Oct 25 2006
What She Said: Fox Lied In His Ad
Sorry folks, not seeing much in the news today except a bunch of well beaten topics that are worth beating again. A doctor did write today at American Thinker about the Michael J Fox propoganda ad, and she supported all my statements from my previous posts. The essence of all this debate is this:
The plain fact is that embryonic stem cell research is proving to be a bust. There are currently 72 therapies showing human benefits using adult stem cells and zero using embryonic stem cells. Scientifically-minded readers can review this medical journal article on the status of adult stem cell research. Adult stem cell therapies are already being advertised and promoted while no such treatments are even remotely in prospect for embryonic stem cell research.
The fact is that adult stem cells have already produced remarkable cures, whereas embryonic stem cells have failed. This should come as no great surprise to anyone with a background in high school biology.When an embryo is created by the union of the sperm and egg, the cells begin to divide, creating embryonic stem cells from which all future tissues and organs are derived. Within days, the embryonic cells differentiate into three cell layers – ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm. Cells in these layers continue to differentiate into tissues and organs. As the embryo matures into a fetus, child, and adult, some undifferentiated cells of the three types remain in various tissues such as bone marrow, fat, skin and olfactory tissue.
These adult stem cells are multipotent: they have the ability to turn into a variety of types of tissues. Successful stem cell therapies cause the DNA in the adult stem cells to further differentiate into more specific types of cells. There is no point in getting the adult stem cell to turn into a less differentiated type of cell, or using the more primitive embryonic stem cells. This would be going backward, in the opposite direction of providing a clinically useful therapy. Difficulties abound with proposed embryonic stem cell therapies. The growth of the more primitive embryonic stem cells is more difficult to control and leads to tumor formation. Recent research suggests brain tumors may result. Additionally, the use of embryonic tissue foreign to the patient can potentially lead to problems with immune rejection of tissue, a problem not encountered in using a patient’s own adult stem cells.
Results: 72 therapies to 0. The big goose egg. Nada and Nyet. And the results are obvious to those of us with training in the field, as well as to the reasons why ESCR has utterly failed. So why is the result and the reason for the result that is so obvious so misreported and mistated? Why do people who know better misinform those who are not trained in the field? Why do most people lie? To gain something they cannot have any other way. Snake Oil Salesman have lots of rationals to con people. Greed, attention, God complex….. Who cares why they lie. It is only important to know they do and never, ever trust them to be credible again.
The most telling thing I have read so far is the experiment of Dr. Goldman where the embryonic stem cells (undifferentiated) produced uncontrolled growth(tumor ). They killed all the rats before real tumors formed ie malignancies. If they had let nature takes it’s course they would have had to report the death due to tumors. Beleive me they do not want this out. The other more telling thing is that his research is partially funded by the MJ Fox foundation. So Mr. Fox knows what the research on embryonic stem cell has shown so far.
So, Good Doctor-
Do you think Mr. Fox is motivated to stump for the Democrats by money? I don’t know that much about the world of scientific research, but it has often been said that the competition for research grants is pretty fierce, and at times, highly unethical.
Interesting that he would come out front and center a couple of weeks away from an election.
Unethical researchers are everywhere. The millions in patents, cell line sales and distinguishing themselves with discovery of therapies brings big money to institutions. Embryonic cell lines are less diferentiated and therefore less predictable. In this study they proceeded to form “tumors” We know undifferentiated tumors are the most aggresive ones. It will destroy the whole Democratic party call for new embryonic stem cell funding by the goverment. The goverment funds existing lines of embryonic stem cells not new one.
For two elections they have been playing to the hearts of desperate people with incurable diseases. First they tolds use Reeves would walk if we elected Kerry and now they are using Fox (Reeves is dead, his picture was more compelling) to misrepresent a amendment that basically legalizes cloning. Fox knows the research results. I have never seen a Parkinson patient at rest jump like he does(myoclonic twitching), they usually have a resting tremor and rigidity .Remember Reno and Ali, they are shaking a but almost frozen. Fox is nothing but a political hack.
