The religious protesters are gone and expansion plans are back on track at a top Kansas City stem-cell research lab after Missouri voters endorsed the controversial field in last week’s elections.
With some $2 billion in private funding, and a team of international scientists already at work, the Stowers Institute for Medical Research now sees mostly clear sailing as it seeks stem-cell treatments for illnesses ranging from Alzheimer’s disease to multiple sclerosis.
Passage of the amendment to the state constitution was a turning point, supporters say, as voters across the United States elected stem-cell research proponents and shifted political power in Washington away from Republicans and President Bush, a chief opponent of the research.
“We’re all optimistic. This demonstrates that elected representatives do not have to be held hostage by a minority of conservatives on the religious right,” said Stowers CEO William Neaves, whose wife has Parkinson’s disease.
Incoming Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said last week she will make federal support a priority.
The issue has cut across party lines in many places, drawing in moderate Republicans and independent voters as well as Democrats who see no moral problem with the research and much to gain in the way of medical advancement and economic development…
Fresh off its success in Missouri, the Stowers Institute, whose founders provided more than 90 percent of the money for the campaign to approve the measure, said it would move ahead to break ground on a doubling of its 600,000-square-foot (55,740-square-metre) research facility and recruit new scientists to add to its team of more than 300 researchers.
If anything, some of the recent political victories in the United States indicate voters guided by either conservative philosophy or religious ideology — still may step beyond that “guidance” and make choices based on enlightened self-interest. I hope.
Good.
Damn the luddites. Full speed ahead!
So what does that say about the evangical turnout? Did evangicals not vote or what? Cause i thought this was a big issue, and if you have seen the superdome crowds they pull of im surprise any of them passed.
#3, evangelical != republican
just because someone believes in a certain deity, doesn’t mean they vote a certain party.
there are bigger issues than stem cells that may have concerned voters.
#4, You may be right, but the Republican party is still the overwhelming Evangelical party of choice.
I’m all for scientific progress and I think its great that this research is finally allowed to continue. But how much public tax funding is going to this project? If it’s $1, its too much.
“The religious protesters are gone…”
Why?
Were they protesting legislation, or the procedure?
Seems like if the procedure was the issue, the protesters would still be protesting.
#5
“But how much public tax funding is going to this project? If it’s $1, its too much.”
Why?
#7 maybe because, while advancement looks good after the fact, it should before-the-fact be paid for by those who want it?
#5, I’d rather my tax money go into medical research than Iraq or a bridge to nowhere. If we’re going to maintain our status as the most advanced nation in the medical world, we need to put serious money into research.
#8 – So public money should not be used for any kind of research? NASA should be privately funded? What about other kinds of research grant monies?
Many people who may be the ones to benefit from this research are financially crippled by the afflictions the research may help. Because of how many years research may take, many beneficiaries may not be born… How do you propose they pay?
Or is this a special circumstance because a small group of people, using religious criteria, are offended by the idea of stem cell research?
Of all the garbage we throw at each other, this question of public funding of medical and scientific research is a conversation worth having. Not just about stem cell research, but about non-controversial research as well. So I’m not baiting you. I really want to read a dialog about this.
It’s not that evangelicals are against stem cell research as a whole; they’re against EMBRYONIC stem cell research; which results in the destruction of a developing human. Stem cells from another source? Experiment all you want.
Indeed, not many Christians evangelical or otherwise posting here.
Oh, wait. I saw a man in sequins with a piano, earlier.
Ya i think the evangicals, and when i say evangicals I don’t mean people who believe in a diety i mean an evangical the crazies, the ones who want a theocracy, the ones who voted the republicans in, i think they didnt show up becuase they realized that the false idols they worship like the tv evangical who turned out to be gay, and now they just don’t know what to believe. Second not to fund stem cells is crazy, i think it would be better than a bridge to nowhere, I know you would rather drive into the ocean but i think curing diseases comes first.
#2 Damn the luddites. Full speed ahead!
Fully agreed.
You were doing fine, joshua, until you fell over the edge of the Earth with ideology instead of fact.
“Screws up every research grant”? may keep Rush’ listeners coming back; but, it has nothing to do with the reality of basic research. Everyone outside the concept can snicker about what real scientists work at, every day; but, one of the most solid segments of venture capital is the part that takes research projects from the laboratory — into the marketplace.
A significant number of the profit and job producing ventures started with federal grants.
#15 We are talking about the same goverment that screws up every research grant given out, leaving the taxpayers to pay huge ongoing bills for research that never ends.
#16 is right… It is partisan and short sighted to say that… But here is another thing… Research never ends and the federal government is suprisingly efficient at it.
Further, aside from the public benefit that occurs when some channel of research bears fruit (if the process is done right, that actually doesn’t happen often) there is an ongoing direct benefit from all ongoing research whether it pans out or not…
…that is, money is spent in very large amounts at the University level. Say what you want about America’s elementary schools and high schools… Our universities and colleges are second to none, and part of the reason is the tax dollars spent on R&D.
Health and science concerns are public concerns and public money is rightfully spent on these issues. Public science is about solving public problems, and blind research has proven to be one of the best paths to discovery.
Many look at research and see that money was spent in a hundred directions and resulted were yielded in two directions… so they assume that is a wasteful use of resources and we should have only spend money in those two. The question is, how would we have learned about those two if we hadn’t dropped the coin on the hundred?