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Stem cells FTW!


copperhead

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Oh, wait, no....they accelerated this kids death. Good job.

 

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D96DLTT00&show_article=1

 

Feb 17 09:01 PM US/Eastern

By LAURAN NEERGAARD

AP Medical Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - A family desperate to save a child from a lethal brain disease sought highly experimental injections of fetal stem cells—injections that triggered tumors in the boy's brain and spinal cord, Israeli scientists reported Tuesday.

 

Scientists are furiously trying to harness different types of stem cells—the building blocks for other cells in the body—to regrow damaged tissues and thus treat devastating diseases. But for all the promise, researchers have long warned that they must learn to control newly injected stem cells so they don't grow where they shouldn't, and small studies in people are only just beginning.

 

Tuesday's report in the journal PLoS Medicine is the first documented case of a human brain tumor—albeit a benign, slow-growing one—after fetal stem cell therapy, and hammers home the need for careful research. The journal is published by the Public Library of Science.

 

"Patients, please beware," said Dr. John Gearhart, a stem cell scientist at the University of Pennsylvania who wasn't involved in the Israeli boy's care but who sees similarly desperate U.S. patients head abroad to clinics that offer unproven stem cell injections.

 

"Cells are not drugs. They can misbehave in so many different ways, it just is going to take a good deal of time" to prove how best to pursue the potential therapy, Gearhart said.

 

The unidentified Israeli boy has a rare, fatal genetic disease with a tongue-twisting name—ataxia telangiectasia, or A-T. Degeneration of a certain brain region gradually robs these children of movement. Plus, a faulty immune system leads to frequent infections and cancers. Most die in their teens or early 20s.

 

Israeli doctors pieced together the child's history: When he was 9, the family traveled to Russia, to a Moscow clinic that provided injections of neural stem cells from fetuses—immature cells destined to grow into a main type of brain cells. The cells were injected into his brain and spinal cord twice more, at ages 10 and 12.

 

Back home in Israel at age 13, the boy's A-T was severe enough to require that he use a wheelchair when he also began complaining of headaches. Tests at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv uncovered a growth pushing on his brain stem and a second on his spinal cord. Surgeons removed the spinal cord mass when the boy was 14, in 2006 and they say his general condition has remained stable since then.

 

But was the boy prone to tumors anyway or were the fetal stem cells to blame? A Tel Aviv University team extensively tested the tumor tissue and concluded it was the fetal cells. Among other evidence, some of the cells were female and had two normal copies of the gene that causes A-T—although that boy's underlying poor immune function could have allowed the growths to take hold.

 

Using stem cells from multiple fetuses that also were mixed with growth-spurring compounds "may have created a high-risk situation where abnormal growth of more than one cell occurred," wrote lead researcher Dr. Ninette Amariglio of Sheba Medical. She urged better research to "maximize the potential benefits of regenerative medicine while minimizing the risks."

 

This brain disease wasn't conducive to stem cell therapy in the first place, said stem cell specialist Dr. Marius Wernig of Stanford University, who said it's unclear exactly what was implanted.

 

"Stem cell transplantations have a humongous potential," Wernig said. But "if people rush out there without really knowing what they're doing ... that really backfires and can bring this whole field to a halt."

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Well, what is sounds to me is not necessarily a problem with stem cell research but with the quality of the work performed by his doctors/etc. So, Mike, what are you trying to say here? That it should be dropped, now? As with anything of this magnitude, there's going to be some pitfalls. What's important, now, are the positive strides they are making and now that America is on it, there'll be even more positive strides in the right direction.
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Well, what is sounds to me is not necessarily a problem with stem cell research but with the quality of the work performed by his doctors/etc.

 

Sounds like desperate people trying something highly experimental, it's a gamble.

 

So mike, by your logic, no drug developed in the last 80 years or so is safe.

Nothing should ever go to clinical trials if it doesn't work the first time you pump it into some one. After all, if it doesn't work the first time it's administered at a random dose by some Doc who's only read about it in a magazine, it can never work at all.

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Sounds like desperate people trying something highly experimental, it's a gamble.

 

So mike, by your logic, no drug developed in the last 80 years or so is safe.

Nothing should ever go to clinical trials if it doesn't work the first time you pump it into some one. After all, if it doesn't work the first time it's administered at a random dose by some Doc who's only read about it in a magazine, it can never work at all.

 

I would think that a good doctor would be reasonably sure that what they are pumping into a patient isn't going to kill them. But whatever. I guess its better to test on humans than labrats, amirite?

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That proves it ... the whole science is worthless.

 

Thats like trying to use a hammer as a screwdriver, somethings gonna happen, but it might not be what you want.

 

a science is worthless just because we are still at the very beginning stages of understanding that?

 

What if we just gave up science when everyone though the earth was the center of the universe?

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a science is worthless just because we are still at the very beginning stages of understanding that?

 

What if we just gave up science when everyone though the earth was the center of the universe?

 

 

Your sarcasm meter may need to have its sensitivity knob adjusted. Its not detecting properly.

