This is Congress and not the administration, but I am sure they would support these hearings anyway so I will lump it in.

Some highlights:

"The internet is a perfect drug delivery system because you are anonymous, aroused and have role models for these behaviors," Layden said. "To have drug pumped into your house 24/7, free, and children know how to use it better than grown-ups know how to use it -- it's a perfect delivery system if we want to have a whole generation of young addicts who will never have the drug out of their mind."

"Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), the subcommitee's chairman, called the hearing the most disturbing one he'd ever seen in the Senate. Brownback said porn was ubiquitous now, compared to when he was growing up and "some guy would sneak a magazine in somewhere and show some of us, but you had to find him at the right time."

"The hearing came just days after a controversy over a sexually suggestive Monday Night Football ad that has many foreseeing a crackdown on indecency by the Federal Communications Commission."

"Judith Reisman of the California Protective Parents Association suggested that more study of "erototoxins" could show how pornography is not speech-protected under the First Amendment."

"Many psychologists and most sexologists find the concepts of sex and pornography addiction problematic, said Carol Queen, staff sexologist for the San Francisco-based, woman-owned Good Vibrations.

Queen questioned the validity of the panel for not including anyone who thinks "pornography is not particularly problematic in most people's lives."

"Queen acknowledges she can name people who have compulsive and destructive behavior centered on pornography, but argues that can happen with other activities, such as gambling and shopping."

"Queen also criticized the methodology behind research showing that pornography stimulates the brain like drugs do, saying the research needs to take into account how sex itself stimulates the brain."

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,65772,00.html

"The most disturbing one he'd ever seen in the Senate." Are you fucking kidding me? You've seriously got to be fucking kidding me. 20 year old kids getting their heads and limbs blown off in war isn't more disturbing than some people watching two other people procreate?

Where the fuck are the priorities of these people? How about some jobs? How about making us safer from terrorism? How about getting oil prices down? Since it was testimony before the "Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee," how about securing government computers, the power grid, other vital systems, etc from attack from North Korea's Army of Hackers.

How about funding REAL SCIENCE that can save lives like Stem Cell Research? Nah! Let's hold hearings on porn instead. Unfucking believable. Got to love the Christian right in this country. And it is only going to get worse folks, much worse. Why the fuck is Michael Powell reviewing the MNF intro? Why? It was nothing. It was a fucking woman in a towel. Why is that worse than up crotch shots of cheerleaders? Perhaps he should help his dad find a new job instead or worrying about that..

Stem Cell research is not nearly as promising as many claim it is. There are always new things on the horizon that should supposedly make huge differences in medical technology. Stem Cell is not really all that promising, many scientists have been giving up on it. What lives can it save?

Michael Powell is an idiot, he pushed Howard Stern off normal radio, he should get the death penalty for that.

Peter29

What scientists are you quoting when you say stem cell research is not promising ? Likely the same ones GW uses to dispute global warming and to bolster his views about stem cell research. It is one of THE most promising ares in all of medical research for numerous conditions. Not just Parkinson's, Alzheimer's or spinal cord patients, as if that would not be enough, but thousands of cardiac patients who die each year either because heart transplant is not available or they are not eligible for a proceedure that costs $200,000 or more. Imagine if an infusion of stem cells could someday regenerate heart muscle. It is closer than you think. I would love to see the evidence you rely on to make your statement.

Getting Howard Stern off the radio may be the only good thing Michael Powell will ever do. Of course I totally disagree with his persecution of Stern , but that guy has no redeeming qualities that I can see. He was never funny and I find him to be repulsive. That being said he should have every right to be on the radio and say whatever he wants-as long as he is not inciting riots or causing physical harm to others.

Washington Post is usually Left Wing enough:

I just get really pissed when I heard Edwards say that if Kerry was president Christopher Reeves would not have died he would have gotten up out of his wheelchair and walked. That was the biggest load of crock I ever heard. I expected some miracle healings going on like bad TV preachers.

