Reply With Quote1. Embryonic stem cells have produced disappointing results for juvenile diabetes.
The latest example: While some studies have claimed progress in getting ESCs to differentiate into insulin-producing cells in culture, those claims are called into doubt in the most recent issue of the journal Diabetologia. There researchers from the University of Calgary found that the insulin-producing cells derived from ESCs are not the “beta cells” needed to reverse diabetes. While the cells produced some insulin, they did not do so in response to changes in glucose levels; when placed in mice they did not reverse diabetes but formed teratomas (tumors).
Claim 2
“A Korean research team recently made history by using human embryonic stem cells to cure Parkinson’s disease in rats.”
That is what they claim, but the research is a long way from producing a safe and effective treatment for humans. On the one known occasion when earlier-stage (before 6 weeks) fetal tissue was used to try to treat a human Parkinson’s patient, the tissue killed the patient by forming clumps of bone, skin and hair in the middle of his brain.
Moreover, animal trials with embryonic stem cells repeatedly kill many of the animals because of formation of brain tumors.
Meanwhile, the first clinical trial using a patient’s own adult brain stem cells to treat Parkinson’s has produced a lasting 80% reversal of symptoms, and wider human trials are being planned.
Claim 3
“Rats paralyzed from spinal cord injuries regained their ability to walk after transplantation of specific nerve cells that were derived from mouse embryonic stem cells.”
Actually the functional improvement was modest, and the rats could “almost walk again” after receiving the injections. 6
This research was announced in December 1999, and no one has announced any improvement on it since or moved it toward human trials. Meanwhile, several human patients have shown remarkable recovery from spinal cord injury after receiving injections of adult cells from their own nasal tissue. That breakthrough was recently featured on “Miracle Cell,” an episode of the PBS program Innovation.
In reality, none of the claims promoted by embryonic stem cell enthusiasts are actually anywhere close to the research already being accomplished using adult stem cells. In addition, adult stem cells avoid many of the practical problems associated with embryonic stem cell research.
1. You use your own cells instead of those of an embryo with another DNA makeup, which would require taking immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of your life (like one does when they have an organ transplant).
2. You avoid the problem of having to clone yourself to get cells genetically identical to your own to avoid problem
3. You avoid having to obtain scores of human eggs to get the stem cells via cloning. (The South Korean experiment required 242 eggs to get one embryonic stem cell line.)
4. Adult stem cells are already specialized and require less cell specialization to work. (Avoids problems of unspecialized embryonic cells becoming tumors.)
5. Lastly, adult stem cells don’t have the moral problem of requiring the destruction of living human embryos for the research.
While we all are concerned that we find cures for those suffering from disease, such cures do not lie in destroying living human embryos. They lie instead in research developments that, in many cases, are already here.
CBHD
http://www.cbhd.org/resources/stemce...2004-06-16.htm - 16k -
Originally Posted by LHardy
