Stem Cell Research

[Boxlicker101]

Once again the people of California have shown themselves to be miles ahead of most of the cowards and assholes who get elected to the legislature. The November ballot will have an initiative on it for funding stem cell research. It is a bond issue for three billion dollars and the initiative was sponsored by scientists and the families of patients who would, or could have, benefited from the research.

The issue is considered controversial because it involves the destruction of embryos and, because a few people are strongly opposed to this, some politicians are too cowardly, afraid of losing votes, to vote for it. Those who are assholes are opposed to it on other grounds. Almost everybody is in favor of the idea because the embryos would just be discarded otherwise. The only thing that might lead to its defeat is the built in "no" vote on every bond issue. Some people vote against bonds for even the most worthwhile causes, such as this one.

If voting against Bush, Ashcroft, et al wasn't reason enough to be sure to vote in November, this certainly is.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Here is the article from the San Jose Mercury News:

Stem-cell issue going to ballot

VOTERS WILL DECIDE FATE OF $3 BILLION BOND INITIATIVE

By Lisa M. Krieger

Mercury News


A bond initiative that puts California in the stem-cell research business has qualified for the November ballot, positioning the state to be the nation's lead funding source of this controversial and high-stakes medical research.

The bond was spearheaded by Silicon Valley scientists, business leaders and families of sick and injured patients, who raised millions of dollars to back the effort.

If it passes, the bond initiative would bankroll research with $3 billion in state bonds over 10 years, an amount many times higher than the federal budget for this work.

Stem cells hold potential to treat many serious illnesses, since they mature into different types of healthy tissue that could treat juvenile diabetes, spinal paralysis, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis and other disabilities.

But some critics oppose the research because stem cells are taken from embryos that are destroyed in the process.

The initiative would permit scientists to extract stem cells from embryos donated from patients undergoing infertility treatments. It aims to construct 12 to 15 new stem-cell research centers in the state, attracting top scientific talent.

The California funds of $295 million a year would far surpass the federal budget of $17 million a year for human embryonic stem-cell research. It would put state spending on a par with that of leading foreign nations, such as Singapore and Israel.

The Catholic Church and some political conservatives view the research as immoral because, in some experiments, days-old embryos are destroyed.

Activists submitted 1.1 million signatures -- nearly twice as many as necessary -- to launch the effort.

``California has the opportunity to be the only state in the country with the biotech research capacity to carry out substantial national stem-cell research,'' said Robert Klein of Palo Alto-based Klein Financial, a major backer of the measure. His teenage son suffers from juvenile diabetes. ``Either it happens in California or it cannot happen,'' he said.

Currently, there is no state funding for stem-cell research. Federal funding has stalled because of restrictions by the Bush administration.

No new taxes are required to fund the measure. The bond measure is designed to be self-funding, with repayment from the bond principal and interest deferred for five years, until 2010. The state would benefit from any patents or royalties from the research, as well as tax revenues generated by new jobs.

According to Dr. Anthony Hayward of the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Research Resources, ``With intelligent management, it has the potential to have enormous scientific impact.''

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Heard something on the radio about how India and China are plowing all this money into modernizing their tech infrastructure and funding basic research. They could pass us by in basic research in about ten years or so.

Meanwhile we're putting all our money into military hardware. That funds some types of research, but we're losing or already have lost the lead in non-military technology like biotech and stem-cell and we're falling farther behind every day.

Someone on another thread was talking about how empires fall. This is how it happens: while you're looking somewhere else, looking for yesterday's problems to come back, someone sneaks up on you and eats tomorrow's lunch.

---dr.M.

 

[Blarneystoned]

Yeah I think that is why we are sugar coating them

Our youth are horrible unprepared coming out of our school systems to deal with math and science....most foreign physicians and engineers are done with degrees by age 20-24 ...most of our kids are still figuring out what they want to do...

I think the hope is too free market the world before that happens...Chinas military is much larger...and the technology gap is getting closer...

In India an Pahkistan I think they are paying PHD's and MDs around 5000 per year....

We are going to have a hard century coming up

Blarneystoned

 

[Belegon]

Once it gets personal...

I don't recall ever being strongly against stem cell research, but I wasn't strongly for it either until...

As some of you may know, a friend of mine was in a motorcycle accident on May 19th. He slammed back first into the guard rail and his back was broken and spinal cord severed. With current medical tech, he will never feel or move anything below his chest again.

We are all here because we love to read and or write about sex. Imagine if you could never feel those sensations we write about ever again. Plus never walk, know when you need to use the bathroom, etc.

What do you all think my position on this bond issue will be now?

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

My field, yay!

My state too, life is good.

Honestly though, assuming my fellow Californians don't become idiotic again like when they created a guberanatorial race between movie stars (sigh), the support for stem cells will truly be a glory for science.

