Stem Cells Cure Diabetics

[Sparrowhawk]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_a ... 637528.ece

Diabetics using stem-cell therapy have been able to stop taking insulin injections for the first time, after their bodies started to produce the hormone naturally again.

In a breakthrough trial, 15 young patients with newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes were given drugs to suppress their immune systems followed by transfusions of stem cells drawn from their own blood.

Is this it? Is this what we've been waiting for - proof of the incalculable benefits of stem-cells, stem-cell research and stem-cell based cures?

[mr_thebrain]

god, i hope so.

then again, they probably won't be available for the common man any time soon, if ever. the way this sort of thing always seems to work out is that it'll be in research for another umpteen years, people will forget about it (assuming that anyone will actually hear about it in the first place) and it will fade into the sunset as time goes by. certain people in the government don't like to admit that they're wrong... they'll rename nameBushless. anyway, even if it does make major news, the treatment will probably be regulated to a totally unfair price to keep it from actually helping people.

still, i would love to see this come into common and inexpensive use. great find!

[Oliver Dale]

I saw this article this morning and was floored. I mean it without a hint of hyperbole: I was speechless for a good fifteen minutes.

Of course, I've since recovered, and I have to say brain that your post shows an almost embarassing lack of comprehension when it comes to market forces and the state of the world.

This is not the sort of research that gets forgotten. True it isn't something you're going to see at your Walmart pharmacy next week, but all research takes time. Even if you have to wait for a different administration (which is silly, because only US federal funding is blocked), that's what? A year and a half? And what does this research even have to do with the President being "wrong"? Did Mr. Bush ever claim that stem-cells wouldn't work? Nope. Only that they are immoral (which I happen to disagree with, but at least I won't misrepresent).

Furthermore, there is such a built-in market for this that I guarantee funding (foreign/state governments or private) will become available. Of course, this is what you were referring to when you said "totally unfair price." This is, in fact, the pharmaceutical companies trying to recoup the loss of the several decades and hundreds of millions of dollars they've spent developing these drugs. I understand it's frustrating when people are denied medical care because of economics -- I think it's frustrating too -- but the only way anyone can be provided anything is through levying costs. Generally I hear this argument in the debate about AIDS medication, where less-than-developed countries have huge population percentages in need of treatment. This is hardly a comparison. Juvenile diabetes is probably pretty low on the list for people who can't afford medications. They're more concerned with housing, food, and general healthcare.

Then again, I'm not sure why I should be surprised. People will complain about the cure for cancer when it's developed if the company who devises it doesn't just instantly declare bankruptcy, hand over their assets to the state, and set up a net operating loss cost center to manufacture goods that no one is paying for.

[Eaquae Legit]

Did Mr. Bush ever claim that stem-cells wouldn't work? Nope. Only that they are immoral

These stem cells are drawn from the patients' own blood. I am quite solidly opposed to embrionic stem cell research, but I have zero qualms about this. Absolutely none. I'm over the moon, and I hope the research goes swiftly and well and hits the market soon.

I daresay even the most rabid pro-life person would agree with me. No ethical objections at all to this, no fuzziness, no ambiguity. (Notwithstanding people with no knowledge at all of the biology involved.)

[Oliver Dale]

Sorry, EL. You're of course right. What I meant was that Mr. Bush feels that using embryonic stem-cells for research is immoral. People are using this research (rightly so, I believe) as evidence of the efficacy of stem-cell research in general.

My point is that efficacy and morality are two different arguments, only one of which is supported by this article.

[AnthonyByakko]

Hip-hip hooray for the free market, hip-hip hooray for science.

[Sparrowhawk]

What I meant was that Mr. Bush feels that using embryonic stem-cells for research is immoral.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/11/ ... topstories

The Senate approved a measure that would roll back President Bush's 2001 limits on embryonic stem-cell research Wednesday afternoon, but the margin was short of the two-thirds needed to override a promised veto.

Bush used the only veto of his presidency to date to kill a 2006 effort to loosen his policy on stem-cell research, which bars the use of federal funding for work that would destroy human embryos.

In a statement issued after Wednesday's 63-34 vote, he said he would veto the new bill as well, saying it "crosses a moral line that I and many others find troubling."

"I believe this will encourage taxpayer money to be spent on the destruction or endangerment of living human embryos -- raising serious moral concerns for millions of Americans," he said.

That's about the size of it. While I'm not as interested in the "moral line" that others find 'troubling' as I am in the potential and very-real medical and scientific advances that would be gained by crossing it, Bush hasn't done much but rail against the public funding of embryonic stem cell research.

[Oliver Dale]

I don't follow. Are you arguing or just elaborating? So far, I don't think I've said anything that would disagree with you.

[AnthonyByakko]

"That's about the size of it."

"Bush hasn't done much but rail against the public funding of embryonic stem cell research."

Um.. What now?