From: Max More (max@maxmore.com)
Date: Fri Jul 19 2002 - 08:19:37 MDT
Updates on the President's Council on Bioethics, also known as the
President's Unethical Council to Support Aging and Death:
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>Date: 18 Jul 2002 14:34:27 -0000
>From: StemCells@yahoogroups.com
>To: StemCells@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: [StemCells] Digest Number 467
>Reply-To: StemCells@yahoogroups.com
>
>ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 2. Commentary: Fiddle While US Med Lead Burns
> From: "digit8r" <digit8r@yahoo.com>
> 3. Senator: Put Patients in Prison
> From: "digit8r" <digit8r@yahoo.com>
> 4. A Decisive Nondecision Panel Punts on Cloning
> From: "digit8r" <digit8r@yahoo.com>
>
>________________________________________________________________________
>________________________________________________________________________
>
>Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 02:08:01 -0000
> From: "digit8r" <digit8r@yahoo.com>
>Subject: Commentary: Fiddle While US Med Lead Burns
>
>Washington Times
>July 11, 2002
>Commentary: Fiddle While US Med Lead Burns
>
>Martin Sieff
>UPI Senior News Analyst
>
>WASHINGTON, July 11 (UPI) -- President George W. Bush and his
>bioethics advisers continue to fiddle over cloning while America's
>century-old biomedical world leadership crumbles around them -- and
>because of them.
>
>Bush's Council on Bioethics Thursday issued -- as expected -- a
>divided report on whether the U.S. government should allow further,
>far-reaching, ambitious research on cloning to create human embryos
>and harvest their stem cells to grow new organs and tissues for
>disease treatment.
>
>On one major subject, the panel was in full agreement, and it had
>good cause to be so. All of its 18 members agreed that cloning for
>reproductive purposes should be banned. The most promising and far-
>reaching medical advances would not come from this procedure, and
>most scientists believe that it would only -- or overwhelmingly --
>produce terribly deformed babies.
>
>But on the crucial issue of creating embryos to use their stem cells
>and advance other medical research, the panel was deeply divided. Ten
>of its members -- a majority -- backed a four-year moratorium on such
>research. But another seven of them broke ranks and recommended
>pushing ahead instead. The remaining member abstained.
>
>The fact that seven members of the panel supported the research is
>actually a major personal setback for Bush. Even before the panel
>began its work in January, he made clear that he supported a total
>ban on all cloning work. Bush also hand-selected Leon Kass, the
>highly moralistic chairman of the council who shares his aversion to
>developing such procedures.
>
>The fact that Bush's own council, including handpicked choices of his
>own and led by a forceful chairman who shares his views still refused
>to overwhelmingly rubber-stamp the conclusion the president had made
>very clear he wanted it to reach is certainly an embarrassment for
>him.
>
>But judged on his past track record of rushing into scientific and
>technological decisions on the basis of prejudice, wishful thinking
>and preferred ignorance of the real issues, it will not deter him
>from doing what he has already made up his mind to do anyway.
>
>Last August, Bush decided to approve federal funding for stem cell
>research, but only under highly restrictive circumstances. That
>decision was lousy science, disastrous scientific policy and a
>ridiculous caricature of the caring, moral position it presumed to
>be.
>
>It will certainly result in millions of people continuing to die from
>agonizing diseases for years, possibly decades, longer than they
>would otherwise have done. It will save no lives from being abused by
>medical science because no lives are at risk in the process of
>extracting stem cells. It will certainly weaken the growing tide of
>support that Bush benefited from in his presidential election
>campaign to ban the barbarous practice of pre-natal abortions and
>increasingly limit other late term abortion procedures. And all this
>will happen in the name of the "pro-life" principle.
>
>Within a very short period, probably only three to five years, it
>will mean that U.S. world leadership in medical science will be lost
>to the nations of the European Union, Japan, India and especially
>China in this crucial, cutting edge area of research. For doctors
>wishing to seek cures for the diseases that stem cell research may
>offer will flock to those countries and research institutions where
>neo-medieval constraints are not applied to their research. Indeed,
>Chinese scientists and government officials have privately but openly
>in recent months expressed glee at what they regard as the stupid
>American dithering on this issue.
>
>All these consequences will flow from decisions taken in the name of
>saving the unborn. But stem cells do not come from unborn children.
>They come from embryos in the early stages of development that are
>very often naturally discarded by the body itself.