With the ability to replenish tissue, to affect tissue with new DNA and have it replace old tissue, to do a thousand and one beneficial things, science, especially my field of bioengineering will be able to single handedly combat diseases, viruses, and even aging. What we'll be able to use in the labs will allow us to test the effects of our work quickly and easily as well as administer the effects later on. And administer in a fashion that rejuvenates organs. But I'm sure most people here understand all that and more so I'll just stop.

Allow me to just say though: YAY! So happy.

 

[gauchecritic]

With the ability to replenish tissue, to affect tissue with new DNA and have it replace old tissue, to do a thousand and one beneficial things, science, especially my field of bioengineering will be able to single handedly combat diseases, viruses, and even aging. What we'll be able to use in the labs will allow us to test the effects of our work quickly and easily as well as administer the effects later on. And administer in a fashion that rejuvenates organs. But I'm sure most people here understand all that and more so I'll just stop.

Not that I'm against biological research (I'm even ok with vivisection when scientifically useful) What I am against, and therefor appear to be against without reservation (which isn't the case) is effectively private funding of this kind of thing.

It's a sad but true thing that when something is privately funded the intent and aim is fiscal profit (more often than not). This is why I'm basically of Communist persuasion. But that is politics and by-the-by.
So who reaps the benefit of dna manipulation? I know that it won't be the guy in line at the welfare who lost his job, the job that crippled him, made him unable to do that job. It won't be the 16 year old black girl's child that is born to Sickle Cell anaemia. How do I know this? Because they don't even have the $20 dollar cost of one effective pain killing pill, only the dollar for the bottle of the useless, generic profit making kind.

So the breakthroughs that we will undoubtedly see from such research will not cure your aunt of her dementia, will not repair your friend's severed spinal cord and will not free the knots in your arthiritic fingers because you don't have that much money.

Gauche

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Not that I'm against biological research (I'm even ok with vivisection when scientifically useful) What I am against, and therefor appear to be against without reservation (which isn't the case) is effectively private funding of this kind of thing.

It's a sad but true thing that when something is privately funded the intent and aim is fiscal profit (more often than not). This is why I'm basically of Communist persuasion. But that is politics and by-the-by.
So who reaps the benefit of dna manipulation? I know that it won't be the guy in line at the welfare who lost his job, the job that crippled him, made him unable to do that job. It won't be the 16 year old black girl's child that is born to Sickle Cell anaemia. How do I know this? Because they don't even have the $20 dollar cost of one effective pain killing pill, only the dollar for the bottle of the useless, generic profit making kind.

So the breakthroughs that we will undoubtedly see from such research will not cure your aunt of her dementia, will not repair your friend's severed spinal cord and will not free the knots in your arthiritic fingers because you don't have that much money.

Gauche

Yes. Profits will rule the roost for the mass majority. That is so. And that's the majority of abuses. However, I believe that there will be a rise in medical procedures that exploit the new technology just like has happened for the last god-knows-how-many years.

If it's any consolation, I'm personally disusted by the pharmecutical corporation and I've sworn to myself that if my tinkering in aging research ever gets something to fruition, I'll try my damnedest not to put it in their hands even if this insures I will never be wealthy in my life. It's a silly dream I know, but as stated before, I'm a bit of a romantic.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Not that I'm against biological research (I'm even ok with vivisection when scientifically useful) What I am against, and therefor appear to be against without reservation (which isn't the case) is effectively private funding of this kind of thing.

It's a sad but true thing that when something is privately funded the intent and aim is fiscal profit (more often than not). This is why I'm basically of Communist persuasion. But that is politics and by-the-by.
So who reaps the benefit of dna manipulation? I know that it won't be the guy in line at the welfare who lost his job, the job that crippled him, made him unable to do that job. It won't be the 16 year old black girl's child that is born to Sickle Cell anaemia. How do I know this? Because they don't even have the $20 dollar cost of one effective pain killing pill, only the dollar for the bottle of the useless, generic profit making kind.

So the breakthroughs that we will undoubtedly see from such research will not cure your aunt of her dementia, will not repair your friend's severed spinal cord and will not free the knots in your arthiritic fingers because you don't have that much money.

Gauche

Actually, the research would be funded by the State of California through a state bond issue, with the state owning any patents etc. that result. Some of the actual research would probably be done by private firms and some would probably be done at state universities or at UC. If a pharmaceutical company is licensed to manufacture medications, they would not be allowed to amortize research costs against the selling prices and would not be allowed to make the obscene profits they otherwise would make. I see this as everybody winning, the bond buyers, the research companies, the universities and, especially, those whose conditions are cured or alleviated through the results of the research.

See the second post on this thread for more details.