 

 

My second statement was referring to this.

 

This brain disease wasn't conducive to stem cell therapy in the first place, said stem cell specialist Dr. Marius Wernig of Stanford University, who said it's unclear exactly what was implanted.

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Isnt there companies now where you can store the afterbirth from when child it is born to use their stem cells later in the future if neccesary. I swore I seen a ad for one of these companies, but I have next to no knowledge of stem cells so that ad could of been jerkin me around.

 

Anyway thought on the article, I think stem cell research is a good thing and people are going to suffer along the way. And since my grandmother has parkinsons disease and stem cell research could help im all for it.

 

And whats wrong with the parents trying to improve the quality of life of their child. Its better for them to do what they did, even if misguided, than to sit back and watch their kid rot away.

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I would think that a good doctor would be reasonably sure that what they are pumping into a patient isn't going to kill them. But whatever. I guess its better to test on humans than labrats, amirite?

 

You do understand that if they'd have done nothing, he would've died. It was a calculated risk taken with what may've been underqualified professionals.

 

Stem cell research has already been proven to work. There are many, many things that administered incorrectly, can prove harmful and even fatal. Much, much simpler things than stem cell work. You don't just write it off. Seriously, man, I can't even understand the reasoning you have behind this. :confused:

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It's not surprising that the use of embryonic stem cells has proven to be problematic; they are not specialized like adult stem cells, which, by the way, have shown much more promise in a wide variety of treatments. As a result, they can grow into all kinds of things, including tumors, which the adult cells do not, making them far more sexy.

 

Of course, few people even grasp the difference between the two types, since it's all been politicized as "stem cells, which will be a miracle cure that knuckle-dragging Christians don't want you to have because they want to see you DIE DIE DIE".*

 

*=Which is at least partially true in my case.

 

Anyway, back in the world of real science, embryonic stem cells, or "dead baby stem cells" (DBSC) as I'll call them, have done exactly jack squat, so why not inject them into some kid's brain to see if great lulz will occur? There's more evidence that the glaciers will melt tomorrow and cause 100 Katrinas to head straight for NYC than there is to demonstrate that DBSC is going to do a thing to enhance human life.

 

However, we live in the era of hope, change and yes we can, so I applaud the positive thinking in this thread. Recycling dead babies into some kind of fountain of youth is the perfect next stage on our cultural march towards utopiahellunism, and we shouldn't let ancient and outdated ideas like "ethics" or "science" get in our way.

 

Anyone have any good recipes for Soylent Green?

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It's not surprising that the use of embryonic stem cells has proven to be problematic; they are not specialized like adult stem cells, which, by the way, have shown much more promise in a wide variety of treatments. As a result, they can grow into all kinds of things, including tumors, which the adult cells do not, making them far more sexy.

 

Of course, few people even grasp the difference between the two types, since it's all been politicized as "stem cells, which will be a miracle cure that knuckle-dragging Christians don't want you to have because they want to see you DIE DIE DIE".*

 

*=Which is at least partially true in my case.

 

Anyway, back in the world of real science, embryonic stem cells, or "dead baby stem cells" (DBSC) as I'll call them, have done exactly jack squat, so why not inject them into some kid's brain to see if great lulz will occur? There's more evidence that the glaciers will melt tomorrow and cause 100 Katrinas to head straight for NYC than there is to demonstrate that DBSC is going to do a thing to enhance human life.

 

However, we live in the era of hope, change and yes we can, so I applaud the positive thinking in this thread. Recycling dead babies into some kind of fountain of youth is the perfect next stage on our cultural march towards utopiahellunism, and we shouldn't let ancient and outdated ideas like "ethics" or "science" get in our way.

 

Anyone have any good recipes for Soylent Green?

 

You should post more :).

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Holy fuck I just slept for 14 hours straight because of a cold or flu or some shit. I'm going to go eat some dead babies real quick so I can get better.

 

lol

Noo. Really?

I figured that could be the only thing but I made the mistake of giving you the benefit of the doubt. :nono:

 

Embryos, whether donated or many of which are now specifically created, are grown in petri dishes for about a week, at which point they have divided into a microscopic, hollow ball of about 100 cells.

 

Why go on about the fate of your skin and liver cells that are destined to be sloughed off during your next shower or die of alcohol poisoning at your next cocktail party? Clearly, they are not going to become your twins. How many of your cells do you kill everyday?

 

The DNA content of a skin cell, a stem cell, and a fertilized egg are exactly the same. The difference between what they are and what they could become is the environment in which their DNA is found. Thus, the mere existence of human DNA in a cell cannot be the source of a relevant moral difference. The differences among these cells are a result of how the genes in each are expressed, and that expression depends largely on which proteins suppress or promote which genes.

 

If you're going to come in here and express your ill gotten opinions on something so serious as this, try at least coming out of the Christian Dark Ages and get your facts straight. It pisses me off that many people with the same logic process as you will support the death penalty and the like in the same conversation they try to turn stem cell research into baby death.

 

What else you got? I'm a fucking fountain of truth and information. :gtfo:

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