[extropy-chat] Stem cell breakthrough claims

[Brett Paatsch]

The Avantguardian wrote:
 
> --- Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> 
>> And the Korean lab 
>> found faster and safer ways  to cull stem cells,
>> using far fewer donated 
>> eggs -- about 20 per try.   They also eliminated the
>> use of mouse "feeder 
>> cells" that have been used to nourish most human
>> stem-cell lines, thus 
>> obviating concerns about contamination.
> 
> Does it bother anyone else that S. Korea is
> establishing itself as the world leader in this
> technology while the most "modern" country in the
> world wrings its hands in moral reflection? Even if we
> started therapeutic cloning today, we might not be
> able to close the gap. A pity since the economy of the
> United States could have used the extra revenue that
> would be generated when this process hits the market.
> Fortunately I know how to speak basic Korean, so I may
> still be able to do this stuff after all.
> 
> 
>>          It's also sure to revive international
>> controversy over whether to 
>> ban all forms of human cloning, as the Bush
>> administration desires -- or to 
>> allow cloning for medical research, so-called
>> therapeutic cloning that 
>> South Korea has committed by law to pursue.
> 
> Interestingly enough, I am pretty certain that the
> percentage of Christians in Korea are approximately
> the same as in the US if not higher. Obviously they
> are more educated and/or do not legislate their
> morality. 
> 
>> Culling
>> stem cells destroys 
>> the days-old embryo harboring them, regardless of
>> whether that embryo was 
>> cloned or left over in a fertility clinic.
> 
> Hmmm... does growing an oak tree destroy the acorn?
> 
>> Because
>> opponents argue that is 
>> the same as destroying life, President Bush has
>> banned Federally-funded 
>> research on all but a handful of old embryonic
>> stem-cell lines and the 
>> South Korean work spotlights the frustration many
>> U.S. scientists felt at 
>> being left behind.
> 
> Hey everybody, lets give Bush some applause here. He
> considers the lives of 5 day old blastulas sacred and
> the lives of 21 year old soldiers and criminals to be
> expendable. Do you think he would feel differently if
> the embryos came from black people, like many soldiers
> and criminals do? He is in so tight with God that he
> can afford to be out of touch with reality. After all,
> once we start drowning in debt, he can just pray for
> it to part, like Moses did the red sea.
> 
>> They don't yet know how
>> to control which types 
>> of tissues -- brain cells, bones, muscles, etc. --
>> the stem cells form, 
>> something the Korean lab is studying next.  "I
>> didn't think they would be 
>> at this stage for decades, let alone within one
>> year," said Dr. Gerald 
>> Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh, who acted
>> as an adviser to the 
>> Korean Lab in analyzing its data for U.S.
>> publication. "All of us in the 
>> biomedical communities owe our colleagues in Korea a
>> tremendous debt of 
>> gratitude."
> 
> So how long will it be before we owe our South Korean
> friends a tremendous debt of money? Gee I hope I can
> afford enough Won on the 4X to get some ES cells made
> for myself.

Gee I hope you do do that essay you said you were going
to do, so I can read it. And so I don't feel that I wasted my
time encouraging you. 

If you have some knowledge of biotech as a result of education
please don't waste it, *use it*, use it to help make the case for
therapeutic cloning and embryonic stem cell research.

I know you are more than just a person with biotech knowledge
but your biotech knowledge is more likely to be useful as a
*basis of persuasion* than your understandably strong emotional
feelings. 

Do you know where to find sources for the fact that something
like 1 out of 4 or 1 out of 5 fertilized eggs don't go on to 
become babies?   I can give you some sources if you don't, but I'd
prefer that you look for yourself first. These sort of facts can help
put the issues into biological perspective. These sort of facts can
be shown to people as facts rather than as mere opinions. 

Brett Paatsch