Any reliable articles you see about it are full of words like may and might. I have seen too many of these miracle strains of research on the horizon which are all 5 years away from changing the way we live forever, and virtually none of them pan out. It is possible that out of stem cell research a couple of diseases might even be treated (again may and might) but nowhere near the hype that is going on about it. alzheimers is virtually no chance, and spinal cord injury is also very questionable. there were a lot of articles about this after the Christover Reeves death. I remember reading one in the Wall Street Journal by a leading Spinal Cord researchers attacking this particular spewing of crap that John Edwards tried to pull off. That shady little ambulance chaser is deservedly out of work. Maybe he can trick a couple of backwater Juries, but thankfully the country didn't buy the snake oil he was trying to sell.

Here is the article from the Post about Alzheimers:
Stem Cells An Unlikely Therapy for Alzheimer's
Reagan-Inspired Zeal For Study Continues
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 10, 2004; Page A03


Ronald Reagan's death from Alzheimer's disease Saturday has triggered an outpouring of support for human embryonic stem cell research. Building on comments made by Nancy Reagan last month, scores of senators on Monday called upon President Bush to loosen his restrictions on the controversial research, which requires the destruction of human embryos. Patient groups have also chimed in, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) on Tuesday added his support for a policy review.



It is the kind of advocacy that researchers have craved for years, and none wants to slow its momentum.

But the infrequently voiced reality, stem cell experts confess, is that, of all the diseases that may someday be cured by embryonic stem cell treatments, Alzheimer's is among the least likely to benefit.

"I think the chance of doing repairs to Alzheimer's brains by putting in stem cells is small," said stem cell researcher Michael Shelanski, co-director of the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York, echoing many other experts. "I personally think we're going to get other therapies for Alzheimer's a lot sooner."

Stem cell transplants show great potential for other diseases such as Parkinson's and diabetes, scientists said. Someday, embryo cell studies may lead to insights into Alzheimer's. If nothing else, some said, stem cells bearing the genetic hallmarks of Alzheimer's may help scientists assess the potential usefulness of new drugs.

But given the lack of any serious suggestion that stem cells themselves have practical potential to treat Alzheimer's, the Reagan-inspired tidal wave of enthusiasm stands as an example of how easily a modest line of scientific inquiry can grow in the public mind to mythological proportions.

It is a distortion that some admit is not being aggressively corrected by scientists.

"To start with, people need a fairy tale," said Ronald D.G. McKay, a stem cell researcher at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. "Maybe that's unfair, but they need a story line that's relatively simple to understand."

Human embryonic stem cells have the capacity to morph into virtually any kind of tissue, leading many scientists to believe they could serve as a "universal patch" for injured organs. Some studies have suggested, for example, that stem cells injected into an injured heart can spur the development of healthy new heart muscle.

Among the more promising targets of such "cellular therapies" are: Parkinson's disease, which affects a small and specialized population of brain cells; type-1 diabetes, caused by the loss of discrete insulin-producing cells in the pancreas; and spinal cord injuries in which a few crucial nerve cells die, such as the injury that paralyzed actor Christopher Reeve.

In part as a result of her friendship with Hollywood personalities Doug Wick, Lucy Fisher, and Jerry and Janet Zucker -- all of whom have become stem cell activists because they have children with diabetes -- Nancy Reagan became interested in stem cells and their oft-cited, if largely theoretical, potential for treating Alzheimer's. Over the years, she has become more vocal on the issue.

On May 8, with her husband's brain ravaged by Alzheimer's disease, Nancy Reagan addressed a biomedical research fundraiser in Los Angeles and spoke out forcefully.

"I just don't see how we can turn our backs on this," she said, in an oblique cut at Bush, who placed tight limits on the field in August 2001 to protect, he said, the earliest stages of life.

Since Reagan's death, many others have joined the call to enlist embryonic stem cells in the war on Alzheimer's, including some new converts. Among the 58 senators who signed the letter to Bush were 14 Republicans and several abortion opponents -- evidence that the Reagan connection is providing "political cover," said Sean Tipton of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, a stem cell advocacy group.

But in contrast to Parkinson's, diabetes and spinal injuries, Alzheimer's disease involves the loss of huge numbers and varieties of the brain's 100 billion nerve cells -- and countless connections, or synapses, among them.

