STEM CELL DEBATE! Great INFORMATION. A Must Read! with PDF Download.

[Epoman]

I found this on another site I thought I would share.

Here are the images of the PDF file, I recommend you read the PDF first before you add to the debate. Obviously you can't read the images they are to small I've included them to show you the PDF what it looks like. It's a small download so click the PDF link below.





Click the link below to download the PDF file of the images above. It's a great read. Not to technical, easy to grasp the concept of stem cell research.

Discuss 

[hyperlite]

Stem cells are not people. Using stem cells is not the same as killing a person. I really don't see what the big deal is? (Plus I feel that a baby isn't a baby until it is born...) haha that comment will spark some debate!

[Bajanne]

This is more that interesting; it is eerie.  My daughter came home from college yesterday (she is doing two subjects in the summer semester).  She is doing Speech Communication - English 106 and she had to do a persuasive presentation yesterday.  Guess what she researched and spoke on - Stem Cell Research.  I just wish I had this information to give her yesterday.
I am not happy with the use of embryos at all.  To me that is the beginning of human life.  If you use cord cells from placenta, that is okay with me.  But then, I don't really understand how it is all done.  I need to read the article properly.

[Epoman]

This is more that interesting; it is eerie.  My daughter came home from college yesterday (she is doing two subjects in the summer semester).  She is doing Speech Communication - English 106 and she had to do a persuasive presentation yesterday.  Guess what she researched and spoke on - Stem Cell Research.  I just wish I had this information to give her yesterday.
I am not happy with the use of embryos at all.  To me that is the beginning of human life.  If you use cord cells from placenta, that is okay with me.  But then, I don't really understand how it is all done.  I need to read the article properly.

I don't mean to sound harsh but damn, if we kill a few embryos to save millions, why not? I am 100% for stem cell research. It is for the good of man. Using stem cells will help a whole lot of people. I really don't know what to believe when it comes to when life starts, but I guess it would to me start when the brain is formed or heart beats. All I know is we need to have stem cell research, it's our destiny.

- Epoman

[Epoman]

Well I guess this debate, didn't take off.  "hyperlite" where are YOU!

- Epoman

[Hephs-little-lady]

This is a hard one. 

I always thought, and still do really, that a baby is a person right from conception and I would of said that it is wrong to harvest stem cells for ethical reasons.

But then, Hephs Kidney fails and someone I care about deeply could possibly benefit from this treatment at some time in the future! Does it suddenly become OK because I could personally benefit?

It is said that for someone to live another has to die! In that case is stem cell use any different to cadaveric transplants?

I don't know, not even sure what I think about it all. It is certainly thought provoking though 

[Epoman]

 

[kitkatz]

If life begins at conception, then the embryo is being denied its full lifetime as a human being.  If our souls are coming to Earth to learn things, then by playing with a human embryo is denying a soul the passage into human existence.  Is this what they are doing?

On the other hand, maybe the human soul chose to let his life become part of the research to assist in the development of a cure for many diseases.  It made its contribution and went back into the waiting ground in heaven to reincarnate again as a human next time, not just an embryo that is being used to help research.

But then maybe this is a crock of BS!

[George Jung]

Why are there no more posts on this topic?  Doesn't stem cell research affect everyone on this site?

[George Jung]

By JUNKO TAKESHITA
ABC News Medical Unit

April 10, 2007— An injection of stem cells could one day serve as a therapy for diabetes, a new study suggests, demonstrating yet another application for the versatile stem cell approach.

In the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, a small Brazilian study reports that injections of stem cells harvested from a patient's own blood may keep type 1 diabetes at bay. The type 1 form of diabetes accounts for 5 to 10 percent of the approximately 21 million Americans with the disease.

The injections work by using the patient's own stem cells to replace the defective cells that cause the disease.

The study's findings could bring new hope to patients with type 1 diabetes because "for the first time in the history of diabetes, patients are now treatment-free for up to three years," says Dr. Richard Burt, the senior author of the study and chief of the division of immunotherapy at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.

But some diabetes experts say more research is needed to confirm the benefits.

Dr. Jay Skylar, associate director of the Diabetes Research Institute in Miami and author of an accompanying editorial to the study, cautions that the study "is pioneering and provocative, but it is too small a number and too short a duration to allow people yet to change. … It needs confirmation."

And since the treatment involves destroying the patient's immune system before the patient receives the stem cells, critics fear the risks of the treatment may outweigh its potential benefits.


When Immune Cells Attack

Type 1 diabetes is caused by the destruction of the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas by a person's own immune cells — what Burt calls the "police force" of the body.

The disease is usually diagnosed in childhood or adolescence. Patients normally face a lifelong regimen of insulin replacement, either through a continuous pump or frequent self-administered insulin shots.

Insulin is critical to how the body uses sugar. Without it, unused sugar, or glucose, builds up in the body.


Continued

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Diabetes/story?id=3026694&page=1