Do you think Mr. Fox is motivated to stump for the Democrats by money?
No. His motivation is political, as most “do gooder” hollywood people are. He does have a special incentive, but he is certainly smart enough to know that there is no promise in embryonic stem cell research.
He is just using his situation to push demsocraps.
Fox appears semi- regularly on Boston Legal and he certainly does not have severe movement as he does in the political ad. That pretty well tells you that it is allowed to be more exagerated to make the point in the commercial. Even in his appearances where he is defending his ad, he doesn’t have the extreme movements. Do I wish they could find a cure for his problem? Sure.
Is he entitled to use his condition to make that case? yes
Are his opponents entitled to claim it is political? yes.
Is the ad dishonest? certainly on at least 2 points.
If embryonic stem cell research is showing so much promise, how come it can’t raise any venture capital?
BTW our lil discussion isnt over Doctor. Oh and please bring your credentials…yukyukyuk!!!!
Oh and Doctor. Im sorry i mean no disrespect, but you are not good. Snake oil thread front and center and dont bring your insulting behavior over there.
Here’s a small teaser for you. A lesson in kinship.
Somatic cells, by definition, are not germline cells . In mammals, germline cells are the sperm and ova (also known as “gametes”) which fuse during fertilization to produce a cell called a zygote, from which the entire mammalian embryo develops. Every other cell type in the mammalian body – apart from the sperm and ova, the cells from which they are made (gametocytes) and undifferentiated stem cells – is a somatic cell; internal organs skin, bones, blood and connective tissue are all made up of somatic cells.
Oh and anybody else that insulted me or infered some bad things you are invited too. NEVER make a dog bite…wink wink..:)
BIGDOG, insult you, not possible. Anyhow you forgot to give credit to the publication that you lifted that from. Otherwise it’s plagarism.
Someone put some thought into it and you should properly credit them
You know what enforcement i didnt add link, ill credit wkpedia for its definition.
However if you are able to use google and if people really cared to find out who is lieing and spining info, all you had to do was type in Somatic Cell.
Okay BD, now that you said that and gave me the source. What was your point? All it did was confirm exactly what the Doctor and AJ both said. were you implying it said something else?
Big dog put your beer down and close wikepedia. Your comments are so ignorant that you are an insult to dogs. Big Moron is more adequate. You are here just to create confussion because your boy Fox thought that by going to a rural state and creating confussion he was going to be able to legalize human cloning. After all don’t the Dems call red states stupid? Guess not that stupid…
Like Aj states the two types of cells
-embryonic stem cell lines derived from the blastocyst 5 days after fertilization. Theoretically this cell can diferentiate into any type of organ system (brain ,bone,blood system etc.).
-adult stem cells – the reserve cell of all organ systems.Their main pourpose is to replace damaged cells in a particular organ system. They are scarse in any particular organ system.Their main example is bone marrow transplants. so they do have therapeutic results as AJ stated.When trasplanted they will produce all cell pertaining to that organ system. In the case of the Bone marrow you radiate the diseased marrow to kill it and replace it with a healthy marrow produced from these particular stem cell line of your body.
In theory they are both somatic since they are not germ cell(which unite to form somatic cells).
So why does Fox want cloning legalize? The Missouri ammendment specifically targets human cloning, embryonic stem cell research is legal and currently being done.
-Adult stem cell have been used in anecdotal instances to treat Parkinson patients but not in big samples to statiscally confirm positive results in therapies. If he gets treated with adult brain stem cells types it would a donor unless he allows a surgical procedure to search for the scarse adutl stem cells his brain has. I don’t think he wants to submit his brain to such experimental surgery . If he gets donor cells he would have to get imnosupressive therapy(with lots of horrible side effects) as other trasplant patients do.
