true. I think it may be a lack of understanding that leads some to take this position; others just draw some arbitrary line in the sand, so to speak, because of their beliefs and contrary to the understanding of current medical science.