Stem cell research III

Originally written November 22, 2007 in the midst of a heated debate in the Nebraska legislature regarding stem cell research conducted by the University of Nebraska Medical Center.  This is the third and final piece in the series.

After writing the first two posts yesterday and seeing the responses that ensued, I realised I rather left the conundrum without some sort of wind-up of my own thought process.

The three sorts of stem cell research and their subsequent use as possible treatment, can have an impact on many diseases:

Autoimmune Diseases
Cerebral Palsy
Diabetes Type 2
Heart Disease
Osteoarthritis
Parkinson’s Disease
Stroke
PANDAS (an autoimmune autistic and obsessive compulsive disorder not to be confused with Asperger’s and various other forms on the autistic spectrum)

Think about autoimmune diseases. The list is long:

Multiple Sclerosis
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Myasthenia Gravis
Crohn’s
Celiac
Anaemia (several forms)
Sytemic lupus
Grave’s
Type 1 diabetes (juvenile)
Guillain-Barré Syndrome
Hashimoto
Kawasaki
Ord’s thyroiditis
…and at least half a dozen I couldn’t even explain.

Look at that list. I mean, really look at it. It’s not just one or two things that might have an impact on a few people, but heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis, stroke, and as I said before, they’re already using adult stem cells in treatment for certain types of cancer at the university where I work.

How do these things affect you? How do they affect your family?

With the rise in type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke to reported epidemic levels, do you really think doing away with any options in stem cell research and treatment is beneficial? I don’t care what type it is. The potential gains for treatment is high. Adult stem cell has already been proven to help. You will not get me to believe that efforts to research, refine, and use other forms of stem cell treatment would not also be good.

As far as I am concerned, research of all kinds ia necessary for the treatment of humans and their conditions as individuals. This means more than one form of stem cell treatment is just as viable as more than one form of treating any other illness. If people were all the same (godforbid), then one treatment would be all that was necesary.

But we’re not all the same.

Embryonic stem cell research is ethical. All those out there who cannot think reasonably enough to understand that it is ethical, are ignorant. No, I am not coming down on a particular relgion. I am coming down on a particular close-minded refusal to use logic, rather than illogical emotion. To say that embryos in a petrie dish should be left to starve because it’s better than being used for research is illogical. It’s like saying people shouldn’t donate their organs for transplant, or their bodies for research, because it’s better for bodies to be placed in the ground intact.

Why?

People are ignorant. They just are.

Half the world would be dead right now if it weren’t for the research done by Michael Servetus, Ignaz Semmelweis, Joseph Lister, Alexander Fleming, Marie Curie and Jonas Salk.

Maybe the world would have been a better place if they hadn’t done the research, eh? Where would you be without “modern” medicine and research?

I’ve said enough now. You get the picture. Research, such as that in the varous forms of stem cell therapies and treatments, is a good thing. When people realise this and start speaking out louder than the ignorant, the debate will be over.

Until then, just remember…

The earth is flat.