[ExI] LA Times: 'Hope' makes a case for stem cell research

[spike]

 Michael LaTorra
	Subject: Re: [ExI] LA Times: 'Hope' makes a case for stem cell
research
	
	
	Hi Spike,
	
	...Perhaps private research will turn up a viable stem cell therapy.
However, I do not believe it would be correct to characterize their budgets
as "unlimited." ...


Hi Mike, unlimited, since investors can dump as much money as they see fit
into this research.  Governments are inherently limited by pressing needs on
all sides for a large but still limited pot of money.


	...In fact, some private money was probably scarred away for fear by
investors that the Bush Administration would hamper the approval process for
stem cell therapies...


Sure but of course companies that discover something really cool can take
their technology elsewhere if the US FDA will not approve.  There would be
*plenty* of market for that, in every nation on the planet.  That approval
process is already so expensive I am surprised the drug companies bother at
all.

	
	...Perhaps, as you suggest, stem cell therapies will turn out to be
a blind alley. If so, would it not make more sense to have found that out 8
years sooner?...	Mike LaTorra


Ja, but they can find out eight years sooner.  The US government didn't
outlaw stem cell research.  It merely refused to fund some areas of it.  To
me that ruling makes perfect sense, for there is a large portion of the
population who will not accept the notion of creating embryos for medical
purposes, on purely ethical grounds.  I myself am not among these.  I am OK
with the creation of embryos to harvest their stem cells, wouldn't lose a
minute of sleep over that.  But I can sympathize with those who argue it is
unethical to take taxpayer's money and use it to develop a therapy that a
large fraction of taxpayers will never accept on ethical grounds.  Taking
this money not only doesn't help those patients, it actively harms them.  It
partially deprives those taxpayers of other medical therapies, since they
can't afford them due to the taxes they paid.  

The ruling that is often criticized is merely a way to say with regard to
stem cell research: there is a better solution here; find it.  When I heard
the medics have found a way to get stem cells from the patient, that sure
sounds to me like a better solution, a waaay better solution.

spike