stem cell research

Breaking News: “Scientists create a part-human, part-pig embryo”

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The Washington Post is reporting that scientists have for the first time created an embryo that is part human and part pig. The long-term goal is to provide organs for transplant, given that the need for organs always runs well ahead of the availability of organs. Such a hybrid or chimeric embryo raises many, many […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. Can We? Should We? Our Christopher White this week highlighted two ways in which President George W. Bush’s decision — now 15 years ago — to limit federal funding for embryo destructive stem cell research has been vindicated. First, non-embryonic (aka adult) stem cells have proven to be much more powerful and useful that […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. Countering Physician Assisted Suicide: A How To Guide Ashton Ellis, one of our Paul Ramsey Institute Fellows, wrote a very insightful article on the ways in which proponents of physician assisted suicide have engaged in an active, and sadly very successful, campaign to spread the word that doctors in California may now legally kill […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. UNFPA Announces Opposition to Commercial Surrogacy The Phnom Penh Post reports that the United Nations Population Fund opposes the legalization of commercial surrogacy. This is an important development as Cambodia considers how surrogacy should be treated in the country in the wake of high-profile surrogacy scandals in Thailand, India, and Nepal. “Reproductive health, surrogacy, […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. Priorities at the VA The department of veterans affairs this week released the preliminary results of a new study on suicide among veterans. “In 2014, the latest year available, more than 7,400 veterans took their own lives, accounting for 18 percent of all suicides in America. Veterans make up less than 9 percent of […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. Hippocratic Telemedicine? Perhaps, like me, you have received emails from your health insurance company or seen ads on your social media letting you know about options that will allow you to “see” a health care provider by phone, email, webcam, or even text. According to the Wall Street Journal, if you haven’t received such […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. Call for Open, Transparent Discussion Denied Last Friday, 150 scientists, physicians, and bioethicists released an open letter calling for the World Health Organization (WHO) to consider moving or postponing the upcoming Olympic Games because of how much we simply do not know about the Zika virus, which is epidemic in Brazil. Specifically, the call […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. Euthanasia Expansion If you need any evidence that the arguments in support of euthanasia or assisted-suicide are specious, read this story. A young woman in the Netherlands chose euthanasia by lethal injection. What was her terminal illness? She didn’t have one. Did she have less than six months to live? There is no evidence […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. Failed U.S. Uterus Transplant Two days after being hailed a success, the U.S.’s first uterus transplant has failed and the organ was removed after complications. Uterine transplants, while offering the hope of giving birth to women born without a uterus, are not without serious risks. Some critics have used this to champion surrogacy as […]

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2014 Ramsey Award Winner Speaks Out Against Embryonic Stem Cell Research

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A scientist from Harvard, Dr. Doug Melton, has figured out how to use human embryonic stem cells to produce insulin—a potential major breakthrough for those that suffer from diabetes. You can listen to a full NPR broadcast on the discovery here. Dr. Daniel Sulmasy, last year’s winner of CBC’s Ramsey Award, was interviewed by NPR […]

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Media Share Blame for Stem Cell Research Fraud

Writing in Slate, Jane C. Hu uses the high profile stem cell research lies we have seen in recent years to launch into an interesting article entitled, “Why Do Scientists Commit Fraud?” She discusses the recent bogus claim that skin cells could be turned into stem cells with chemicals (not the same thing as the […]

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Exposing Baloney of Stem Cell Sophists

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Ever since the great embryonic stem cell debate commenced at the end of the Clintion years, I have witnesses so many “scientists” and media cheer leaders claim that an early embryo is no different than the cells that are destroyed when you brush your teeth, e.g., just a cell, not a human organism at all. What […]

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The Human Cloning Goal Behind Stem Cell Cures

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Buried deep in an encouraging story about another advance in turning skin cells into stem cells, we see more evidence of biotechnology’s ultimate human cloning goal. First, the good news. An acid bath may be able to replace viruses in transforming skin cells into stem cells that can become any type of cell in the […]

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We Can’t Let CIRM History be Rewritten

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Proposition 71, which brought the misbegotten California Institute for Regenerative Medicine into being, was sold to voters in a blatantly mendacious campaign based on embryonic stem cell hype of CURES! CURES! CURES! and outright lies about the then state of regenerative medical science. Its administration has been marked by arrogance, conflict of interest, cronyism. And […]

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Follow $ to Non-Embryonic Stem Cell Research!

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Ten years ago, we were in the midst of a heated national debate over embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). Proponents castigated opponents (like me) as “anti-science,” and theocratic for opposing ESCR federal funding based on ethical concerns. When we claimed that alternatives to embryonic stem cells showed great promise, we were derided as Luddites. Embryonic […]

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Ethical Stem Cells Create Human “Mini-Brains”

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The induced pluripotent stem cell breakthrough continues to be useful in the very ways that “the scientists” once said only human cloning could provide. Now, in what appears to be a very notable breakthrough, they have been used to make patient-specific, tailor made neural cells for study. More, they have even created a “mini-brain.” From […]

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Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Human Trial

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The first induced pluripotent stem cell human trial — that is, ethical stem cells made from skin or other tissues — is about to begin. Like the two (or is it three?) existing embryonic stem cell trials, it has to do with eye disease. From the Nature News story: On 1 August, researchers at the […]

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Not Wrong to Fund Research Based on Ethics

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The embryonic stem cell and human cloning research debates are not “science” arguments, but rather, disputes over proper ethics in the pursuit of science. Supporters of ESCR think it isn’t wrong to destroy embryos for use in research. Opponents, disagree and also suggest that it would be great if ways were found to obtain the […]

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