What is Stem Cell: [StemCells] Re: [StemCells) Surplus embryos for scientific study?

Dear Good People,

Donating surplus fresh and stored frozen embryos from IVF clinics (without expensive storage and private profit) to national medical science research for the?common good of all mankind would be the right thing to do.? Unless the IVF clinic operators get greedy and decide they want to continue to sell them for a profit.?Do YOU think its Ok to buy and sell fertilized human eggs? or freeze potential human beings??AND do you think potential mothers should be allowed use all their extra fertilized IVF lab samples to make more than enough babies for themselves or others, like the gal who now, like a rabbit, has a?huge litter of 14?tiny immature juveniles that taxpayers will have to support for years?? Christians believe in caring for the weakest and most vunerable human beings among us. Do we discount the value of the adoption of?needy abused children, drug babies and orphans less than we protect frozen laboratory surplus test tube samples of human cells?????

Here's an interesting Washington post article...I am also waiting for President Obama?to do the right thing and simply remove the personal?religious policy Bush imposed on us in 2001 to limit our modern medical research of stem cell lines?for the common good...but it might be hard now to get the IVF clinics to let go of the additional income from 8 years of annual rent on those special human egg freezers they built. Those millions of?"souls on ice" ?might never thaw completely, if we blindly continue to ignore the big bucks being made by investors in these human products, fertilized eggs are now?a valuable commodity for big profits folks.? Then why not make buying and selling of human organs legal again to be more consistent??Instead of long waiting lists for donated human organs? What's the difference???? GBYAY Anne Breen

Sciientists Await Action on Stem Cells
Some Proponents Had Expected Obama to Immediately Reverse Bush Policies

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 19, 2009; A02

At the National Institutes of Health, officials have started drafting
guidelines they will need to start funding human embryonic stem cell
research that has been off-limits for nearly eight years.

At the University of California at San Francisco, scientists are poised
to dismantle the cumbersome bureaucracy they created to segregate
experiments that were acceptable under the federal restrictions from
studies that were not.

At the Harvard Stem Cell Institute in Cambridge, Mass., graduate
students and other scientists paid with federal grants are eagerly
awaiting the day when they can contribute their eureka moments to
projects that are forbidden under the current policy.

But in the month since Inauguration Day, the moment they have been
awaiting has not come, prompting some to ask: When will President Obama
deliver on his campaign promise to lift one of the most contentious
policies imposed by his predecessor?

"Everyone is waiting with bated breath," said George Daley, a leading
stem cell scientist at Children's Hospital in Boston. "We're all
waiting to breathe a huge sigh of relief."

President George W. Bush imposed the restriction in 2001, limiting
federal funding to studies of cell lines that were already in existence
on that date to prevent tax dollars from encouraging the destruction of
more embryos.

The limitation, welcomed by those who believe that destroying human
embryos is immoral, has been denounced by many respected scientists for severely
hindering research on hundreds of new cell lines developed since then.
Such cells could lead to cures for a host of ailments because they can
become any type of tissue in the body, they say.

Proponents expected Obama to lift the restriction in his first week in
office, when he issued a flurry of executive orders to close the prison
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, make government less secretive and lift a ban
on funding international family planning groups that support abortion,
among other things.

"We were surprised and disappointed it wasn't in there," said Amy
Comstock Rick of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research,
which has been leading the lobbying effort to lift the restriction.
"We're wondering why it's taking so long."

Advocates on both sides still expect Obama to act. Obama repeated his
promise in a private meeting with House Democrats last week, and top
adviser David Axelrod said on "Fox News Sunday" that the president is
"considering" an executive order and will act soon.

But the delay and the vague language are making proponents nervous. Has
Obama simply been too preoccupied with the economic crisis to focus on
the issue? Is he hesitant to wade into one of the flashpoints of the
culture wars? Could he even be considering a moderate move as part of
his broad strategy of seeking the middle ground on even the most
contentious issues?