>
>As Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen noted last August, Bush
>has taken what he terms a pro-life position in order to defend right
>to life of a pre-sentient biological function that human female
>biology itself routinely rejects. In the name of an abstract
>principle rigidly applied, he is rejecting nature's own functioning
>and presumes to defend as viable developments that clearly are not.
>
>Recent breakthroughs in stem cell research offer the extraordinary
>possibility of curing forms of paralysis and previous incurable
>diseases that have inflicted hideous suffering upon humanity for all
>of recorded history and that continue to do so. Bush's decision last
>year put crippling constraints upon federal funding for that
>research.
>
>The split decision of the Bioethics Council looks certain to
>producing yet more delays -- at past -- before any such research will
>be approved. And more likely, it will just lead to Bush taking what
>he regards as a courageous and principled decision to ban it after
>the conflicting reports are finally produced.
>
>The inevitable result of this Byzantine, tortoise-paced process will
>be that research and further breakthroughs in stem cell research will
>be effectively hobbled, at least as long as Bush himself remains in
>the White House.
>
>Ordinarily, this could have been expected to prove a huge domestic
>political albatross to the president. In normal times, it would be
>listed alongside the plunging indicators of the economy, the
>weakening dollar and his increasingly desperate need to raid the
>coffers of Medicare and Social Security to cover the costs of his
>highly imprudent $1.35 trillion tax cut.
>
>The president's decision to significantly restrict stem cell research
>could outrage every American who either suffers from, or has a
>beloved family member who suffers from -- or who has died from -- one
>of the diseases that high priority, federally encouraged stem cell
>research could hope to cure. That is a lot of Americans.
>
>However, since the catastrophes of Sept. 11, the times are not
>normal. So far, the president has benefited from the surge of
>patriotism and national unity that accompanies a time of crisis and
>war without having to deal with the suffering and genuine wrenching
>reorganization of society in the common defense that real wars
>demand.
>
>If al Qaida or any of its terrorist allies should succeed in
>launching any more attacks on the scale of Sept. 11 -- or worse --
>then Bush will have far more immediate reasons to worry about his
>plunging credibility than his stem cell and cloning policies -- or
>lack of them. But as long as such attacks do not occur, the heroic
>image of the president bringing the war to al Qaida in Afghanistan is
>likely to carry him over any detailed, sustained and critical popular
>scrutiny on this issue, as on many others.
>
>But the issue should not be forgotten. Cloning research is surging
>ahead anyway in Britain, India and China without any of the
>constraints so earnestly debated by Bush's favored ethicists. The
>Boston Globe confirmed our prediction of last August that Bush's
>attempts to delay and derail approval for U.S. cloning research would
>give the rest of the world the chance to outstrip the United States
>in such research. The paper reported on June 21, "Cloning experiments
>already have proliferated abroad, notably in China and England." The
>paper cited Dr. Xiangzhang Yang of the University of Connecticut as
>saying he had been briefed on cloning work currently underway in at
>least "half a dozen" laboratories in China.
>
>Thursday's reports of a Bioethics Council divided against itself is a
>recipe for months or years more of sterile, futile languishing about
>how many angels can dance on the top of a pin. Meanwhile, the
>sufferings of many millions of Americans will continue without the
>hope of cures that might otherwise rapidly become available, and
>global leadership in medicine and biology will pass into the hands of
>others different from -- and quite possibly hostile to -- our own.
>
>
>
>
>
>________________________________________________________________________
>________________________________________________________________________
>
>Message: 3
> Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 02:08:46 -0000
> From: "digit8r" <digit8r@yahoo.com>
>Subject: Senator: Put Patients in Prison
>
>San Francisco Examiner
>07/05/2002
>Senator: Put Patients in Prison
>
>BY GREG WASSON
>Special to The Examiner
>
>There is currently a fierce disagreement over the continued use of
>therapeutic cloning (or SCNT) for medical research. This research may
>cure diseases affecting more than 100 million Americans, making it
>the greatest advance in the history of medicine. So any debate about
>the continuation of this research should be conducted using the
>highest ethical standards.
>
>But a law being considered in Congress would throw patients who use
>therapies "derived" from SCNT, and scientists conducting SCNT
>research, in prison for 10 years. That is not debate -- that is an
>ugly attempt to intimidate.
