October 16, 2008
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Stem Cell Confusion
*wrinkles nose* A few weeks ago, I heard two political radio ads one after another with one candidate stating that they were in support of stem cell therapy and their opponent was. One ad was for Obama and one for McCain. This morning, I heard an attack ad for Obama saying that McCain and Palin opposed stem cell therapy and abortion. ^_^ The latter... that's one of my motivations for voting for them, since I've never been a believer that killing a baby to avoid taking responsibility is a good idea. As for the other, my understanding is that McCain is for stem cell therapy, just not fetal stem cell therapy, which makes the ad not only an attack ad, but one which relies on equivocation to pass off a lie as the truth. And yes, Obama endorsed it.
The issue here is that almost all of the research, and all of the miracle cures so far, it's all adult stem cells. Fetal stem cells are alleged to have greater flexibility and the companies who were doing research on them have done their best to market the hell out of them, but so far there's nothing fetal stem cells have been able to do that adult stem cells haven't. Yes, I know that one of the reasons so far is that fetal stem cell therapy has not been allowed to get federal funding. *rolls eyes* So, if I were to go out claiming that the blood of a murdered virgin was a more refreshing electrolyte than gatorade, would the government be wrong for preventing me from going off and slaughtering virgins (if one could find them these days) to prove my point? This is not even including the fact that a couple years ago, the Japanese found a way to make adult stem cells just as flexible as fetal stem cells. So, in short, we have a method which doesn't require human beings which has been proven to be effective and we have a method which requires killing babies which might be more effective if we just let the scientists work on it. On one side, we have scientific results. On the other, we have marketing hype. We have the use of tissue samples from consenting adults and we have the harvesting of the flesh and blood of mutilated children. Really, why is this seen as such a hard choice?
And I would be remiss if I didn't note that the successes of stem cell therapy on both sides is not a miraculous "inject the patient with stem cells and they walk" (there were some amazing recoveries of people with Parkinson's within days of being injected, but then they found out that sticking needles into the brain without the stem cells functioned just as well) but rather a situation where the scientists grow cultures and test their drugs and treatments on that culture. It cuts research down from decades to years, but it's still not instant cures by any means. Like the line goes, "anyone who tries to tell you different is selling something".
Comments (3)
the media is a liar.........one thing you have to keep in mind..... do you like working at denny's? ..stem cell research isnt actively decided by the pres..they fall in line with what is going on....it's trickery..on both sides..here's my take.....if john mccain showed up for a photo opp tomorrow in an evening grown...i wood still base the majority of my vote to this.---mccain wants to futhur the war,,the cost?..... 4-5 billion a month..so i ask ..do you like working at denny's?....................just thot i wood say.......i hate politics tho.......
@rebootie -
You have a very... interesting conversational style. I've never worked at Denny's so I would have no idea. As regards Iraq, so long as we're accomplishing something, I see worth in it. Thing is, I think the problem isn't that we're over-committed, but rather that we're no committed enough. We either need to leave there, or steamroll them into submission. Trying to be all nice halfway isn't going to get us anywhere; they won't respect us for that. Personally, my vote's more or less on things like abortion and the like. Money... most people manage to do alright there no matter how the government works things. But countenancing the murder of innocents? I'd rather be poor and starve than to know I helped in that butchery.
@Duggan - i dont like abortion ..but how many grown people, same souls , same lips, feet etc,,have fallen innocent in the war....another 5 years could be another 5k deaths...anyway,,thanks for the compliment re: writing style ..when yer 47..you learn to get things done and you can do it 5 minutes instead of ten,,,you get to do more things...in some venues..i'm from iowa so usually i like life slow....if we tried to steam roll iraq....150k more islamic wood be pissed that we made them our bitches{and migrate into iraq}...they may say horray for the peace ,,but 2 months later the grumbling wood start...remember mohammed is their hero,,and he killed {apologies to any muslims} anyone who disagreed with him to get to power.......
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