I strongly recommend doing some research, NJ.
Try here:
http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics3.asp
Where do embryonic stemm cells come from?
quote:
Specifically, embryonic stem cells are derived from embryos that develop from eggs that have been fertilized in vitro”in an in vitro fertilization clinic”and then donated for research purposes with informed consent of the donors. They are not derived from eggs fertilized in a woman's body
How are they grown?
quote:
Over the course of several days, the cells of the inner cell mass proliferate and begin to crowd the culture dish. When this occurs, they are removed gently and plated into several fresh culture dishes. The process of replating the cells is repeated many times and for many months, and is called subculturing. Each cycle of subculturing the cells is referred to as a passage. After six months or more, the original 30 cells of the inner cell mass yield millions of embryonic stem cells
quote:
Embryonic stem cells that have proliferated in cell culture for six or more months without differentiating, are pluripotent, and appear genetically normal are referred to as an embryonic stem cell line.
As you can plainly see, embryonic stem cells are derived from in-vitro fertilizations, donated with the consent of the owners. They are not allowed to grow to a point where they could even be called human.
Pros and Cons of Adult and Embryonic Stem Cells
http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics5.asp
quote:
Large numbers of embryonic stem cells can be relatively easily grown in culture, while adult stem cells are rare in mature tissues and methods for expanding their numbers in cell culture have not yet been worked out
Why use or create embryonic stem cell lines?
http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics6.asp
quote:
Studies of human embryonic stem cells may yield information about the complex events that occur during human development. A primary goal of this work is to identify how undifferentiated stem cells become differentiated
That's one thing that adult stem cells can't do. At least. Here's another:
quote:
A better understanding of the genetic and molecular controls of these processes may yield information about how such diseases arise and suggest new strategies for therapy
Yet another use for embryonic stem cell lines:
quote:
Human stem cells could also be used to test new drugs. For example, new medications could be tested for safety on differentiated cells generated from human pluripotent cell lines
But here's the catch:
quote:
the promise of stem cell therapies is an exciting one, but significant technical hurdles remain that will only be overcome through years of intensive research.
If we severely restrict what we can research, how can we overcme the obstacles that face both adult and embryonic stem cell use?
By the way, the US has less than 30 viable embryonic stem cell lines. We only found out how to create human embryonic stem cell lines in 1998. The first was from a university in Wisconsin. IN 2001, when federal funding was limited to lines already created, only 60ish had been created. And roughly half of those are not viable due to numberous reasons. As far as I can find, there are approximately 120 embryonic stem cell lines around the world that are far better for research use than what federal funding will help with. We can only apply for funding for around 25 ancient lines. As to your point about ample funding. Research is expensive. Why do you think most research projects are done with university and/or federal funding? Because that's who has the money. If the federal government can sink 500 billion into defense, surely it can afford to spend money on research. Sure, we're finding ways to circumvent the federal funding ban, but having federal funding available makes research a hell of a lot easier.
they metastasize beyond control. And instead of healing the patient, it actually gives them cancer.
False on at least one account. The stem cells do metastasize, but the tumors are benign (as in, not cancerous. they can still be quite fatal). They can potentially give you cancer, but only if the line being used is quite old.
The final problem with all these objections is this. A lot of the anti-embryonic stem cell people say that science isn't figuring it out, that the problems are insurmountable, that it's too difficult, or whatever excuse they have. Whatever happened to believing that we can do or can figure out anything we want to? Whatever happened to the can-do attitude? And do you really want the "shining light of the free world" to fall behind in something?
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