"The complex architecture of the brain, the fact that it's a diffuse disease with neuronal loss in numerous places and with synaptic loss, all this is a problem" for any strategy involving cell replacement, said Huntington Potter, a brain researcher at the University of South Florida in Tampa and chief executive of the Johnnie B. Byrd Institute for Alzheimer's Research.

"We don't even know what are the best cells to replace initially," added Lawrence S.B. Goldstein, who studies stem cells and Alzheimer's disease at the University of California at San Diego. "It's complicated."

Goldstein and others emphasized that future Alzheimer's patients could benefit if stem cell research is allowed to blossom.

Scientists suspect, for example, that stem cell studies could help identify the molecular errors that underlie Alzheimer's, which in turn would help chemists design drugs to slow or even reverse the disease.

But that line of work could face formidable political hurdles. That is because the most frequently cited approach would require not just stem cells from spare embryos donated by fertility clinics -- a currently untapped source of cells that many want Bush to make available to federally funded researchers. It would also require the creation of cloned human embryos made from cells taken from Alzheimer's patients.

From such embryos, stem cells bearing the still-unidentified defects underlying Alzheimer's could be removed and coaxed to grow into brain cells in lab dishes, and their development could be compared to the development of normal brain cells.

While that experiment could shed important light on the earliest -- and perhaps most treatable -- stages of Alzheimer's, a majority in Congress have said that the creation of cloned human embryos is an ethical line they are unwilling to cross.

Less controversial uses of stem cells may also lead to insights, Goldstein and others said. The key, said Harvard stem cell researcher George Daley, is not to get "preoccupied with stem cells as cellular therapies." Their real value for Alzheimer's will be as laboratory tools to explore basic questions of biology, Daley said.

Unfortunately, said James Battey, who directs stem cell research for the National Institutes of Health, "that is not necessarily the way I hear the disease community talking. They tend to focus on the immediate use of stem cells for their disease or disorder."

It is not clear whether the recent wave of stem cell support will persist as it becomes clearer that cures remain far off -- and, in the case of Alzheimer's, unlikely. Basic research with stem cells is just as deserving of support as therapeutic trials, Battey said, "but it's a much harder sell."

"The public should understand that science is not like making widgets," he said. "We're exploring the unknown, and by definition we don't know where it's going to take us."


© 2004 The Washington Post Company

The article ONLY talks about poor potential with Alzheimer's and actually speaks of promise for Parkinson's, diabetes, and spinal cord injuries. I think that should be sufficient. As a cardiologist I have personal knowledge of the work being done to try to repair damaged hearts. Again promising research. Not a fact yet but that is what research is. Your article supports my position better than your own.

To quote your own article--

"Basic research with stem cells is just as deserving of support as therapeutic trials, Battey said, "but it's a much harder sell."

Khunmor,

I'll give it to you. I just think there is all too much hype about the Stem cell stuff. There are countries in the world that are open to stem cell research, and chances are that the best researchers will be heading to those countries to do their research. If they really think it will change the entire path of medicine then it should be their responsibility to humanity to do so, even if those countries were Malawi, Which Australia and Singapore definitely aren't.

My 2 cents.

The issue I have is not whether anyone is for or against particular research (such as stem cells). The issue I have is that people often politicize and/or pollute science with their own social/cultural baggage. Science is learning about the physical realm around us and about a process: hypothesis, test, analyze, reevaluate/refine, re-test, and so on until one of three possibilities occur:

1. Hypothesis supported by data

2. Underlying logic of the hypothesis is deemed unsupportable

Or

3. Funding for research dries up.


With that said, given the promise of stem cell research, someone would be ludicrous to dismiss "the science" at this juncture due to their perceptions of what is morally right or wrong.

Stem cells help paralysed woman walk

http://smh.com.au/news/World/Stem-cells-help-paralysed-woman-walk/2004/11/28/1101577355824.html

It should also be noted that this experiment used stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood and not embryos.

Let me state a FACT!

