Stem Cell Breakthrough
 

Most excellent.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071121/ap_on_sc/stem_cells

This news is music to my ears. Finally, a method for stem cell research that everyone can agree upon.

stem cells from babies still taste better though and I think will continue to be a luxury item for celebrities for decades to come.

Well, I want to hear more about this before I think it's a perfect alternative to embryonic stem cells. There were alternatives before this "breakthrough", and they don't work very well. They behave differently than stem cells from cloned embryos, and don't transform predictably into the desired cells when they're worked with.

I have no doubt that in the next decade or two, we'll begin to see treatments that rely on using stem cells of some sort to grow new tissues for people who need them, but the first treatments aren't going to happen in the States. We're in the dark ages when it comes to stem cell research.

Here's a better article on the topic:

Pharyngula: Stem cell breakthrough

A few key points:

* This method could not have been discovered in America (with government money) because it required study of embryonic cells
* The method is not perfect, and introduces many potential mutations
* The cells generated by this method CANNOT BE USED IN TREATMENTS

I'm putting money down right now that somebody (more than likely a Southern Republican Catholic woman with a bug up her ass) will bitch about it.

I just hope think keep developing on this. I wish the US government would fund stem cell research better. I know if I have a failing organ someday, I'd like to be able to have my own personal replacement.

I do hope they keep developing this, but at the moment, it doesn't look like these cells will be suitable for any kind of treatment. So I would simultaneously develop stem cell research using embryonic cells.

Though it isn't putting life in danger, any act of "playing God" like growing tissue groups or even complex organs is a touchy issue. It doesn't even have to be a "God" issue, either. If you view embryonic cells (and by extension, embryos) as life, that means lives were lost for this research to take place, and that's what people will have an issue with. I realize I'm taking this issue to a bit of an extreme here, but if the former is true the question then is: do the ends justify the means? Does the fact that a few lives were lost balance out with many times more saved in future?

Personally, I think this is a step in the right direction; the very fact that time and money were put into a way to utilize stem cells that eventually won't harm living things shows that there is at least a little morality in the scientific community. Although, embryonic cells *were* used in this process, it may eventually turn into something very beneficial. But, as was said, the process is hardly perfected anyway. I will say this, though: if I were dying and someone offered me an organ derived from this research, I'd take it.

A fair bit of modern western medicine is based on animal and human experimentation. If we do not support the idea of doing so, how can we justify using the discoveries? We have been justifying the past, not to do so in the present and future seems hypocritical.

To me, the short answer is: No, ends do not always justify means, but saving actual life, an established life with self-awareness, social relationships, etc. is superior to saving a bundle of cells, which wouldn't exist, if it weren't for that specific purpose, anyway.

I'm going out on a limb here, but if you use the cells in a person, the cells are alive. You therefor save both the cells and the person. We could look at this as research into saving cells that would be usually thrown away and eventually die.

That's a fair position. Regardless of whether the cells would grow into a human being or simply restorative tissue, they *can* serve a purpose. I think we can all agree that the general purpose of this research is to make life better for everyone, it's simply an issue of how we achieve that goal with the minimal amount of human (or in this case, pre-human) suffering. Do we have a right to toy with the base substances of life, even if our intentions are good? I think the answer is yes, but *only* if we never lose sight of why we are performing this research in the first place: to give every person the chance to experience a long life uninhibited by physical restraints or disease. As long as we put ethics first (IE, continually develop methods that decrease the reliance on human cells), I think the expense is worth it.