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Great News!!!!!!!!! Can we have a hand for President Obama!!!!!

Hallelujah! I'm kind of upset that it took him this long...

Yes we can........ yes we can........

I'm excited, but he lifted the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. The private sector could always do it, so I"m excited, I just hope there's some money left to put towards this in this crazy economic time!

Agree with Lew...excited but worried about financial situation. Geron has an embryonic clinical trial approved by the FDA for this summer, regrowing myelin on damaged spinal cords.
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The irony is that the delay in embryonic approval got docs looking at autologous stem cell therapies (stem cells from the self, not morally questionable to anyone)...which may prove to be even more beneficial to MSers. The mesenchymal autologous stem cell treatments have been very successful.

I love our new president. His open forum on health care was incredibly inspiring. WHOO HOOO!
AC

I can tell you why some are NOT excited by the news. And, here is why.

Scenario1: Stem cell research other than embryonic is funded and a cure is found. Result: Everyone can partake in the cure. Scenario2: Embryonic stem cell research is funded and a cure is found. Result: only a certain majority can partake in the cure.

Some feel that embryos is a life and therefor, can't justify prolonging and enhance their lives at the expense of another life. Obviously, most won't agree with this statement. But now you know why that a few of us are are not all that 'jazzed' by this news.

wilson wrote:I can tell you why some are NOT excited by the news. And, here is why.

Scenario1: Stem cell research other than embryonic is funded and a cure is found. Result: Everyone can partake in the cure. Scenario2: Embryonic stem cell research is funded and a cure is found. Result: only a certain majority can partake in the cure.

Some feel that embryos is a life and therefor, can't justify prolonging and enhance their lives at the expense of another life. Obviously, most won't agree with this statement. But now you know why that a few of us are are not all that 'jazzed' by this news.

I understand that some people are genuinely opposed to embryonic stem cell research on moral grounds. I completely disagree with them, but I do understand.

If such research does lead to a paradigm shift in medicine, however, and previously untreatable horrors become treatable diseases, I better not see blowhard hypocrites, who impeded possibly life-saving research for close to a decade, lining up to take the cure. They will very likely find my embryonic stem cell cured foot firmly implanted up their asses...

Exactly Mark. Well said.

Here's a quote from a recent article on stem cells from Time Magazine (February 9, 2009)

http://www.time.com/time/health/article ... 17,00.html

The Fighter
In looks and demeanor, Melton is the quintessential professor, soft-spoken and thoughtful, someone who appears more mentor than maverick. Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, he developed an early fascination with animal development; that curiosity led to a bachelor's degree in biology at the University of Illinois in 1975, then a second undergraduate degree, in the history and philosophy of science, at Cambridge University on a Marshall Scholarship. Melton remained there for his Ph.D. work, studying under Sir John Gurdon — the first to clone a frog. At Harvard, Melton teaches a frequently oversubscribed undergraduate course on science and ethics, in which he uses his keen sense of logic to provoke. When the class discussed the morality of embryonic-stem-cell research, Melton invited Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to present arguments against the field. Melton asked Doerflinger if he considered a day-old embryo and a 6-year-old to be moral equivalents; when Doerflinger responded yes, Melton countered by asking why society accepts the freezing of embryos but not the freezing of 6-year-olds.

Clearly, Melton does not shrink from a fight. As Washington's squeeze on stem-cell research tightened in the early part of this decade, he decided to take action, providing life support for what remained of the U.S. stem-cell community. Not convinced that an entire field could make much progress relying on a few dozen cell lines of questionable quality, in 2004 he used funds HSCI receives from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, as well as from Harvard alumni, and developed a more streamlined method for generating stem-cell lines from embryos. He created more than 70 new ones and has since distributed 3,000 copies to scientists around the country for free.

"Doug drew a line in the sand," says Alan Trounson, president of the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, the organization charged with dispensing state money for embryonic-stem-cell research. "He turned the tables on an Administration that was incredibly negative toward stem cells and showed [it] we are not going to tolerate being put out of this field by ideological views that we don't think are correct." Melton's motivation was, again, both professional and intensely personal. Two months after Bush announced his ban, Melton's daughter Emma, then 14, also received a diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes.

What I get a kick out of is the people who are all for in-vitro fertilization but not stem cell research.

That to me is just ponderous. Oxy-MORON!

I would expect if there is a "cure"using embryonic stem cells those who are opposed to it on moral grounds would not accept the treatment. Anyone care to respond????