June 6, 2006
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TUESDAY POLITICS
Harvard Funds Human Stem Cell ResearchDouglas Melton is Co-Director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.
He also has a very personal reason for wanting to experiment with
high quality stem cells. His two children, Emma, 16, and Sam, 12, have
juvenile diabetes. They frequently inject
themselves with the insulin they need to stay alive, but that doesn’t
stop the gradual organ degeneration that can lead to kidney
failure, blindness, and malfunctioning limbs. Melton and his team would
like to be able to use stem cells to make working insulin-secreting
cells that prevent this long-term suffering for them and a million
others in the United States. And today Harvard (richest
university in America) put its money where its mouth is and awarded
ethical approval and private funds to get the work started. They
will concentrate first on diabetes, motor neuron disease (that brought
down Christopher Reeves), and blood disorders. They plan to clone
embryos using cells from patients with these disorders and then
create “disease-specific” colonies of embryonic stem cells that can be
used to develop new treatments. And Bush can’t just up and veto
it because it’s not federal funding. Larry
Summers, the president of Harvard, said: “While we respect the beliefs
of those who oppose this research, we are equally sincere in our belief
that the life-and-death medical needs of suffering children and adults
justify moving forward with this research.” In my own personal
family, right now my grandchildren’s other grandmother has been
diagnosed with ovarian cancer, has already been gutted by major
surgery, and is awaiting extremely aggressive chemo that may or may not
save her life, while one of their grandfathers (my son’s dad) has been
diagnosed a few months ago with multiple myeloma, a deadly blood cancer and is
already into aggressive chemo as well.
Kind of puts it in perspective for me, but watch the sparks fly over
this one in the next weeks and months. It’s about damn time.
Deep Thought:
“One of the worst things you can do as an actor, I think, is to forget
your lines, and then get so flustered you start stabbing the other
actors.”
Today I am grateful for: Common denominators.
Guess the Movie: “You
know, we are sitting here, you and I, like a couple of regular fellas.
You do what you do, and I do what I gotta do. And now that we’ve been
face to face, if I’m there and I gotta put you away, I won’t like it.
But I tell you, if it’s between you and some poor bastard whose wife
you’re gonna turn into a widow, brother, you are going down. “ Answer: Heat, 1995.
Winner: suniagibbs
Gay marriage amendment likely to fail, but debate still rages
BY CRAIG GILBERT
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
WASHINGTON – With a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage
expected to fail Wednesday, an impassioned debate here Tuesday centered
on whether the Senate should be spending its time on the matter.
(Rest of article here.)
Comments (29)
I hope the amendment fails.
Me too, I hope it fails. I wish I knew that movie, it sounds so familiar. lol. ~lea
awesome deep thought. are these your personal deep thoughts? or are they quotes from other people?
Government…argh! Regarding human cloning…I think it’s wonderful that this opportunity exists. I just hope it stays on the good side of things.
Well, I disagree with you on cloning, but you have a great site, anyway!
I love that deep thought! Ha!
John
Good for Dr. Summers.
Although I don’t know the movie, maybe I can help someone else get it. I missed the movie where a cop and a perp spend a lot of time in the squad car together. Like 12 hours or something like that. Was that the movie? Twelve Hours?
America can either do the research or sit back and wait for someone in another country to do it. Just because Bush doesn’t want to play doesn’t mean the world isn’t going to move on without him.
Great post.
That’s great news. It’s about time the private sector got involved in this research and development without the interference of the government. I’m sorry to hear of the illnesses in your family and hope for their chemo to do it’s job well. Oh how I love a common denominator!
I think we will see the private sector come forward on more things. The people are quite disgruntled with public affairs these days.
Obviously I have my own vested intrest in the Gay Marriage Amendment failing…hits kind of close to home!
And that quote is gonna drive me nuts…I know it…but I can’t remember from where! *wink*
I am a supporter of stem cell research. Miller’s Disease runs in my husbands family, something I certainly wouldn’t want to see anyone afflicted with if we can help it.
Also keeping my fingers crossed that the amendment fails.