>
>Therapeutic cloning takes a donated, unfertilized egg, substitutes a
>patient's DNA for that of the donor, then coaxes the egg to begin
>dividing. This creates a number of "stem cells," cells that can
>become any human cell type, genetically identical to the patient. The
>unfertilized cell mass is smaller than the head of a pin when
>extraction occurs. The cells are intended to replace dead or diseased
>cells in the patient. Leading neuroscientists agree that therapies
>developed from SCNT research will likely cure diseases such as
>Alzheimer's, heart disease, Parkinson's, and spinal cord injuries, to
>name only a few.
>
>Opponents of SCNT claim that this procedure destroys human life. This
>claim should be tested through vigorous public debate based on fact.
>But that is not happening. The loudest opponents of therapeutic
>cloning avoid the facts altogether. They simply state, without
>scientific support or evidence of an ethical consensus, that a
>cloned, unfertilized cell cluster created outside the womb is a
>person, period.
>
>As Christopher Reeve gulps for more air to calmly explain the facts
>of therapeutic cloning to the public, opponents like Sen. Sam
>Brownback resort to insults and the bullying of scientists and
>patients, calling them "baby killers" and "cannibals." They play hide-
>the-ball with the facts and use scare tactics and slogans to
>influence public opinion.
>
>Sen. Brownback is the author of legislation that would throw
>scientists and patients like Reeve in jail for using SCNT. Using the
>threat of imprisonment to win a public policy debate is an
>unprincipled, shameful tactic. Brownback and his allies want to
>suppress free and open debate in order to promote their extreme right-
>to-life religious agenda.
>
>Despite Brownback's attempt to criminalize medical research, polls
>show most Americans support SCNT. An alternative bill, sponsored by
>Sens. Feinstein, Kennedy and Hatch, would prohibit reproductive
>cloning but permit responsible and regulated therapeutic cloning.
>
>It is vital that the public make an informed decision about this most
>important issue. It is up to the public to demand that opponents of
>SCNT make their case with facts, not slogans and sound bites. The
>lives too many of us are at stake to accept the tactics of Brownback
>and his ilk.
>
>Greg Wasson is national field representative of the Parkinson's
>Action Network. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, an
>incurable and progressive neurological disorder, seven years ago. He
>was recently awarded the first Millicent Kondracke Award for
>outstanding advocacy.
>
>
>
>
>________________________________________________________________________
>________________________________________________________________________
>
>Message: 4
> Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 02:09:58 -0000
> From: "digit8r" <digit8r@yahoo.com>
>Subject: A Decisive Nondecision Panel Punts on Cloning
>
>Miami Herald
>July 12, 2002
>A Decisive Nondecision Panel Punts on Cloning
>
>After eight months of study, the president's advisory council on the
>ethics of cloning has concluded its study with a split decision.
>That's too bad because, in this case, the committee's nondecision
>will have the effect of a negative decision.
>
>The President's Council on Bioethics issued two opinions yesterday.
>The first, which was supported by a majority -- 10 of the committee's
>18 members -- recommends a four-year moratorium on cloning using
>human embryos. The second opinion, supported by seven members, says
>that research should go forward but with government oversight. Thus,
>from this esteemed body of experts President Bush and Congress are
>offered the safe advice of doing nothing for four years. That is more
>than unfortunate; the decision could stall critical research.
>
>Ever since a Scottish scientist announced five years ago that he had
>successfully cloned a sheep, Dolly, the medical-ethical community has
>been in a dither about the prospect and morality of cloning humans.
>Indeed, the idea of cloning humans is offensive. Polls show that most
>Americans are opposed to it.
>
>However, the question of using cloning techniques, including research
>with stem cells from cloned human embryos, has been less easy to
>decipher. Last year, the House passed a measure that went too far: It
>banned cloning for all purposes. The Senate hasn't weighed in yet,
>and it remains stymied by two bills that offer opposite approaches.
>
>With its recommendation for a moratorium, the bioethics panel offers
>little that is useful -- except to suggest, of course, that more time
>is needed to consider moral and ethical issues. This is a mistake
>that, effectively, is the same as a ban.
>
>We oppose human cloning on moral and ethical grounds. Nevertheless,
>we think that using embryonic stem cells for research is medically
>necessary and ethically correct. Stem-cell research can lead to
>treatments that ease or prevent the suffering of thousands of people
>with debilitating diseases.
>
>Moreover, stem-cell research will continue -- in foreign countries
>and private institutions that don't rely on federal funds -- without
>U.S. participation. The United States, always a leader in medical
>advances, could be left behind. Congress and the president should
>reject doing nothing, and support life-saving research.
>
>
>
>
>
>________________________________________________________________________
>________________________________________________________________________
>
>
>
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