No embryonic stem cell has ever been proven to help anyone or anything.

People continue to mislead people on this issue.

Only adult stem cells have shown to have some promise.

Maximus
Let me state another FACT circa 1500-- The world is flat !

If you do not explore and test you never advance. For the sake of your " morality " do you suggest throwing away embryonic tissue rather than use it in controlled legitimate scientific experiments. Nobody is misleading anybody. No one is saying that stem cells to date have cured anything. There is promise and theory that indicates tremendous potential. Will it prove fruitful ? Who knows. The only thing certain is if the research is never done the promise will never be fulfilled.

touche!

Maximus

>>Let me state a FACT!
>>No embryonic stem cell has ever been proven to help anyone or anything.

umbilical cords are not part of embryonic stem cell reseach??

They are the single greatest source for certain types of embryonic stem cells!!! In fact the "cord blood" from the umbilical cord, which is considered emryonic stem cells by evebn our government, is one of the largest sources of stem cells.

A few more facts:

Stem cells derived from core blood have been proven effectives against:

Diseases Treated with Stem Cells

Acute Leukemias
Acute Biphenotypic Leukemia
Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL)
Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML)
Acute Undifferentiated Leukemia

Chronic Leukemias
Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL)
Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML)
Juvenile Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (JCML)
Juvenile Myelomonocytic Leukemia (JMML)

Myelodysplastic Syndromes
Amyloidosis
Chronic Myelomonocytic Leukemia (CMML)
Refractory Anemia (RA)
Refractory Anemia with Excess Blasts (RAEB)
Refractory Anemia with Excess Blasts in Transformation (RAEB-T)
Refractory Anemia with Ringed Sideroblasts (RARS)

Stem Cell Disorders
Aplastic Anemia (Severe)
Congenital Cytopenia
Dyskeratosis Congenita
Fanconi Anemia
Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria (PNH)

Myeloproliferative Disorders
Acute Myelofibrosis
Agnogenic Myeloid Metaplasia (Myelofibrosis)
Essential Thrombocythemia
Polycythemia Vera

Lymphoproliferative Disorders
Hodgkin's Disease
Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma
Prolymphocytic Leukemia

Phagocyte Disorders
Chediak-Higashi Syndrome
Chronic Granulomatous Disease
Neutrophil Actin Deficiency
Reticular Dysgenesis

Liposomal Storage Diseases
Adrenoleukodystrophy
Gaucher's Disease
Hunter's Syndrome (MPS-II)
Hurler's Syndrome (MPS-IH)
Krabbe Disease
Maroteaux-Lamy Syndrome (MPS-VI)
Metachromatic Leukodystrophy
Morquio Syndrome (MPS-IV)
Mucolipidosis II (I-cell Disease)
Mucopolysaccharidoses (MPS)
Niemann-Pick Disease
Sanfilippo Syndrome (MPS-III)
Scheie Syndrome (MPS-IS)
Sly Syndrome, Beta-Glucuronidase Deficiency (MPS-VII)
Wolman Disease

Histiocytic Disorders
Familial Erythrophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis
Hemophagocytosis
Histiocytosis-X
Langerhans' Cell Histiocytosis

Inherited Erythrocyte Abnormalities
Beta Thalassemia Major
Blackfan-Diamond Anemia
Pure Red Cell Aplasia
Sickle Cell Disease

Congenital (Inherited) Immune System Disorders
Absence of T & B Cells SCID
Absence of T Cells, Normal B Cell SCID
Ataxia-Telangiectasia
Bare Lymphocyte Syndrome
Common Variable Immunodeficiency
DiGeorge Syndrome
Kostmann Syndrome
Leukocyte Adhesion Deficiency
Omenn's Syndrome
Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID)
SCID with Adenosine Deaminase Deficiency
Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome
X-Linked Lymphoproliferative Disorder

Other Inherited Disorders
Cartilage-Hair Hypoplasia
Ceroid Lipofuscinosis
Congenital Erythropoietic Porphyria
Glanzmann Thrombasthenia
Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome
Osteopetrosis
Tay Sachs Disease

