Hint: it ain’t Kareem-Abdul Jabbar.
The symptoms of Parkinson’s disease have been relieved in rats using a stem-cell treatment. But a potentially cancerous side effect might put the brakes on such therapies for humans.
When the new dopamine neurons were transplanted into the brains of rats with the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, the animals recovered almost entirely. “The positive results were really remarkably strong,” Goldman says. “The animals exhibited almost a complete restoration of normal function.”
But there could be alarming side effects. Each stem-cell transplant also contained cells that had failed to become neurons, and which remained undifferentiated. These cells keep dividing, and can turn into tumours, says Goldman. (The rats in the study were killed before any such tumours developed.)
It’s also interesting to note how the researchers stressed how nicely the test animals were treated.
All medical practice has side effects. Chemotherapy causes cancer, ironic as that sounds. Nobody is denying that they have a LOT of work ahead of them. (And yes, that means more of PETA’s precious furry rats get to die. Does anyone care?) Now, if we can just keep the red tape out of the way and let these people do their jobs…
The jury hasn’t even left the room yet, let alone still be out, on what, if anything stem cells can do. I am hoping that they will be the miracle of science we are told they will be, but so far…nada.
I still ask, why, if the potential is there, aren’t the big money private concerns leading in the research. There is no law, or mandate or anything to stop them from using all the stem cell lines they want, as there is with goverment funded research, so why are they not taking this and running with it? Even in Europe, where there are basically no restraints on research, nothing has really been developed after almost 10 years of research.
We are subject to a lot of wild speculation on the parts of mainly groups that depend on goverment research grant money as to what stem cell research will do or can do, or the victims of various physical or mental problems begging for the goverment to fund this line of research. Hysteria is not how you conduct a serious scientific discussion of the merits of one possible treatment or another.
I got to see an ad, paid for my the McCaskell Senate campiegn in Missouri, featuring Micheal J. Fox, asking voters to vote for the stem cell bill on the ballot and to vote for McCaskill over Talent because she’s for goverment funded research and Talent is against any more goverment funded stem cell lines. He looks like hell, and is really showing the symptoms much more than a year ago, but be that as it may, he dosn’t know either if the research will help find a cure for Parkinsons, and is using the issue as a reason to vote against someone, without proof that it will be a cure. This kind of ad, by Republicans or Democrats is wrong, it is like the Lyndon Johnson ad showing the little girl, sitting with a flower, then a mushroom cloud, then saying vote for Johnson over Goldwater.
These kinds of issues have no place in politics. This is a funding issue and a scientific issue, not something to be demagogueing for the average voter who wouldn’t know a stem cell from jail cell.
can i buy you a drink?
gimme teh cancer!!
#2, joshua
You say we don’t need hysteria, and I agree. That is precisely why we should support expanded stem cell research. Desperate people will seek desperate measures. We should find the truth before people get desperate.
The claim about “destroying an embryo” is bull crap. These embryos will be destroyed regardless. They are not people. They frozen bits of cell tissue, fused in a lab. Potentially they could grow into a human, but they won’t. They are excess and will not be kept.
Michael J Fox has made a valid plea. He suffers from Parkinson Disease. Research may find a cure or even just relief. Why should someone like Jim Talent impose his religious morals to say that this otherwise legal research will not be carried out using taxpayers money? He has no qualms that Israel used phosphorus bombs on civilians, or funding the Iraqi police as they torture and kill Iraqi civilians, or funding the Pentagon finding more efficient ways to kill.
No, we don’t know if there will ever be useful information come from this research. But we will never know if we don’t look.
#5…Mr. Fusion…..you see, thats my point….why do WE have to fund this????
Your an adult, living in the United States, you should be well aware of the market society. If there was any way that this research could be worth money, someone in the private sector would be funding it, or starting a group of private funders to back it. There hasn’t been anything to date to suggest this research will even be 1/10 of what those who want the tax payer to pay for research, claim for it. Cripes, Starwars technology has shown more promise than stem cell research. The only REAL results have been through adult stem cells so far.
I’m not saying that stem cell research is worthless or shouldn’t be done, the point I’m trying to make is that we also shouldn’t be stampeded into funding something else that may not be all it’s cracked up to be. The drug companies make huge profits in this country, even after R/D, they could band together if they wished and do this without hurting any of their bottom lines. They have done it for other drugs/treatments that showed promise of being very profitable, in the past.
I probably should make it clear that I have no problem with Fox promoting the vote for the Stem Cell bill on the ballot. My problem comes into play when people want you to dump someone in office because they don’t agree with you on one issue. And I don’t care if it’s Fox against Talent or some famous Republican against a liberal simply because they are against that liberals stance on Abortion(and I am, as I’ve said before, pro-life). It’s wrong, PERIOD!!
Now, if you want Talent defeated because of his stance on those other issues you related, then thats fine, but 1 issue politics is what has given us the President we have and the Congress and many state goverments we have.
Being an old fashioned Conservative, I’m almost always going to favor a free market approach to problems like funding research and stuff, because it has been what has given us the advances we have today.
The guy i work for has Parkinson’s. I read his mind and be his body..
… the point of this is?
does it say anything more than “we are still researching what we can do with stem cells, we have not perfected a method” ?
just wondering if it presented any fundamentally new information