I agree. It IS time. So many diseases and issues that could be destroyed forever. So much good that could be done to improve the quality of life and give hope to millions. Let’s hope the amendment fails and fails big. GO HARVARD!!
My husband and I disagree on the whole “stem cell hullabalu”. He thinks it’s useless. I disagree. And even if it leads no where, you don’t know until you go down that path. I’m glad Harvard is taking this on. I suppose it’s bad that I hope that stem cell research DOES lead to some cures and the GWB comes down with something that needs the research. HMM. Do YOU think he’d deny himself the treatment? He doesn’t seem to deny himself much of anything else.
Also Gay marraige. I sure hope to high heaven that this travesty of justice and civil rights does get shot down. Nothing worse in the world than believeing God loves you more based on who you diddle.
It contributes to the “immorality” of homosexuality by denying people who love someone of the same sex as they are the right to marry who they love. So of COURSE they’re living in “sin”. We don’t allow them to live in anything else! I guess long as the senators get to feel all “holier than thou” while diddling thier interns and lobbiests it’s all good for them. I mean THEY aren’t ruining the “sanctity” of marraige by going OUTSIDE of theirs or anything! GRR!!!
Sorry. Didn’t mean to rant on your blog too!
wow good comment by Simply Pynki. I don’t know why anyone would be against such a wonderful thing as stem cell research. And if Geo W is against it, that means the industries that stand to make money off of it stand to profit from his financial loss. Follow the money. It has nothing to do with morality. Presidents don’t get to the level of president by being moral. Hah. So that will be my internet search of the day, and mommy will post it on her blog.
Movie not 12 Hours but good guess. Think a cop and a criminal sitting at a table having the conversation. Later one of them kills the other one.
Harvard just upped itself in my ranking. I always thought of it as a kind of elitism factory ( I admit to being ingnorant )..perhaps smart and compassion can interesect there…..
movie…was it “heat”?
Heat! Alrightythen!
ryc: It is very rare. It’s almost like a form of Muscular Dystrophy. The family is only just learning more about it. It appears that the females are carriers of the disease but the males are the ones who become debilitated by it. Incidently his mothers family are Millers.
DITTO!
Hi Lionne. Thank you for stopping by my site and commenting. I have enjoyed your posts! jifr
concerning the movie ‘heat’ my husband would like to point out that this is the first movie scene in which both actors – robert deniro and al pacino – appear at the same time in dialogue with one another.
Heh. Harvard is good at cranking out research papers – glad they’re taking on stem cell research. Funded by elitist students by their elitist parents. Hmm.
I wish I knew more about stem cell research. I think I have, in bits and pieces now and then, but I always forget why it is people make such a fuss about it.
And as for gay marriage, I’ll say what I said to Lea (Be_The_Rain)… I have a hard time taking the ‘sanctity of marriage’ argument seriously from people who’s divorce rate is above 50% and climbing. I wish goverments would stop revisiting non-issues to distract us from the important stuff.
g.
Very interested in all this. I actually have friends with a child with MD (named the same as family name mentioned above, weird). Met a Stanford guy on vacation very active in this. I don’t care who leads the drive, but more medical research is great in my book. (But then I have a chronic disease. I love medical research.)
I live with a person who has quadriplegia ,I don’t think in his case stem cell research has much to offer ,but I know that with motor neuron disease it does and it is very much worth doing. If people really understood how much suffering might be eliminated .RYC I did today’s pic on the computer
To put this in cellular perspective, stem cells don’t die when used for treatment. They just get redirected.
I fully support and believe in stem cell research. We need to do it.
I really appreciate the comments on the song. If you go to the top of my xanga page, and click on any of the cd covers, it will take you to links with more information. My latest full CD, Focusing is a very good one. Most of my music should be on places like itunes, napster, etc.
Hey, I wanted you to know that I rented, “The Three Burials Of Melguiades Estrada”, or however his name is spelled, and it was absolutely great! Tommy outdid himself on this one, I think. Very realisitc and timely.
Thanks for the review!
John