[extropy-chat] call for abolishing the bioethics council

[Reason]

The latest bioethics council reshuffle (to stack the deck even more in favor
of blocking the most promising modern medical research) has riled a number
of people. I think it's time to start calling for the council to be
dismantled:

http://www.longevitymeme.org/projects/abolish_the_bioethics_council.cfm

Reuters on this item:
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=4459618&i
on=news

Chris Mooney being riled:
http://www.chriscmooney.com/blog.asp#610

---
"We now know how President Bush responds to highly publicized charges that
he's stacking scientific advisory panels: He gives his critics the finger
and stacks another one. This morning the news broke that Bush has removed
two important dissenters from the President's Council on Bioethics, one of
them being the scientist and telomere expert Elizabeth Blackburn, who just
so happens to be one of the most outspoken defenders of stem cell research
on the panel. And Bush has replaced these thinkers with people who are much
more inclined to parrot the administration's line on key issues."
---

And my suggested letter to your elected representatives:

---
Like many who look forward to a longer, healthier future of better medicine,
I am appalled by the actions of President Bush with regard to stem cell and
therapeutic cloning research. These fields provide the fundamental
technologies required for regenerative medicine that promises near term
cures for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, nerve damage, heart disease, diabetes,
blindness, deafness and many other age-related conditions.
The President's recent action to further stack the deck in the President's
Council for Bioethics really takes the cake, however. The President has
removed two important members from the President's Council on Bioethics, one
of them being the scientist and telomere expert Elizabeth Blackburn, who
just so happens to be one of the most outspoken defenders of stem cell
research on the panel.

The Bioethics Council did not give the President the answer he wanted to
hear with its most recent report "Monitoring Stem Cell Research," despite
the overwhelming anti-research bias already present. The case for research
is just too strong, as I am sure you are aware. The number of lives that
could soon be saved is staggering, as are the costs of delay. Now the
President has demonstrated that he already knows the answer he wants to
hear, and he will brazenly go ahead to make sure that this is the answer he
receives. What happened to listening to your advisors first?

There is only one answer to this sort of behavior: the President's Council
on Bioethics must be abolished and condemned in the strongest language
possible. It is now nothing more than a rubber stamp for continuing attempts
to ban and criminalize the most promising fields of medical research. Please
represent your constituents in this matter and speak out in defense of
research, in defense of curing disease, and in defense of longer, healthier
lives.
---

This move does tend to telegraph that the Bush administration intends to
push through with bans on this research in the US and at the UN. Ugly stuff,
considering the costs ( http://www.fightaging.org/archives/000020.php ).

Reason
Founder, Longevity Meme