Inherited Platelet Abnormalities
Amegakaryocytosis / Congenital Thrombocytopenia

Plasma Cell Disorders
Multiple Myeloma
Plasma Cell Leukemia
Waldenstrom's Macroglobulinemia

Other Malignancies
Brain Tumors
Ewing Sarcoma
Neuroblastoma
Ovarian Cancer
Renal Cell Carcinoma
Small-Cell Lung Cancer
Testicular Cancer

Autoimmune Diseases
Evan Syndrome
Multiple Sclerosis (Experimental)
Rheumatoid Arthritis (Experimental)
Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (Experimental)


Emerging Clinical Stem Cell Applications

Alzheimer's Disease

Parkinson's Disease
Stroke
Doctors are focusing on the ability of the stem cell to differentiate into nerve cells. The approach to treatment would be to regenerate new and healthy nerve cells (tissue) to reduce, alleviate, or eliminate the symptoms or effects of diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and repair damage caused by stroke.

Sanchez-Ramos, J., Song, S., Kamath, S., et al. Expression of neural markers in human umbilical cord blood. Experimental Neurology. 2001;171:109-115.
Chen, J., Sanberg, P., Li, Y., et al. Intravenous administration of human umbilical cord blood reduces behavioral deficits after stroke in rats. Stroke. 2001;32:2682-2688.

Diabetes
Success using stem cells to regenerate pancreas function and insulin production. May help insulin dependent patients become free of adjunctive therapy (such as insulin injections).

Domenick, M., Ildstad, S. Impact of bone marrow transplantation on type I diabetes. World Journal of Surgery. 2001;25:474-480.

Heart Disease
Success regenerating heart tissue and blood vessels for treatment of heart disease or traumatic injury to the heart.

Assmus, B., Schachinger, V., Teupe, C., et al. Transplantation of progenitor cells and regeneration enhancement in acute myocardial infarction (TOPCARE-AMI). Circulation. 2002;106:3009-3017.

Liver Disease
Stem cells differentiated into liver cells in mice. Future applications may include repairing liver damage caused by cirrhosis, viral infection, trauma, chemotherapy, or radiation therapy.

Wang X., Ge S., McNamara G., et al. Albumin-expressing hepatocyte-like cells develop in the livers of immune-deficient mice that received transplants of highly purified human hematopoietic stem cells. Blood. 2003;101(10):4201-4208.

Lupus
Following stem cell transplantation patients with severe lupus have been able to regenerate blood cells that are completely free of the disease.

Brunner, M., Greinix, H., Redlich, K., et al. Autologous blood stem cell transplantation in refractory systemic lupus erythematosus with severe pulmonary impairment. Arthritis & Rheumatism. 2002;46(6):1580-1584.

Multiple Sclerosis
Stem cell transplantation has stopped and even reversed disease progression for some patients with multiple sclerosis.

Kozak, T. Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in the treatment of autoimmune diseases. The Middle European Journal of Medicine. 2002;114(1-2; 7-13)

Muscular Dystrophy
Stem cells have been proven to fuse into skeletal muscle cells in patients with muscular dystrophy. Transplantation may help slow or stop the progression of muscle wasting.

Gussoni, E., Bennett, R., Muskiewicz, K., et al. Long term persistence of donor nuclei in a duchenne muscular dystrophy patient receiving bone marrow transplantation, The Journal of Clinical Investigation, 2002;110(6):807-814.

Spinal Cord Injury
In animal studies cord blood stem cells are beneficial in helping to reverse paralysis caused by spinal cord injury. Cord blood-derived stem cells were shown to migrate to and participate in the healing of neurological defects caused by traumatic assault.

Saporta, S., Kim, J., Willing, A., et al. Human umbilical cord blood stem cells infusion in spinal cord injury: engraftment and beneficial influence on behavior. Journal of Hematotherapy & Stem Cell Research. 2003; 12:271-278.


Next time you empirically make statements like that,it would be nice to check your facts.

I am also sorry to tell you that the earth is round and the sun does not revolve around the earth.

Welcome to the 20th century.

You may return to watching Fox news and the church channel.