"The word the president is 'considering' it is too vague a word for
me," Rick said. "I don't know entirely what that means. If it means
he's just working out the details, that's great. But if 'considering'
means 'reconsidering' we would be very upset."

In response to a query, White House spokesman Reid H. Cherlin wrote in
an e-mail: "The president has made it clear that increasing stem cell
research is a priority for his administration, and he'll be acting soon
to reverse restrictions on this critical science."

Not everyone, of course, is disappointed by the delay.

"We continue to oppose federal funding of research that destroys human
embryos," said David Christensen of the Family Research Council. "We
don't think the federal government should fund or create an incentive
to destroy human life."

Some opponents have suggested that Obama might qualify his executive
order to try to take the sting out of the move. Proponents, however,
hope Obama will simply lift the restriction without caveats and let the
NIH work out the details. In anticipation, the NIH has started drafting
guidelines that would address the many ethical issues raised by the
research, using as models templates compiled by the National Academy of
Sciences and the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

"We want to be able to move as quickly as possible," said Story Landis,
who heads NIH's stem cell task force. "The science is waiting."

Among the issues the guidelines will address is whether funding should
be limited to cells from leftover embryos that are destined for
destruction at infertility clinics.

"We are assuming that what we will be asked to do is develop guidelines
for stem cell lines derived from embryos produced for reproductive
purposes in excess of need," Landis said.

Proponents of the research hope the executive order and resulting NIH
guidelines would be more open-ended than that, allowing research on
stem cells derived in other ways. But that would make the move even
more controversial.

Although the guidelines will need to be approved by the Health and
Human Services Department and undergo 30 days of public comment before
becoming final, Landis said she expects that the NIH could approve the
first supplemental grants to current grantees to study new cell lines
within four months and the first new grants within six to nine months.

"If I were a smart scientist, I would be writing a grant right now,"
said Landis, noting that some of the $10 billion the NIH will receive
as part of the stimulus package could be used to expand stem cell
research.

The 21 cell lines that scientists are permitted to study under the Bush
policy have a variety of shortcomings, critics say. Many, for example,
may have defects that could make them dangerous to transplant into
people. But perhaps more important, hundreds of newer lines have been
developed that offer a host of opportunities. Many lines, for example,
carry defects for specific diseases, which could provide crucial
insights into Parkinson's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease, diabetes and
other devastating ailments.

"People with these diseases are running out of time every day," said
Lawrence A. Soler of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. "That's
why we need this to move forward as soon as possible."

Opponents have argued that research on human embryonic stem cells has
become unnecessary because of scientific advances in the interim,
including promising studies involving adult stem cells and the ability
to turn adult cells into cells that appear to have many of the
properties of embryonic cells.

"We think the science has bypassed the debate," Christensen said. "We
think the administration would be better served to advance that kind of
stem cell research."

But many scientists say it remains far from clear which cells will
ultimately lead to the most important advances, making it crucial to
continue to study those cells along with embryonic cells.

Whatever Obama does, Congress is also likely to get involved by
considering legislation designed to prevent any future presidents from
reinstating restrictions.

"We need to codify the opening up of the research so it doesn't turn
into a Ping-Pong ball of administrations," said Rep. Diana DeGette
(D-Colo.), who noted that the legislation could address another
potential roadblock: the perennial Dickey-Wicker amendment that
prohibits federal funding of research involving human embryos. She has
been consulting with the White House on both issues.

GBYAY Anne McGinnis Breen
See my ponytail bouncing and my smiley face winking at you? &;>)

My new personal bt blog with my list of 28 questions to ask your doctor about brain tumor treatments is http://gbyay.blogspot.com
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"Hope has two daughters--anger and courage: anger at the way things are and the courage to work to make things other than they are." -- Saint Augustine
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Keep you faith, cherish your reason, treasure your mind and hold to your own good purpose...be not afraid!

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StemCells subscribers may also be interested in these sites:

Children's Neurobiological Solutions
http://www.CNSfoundation.org/

Cord Blood Registry
http://www.CordBlood.com/at.cgi?a=150123

The CNS Healing Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CNS_Healing
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