OG

UPDATE. Here I was on my couch watching the CBS evening news and guess what-- they ran a story on stem cell progress.

Well apparently doctors in s. Korea and china are using human trials and there has been significant progress using both embryonic umbilical cells.


Still many years of work to go, but human trials are going quite well.

The problem is that when people take it as an article of religious faith there is something immoral about using embryonic stem cells in research, they also take it as an article of religious faith the research could not possibly prove fruitful. What I don't understand though is why people with these types of ideas of religious faith are hanging around on this board.

I'm a devoted pooying worshipper-- that count?

I was kneeling before quite a few pussies in Rio the last couple of weeks myself. It's a fine religion if you ask me, DM.

I must confess, the more I hear religious conservatives talk out of their asses, the more I move closer and closer to atheism. Every "born-again christian" out there can lick my balls.

Boy you guys are sensitive.

Anyway OG
on the surface a impressive post.

Give me a week to analyze and I will send you my facts.

Oil for Food scandal/ UN up tp 27 billion now! And Kerry thought he was going to solve the World's problems with the UN....the UN is the problem for most of the World's major conflicts.....the UN is useless!

and the U.S. can do better?

and how many more billions (this time through cooked contracts with U.S. companies such as Halliburton) will end up being sucked into the black hole that has become Iraq. . .??

Anyway, this thread has gone WAY off track. Let's get back on topic people!!

OG

I spoke to a Doctor on the subject and he said

"Cord blood stem cells are not embroyonic stem cells. Embryonic cells are by definition only from the very earliest stages of embryonic
development, and to my knowledge have not resulted in a single successful treatment"

So the answer to the first question in your long post is

NO.

Once again as usual, I don't talk out my ass and only state facts.

I do appreciate the time you took to provide your research and wish the scientists and Doctors the best on research with the non embryonic stem cells.

(Message edited by maximus743 on December 02, 2004)

Well assuming you take one statement as fact. Seems that is soft ground to rest upon.

Here's a quote from a recent article in Scientific American (June 2004 issue):

"CLONING CAN BE VIEWED as a way
to restore embryonic potential to a patient’s
old cells. The human body is made
of more than 200 kinds of cells, and in
mammals, once a cell is committed to a
particular type, there is normally no turning
back. It is said to be “terminally differentiated.”
An exception to this rule is
when the nucleus containing an unfertilized
egg’s genetic material is extracted
and the nucleus of a somatic (body) cell is
placed into the egg instead. The egg is
tricked into behaving as though it has been
fertilized and begins dividing like a normal
embryo. The ES cells derived from this embryo
will contain the donor somatic cell’s
DNA. But the somatic cell will have been
reprogrammed—reset to a state of stemness,
capable of generating any tissue type.

One of us (Lanza) recently showed
that partially differentiated stem cells from
a cloned mouse embryo could be injected
into the donor mouse’s heart, where
they homed in on the site of injury from
a heart attack, replacing 38 percent of the
scar with healthy heart tissue within a
month [see illustration above]. And this year, for the first time, somatic cell nuclear
transfer (SCNT) yielded a human ES
cell line. A few in the scientific community
had started to wonder whether the nuclear-
transfer technique would work with
primate physiology to produce therapeutic
stem cells. But Woo Suk Hwang of
Seoul National University and his colleagues
proved that it could be done. The
Korean team announced this past February
that they had created a human embryo
through SCNT, grew it into a blastocyst
and derived a pluripotent ES cell
line. Their accomplishment represents a
major milestone. . ."

Now, I'm not a scientist or a doctor so I won't pretend that I understand the above completely :-) But I think it proves wrong the statement "No embryonic stem cell has ever been proven to help anyone or anything" if you concede the clone technique that was used to produce the cells, and the fact that they were "partially differentiated" (whatever that means) instead of a "pure" stem cell.

In any case, the U.S. could end up in a position of competitive disadvantage if research on ES cells continues only off-shore. Also remember, science and medicine works in funny ways. Researchers working on embryonic stem cells could end up discovering an important technique or a breakthrough that's not even related to the issue at hand. . .