-Embryonic Stem Cell- They had a lot of hopes this type of cell when modulated would produce whatever organ they wanted. It worked well in petrie diches but when transfered to lab animals it turned out different. They were able to produce dopamine(substance lacking in Parkinson) secreting neurons but part of the cell population continue to divide out of control in what they described as “tumor like” behavior. This tumor has a name-Teratoma can be benign or malignant. That’s why they killed the rats before the tumor could form. Mr. Fox would still have to get inmunosupressive therapy that would also allow this tumor like
behavior to grow faster as the body could not respond to keep it in check. I don’t think he wants to run this risk.
-Therapeutic cloning- This represents his best chance provided they can modulate all embryonic stem cell to produce neurons and not tumors. This process became popular with Dolly the sheep in that case is called reproductive cloning.They would take any cell like a skin cell remove it’s nucleous and fuse it with an enucleated germ cell,allow it to get to the blastocyst stage and remove the embryonic stem cells. In this case no possibilty of rejection since it’s a clone of Fox.
In my opinion they are trying to pass human cloning in Missouri. That’s why he did the first add there and does not talk about cloning but embryonic stem cell research which is legal.The other adds are basically to create distraction and make people think in Missouri think that they are voting for embryonic stem cell research. The add produced in response is not what they expected. They thought that by puting a jerking Fox on TV they would get inmunity from criticism and explaining what they were really trying to do. I wonder how many takes this little Hollywood production took.
Look Fox is desperate and I don’t blame him for looking for cures.His time is running out . He is putting money in any research that shows promise. A lot of scientists are looking at therepeutic cloning as the next miracle therapy without rejection,all speculative and with no more promise that donor embryonic stem cell trasplant. They have only one problem is ilegal. Mr. Fox was trying to change that.
This debate is so whack. You wont answer a simple question. You say things with no factual evidences. It does not confirm anything AJ or the Doctor has said about human destruction of life and the SCNT process. You know i am implying Somatic Cell defined says something else. I mean its like chasing a greased up chicken. Now im going to ask one more time because it is vital to this discussion.
Do you support IVR?
and please explain why.
BD,
You have a lot of people trained and educated in this field telling you that you are wrong. Suggest you deal with it. Earlier you said I was being insulting. I was not being insulting, you have just felt insulted because you believed you knew what you were talking about. Now the good doctor has pointed out a lot of accurate and good information in the last post I read. Read them and learn or simply give it up. You are saying the equivalent of 2+2=5, and basing it on some calc ulus you read. addition is basic, calculus and number theory are difficult. There are few basic things you need to know.
First – IVF and cloning are not the same thing. IVF is the natural process of conception – outside the uterus wall. It doesn\’t change a thing the egg and sperm do to have this done outside. It is still conception and helping a couple have the gift of children is fine by me. It is no different from any medical procedure that corrects a problem (like a bypass or stint). The body has a defect that is blocking conception and science can sometimes fix the problem mechanically (through surgery) or by a form of bypass (IVF). No big deal and totally irrelevant to the stem cell discussion.
Each human being has a unique DNA blue print – there nucleic DNA (we will not be discussing the other DNA in the mitochondria regions of the cell, though I find that much more interesting). It is the combination of the parent\’s DNA. The combination process, conception, is not replicated every time. It produces variants of the parents DNA each time it happens (hopefully you are not still hung up on IVF because this too has nothing to do with IVF). It is why two brown eyed parents can produce a brown eyed and blue eyed child. It is clear the blue eyed child is not the same human individual, when looking at just the DNA, than the parents. Eye color alone tells the tale. So even by deduction you can see the human being who\’s eyes were blue and who\’s parents eyes were brown was created when his DNA blueprint was formed. Conception of the new human being is at this point. After conception the organism goes through a zygote stage and into the embryonic stage. Note these are stages of life and do not change the DNA of the organism.
To harvest embryonic stem cells you need an embryo – duh. Therefore you need to create a new life. As the Good Doctor pointed out there are only two paths to start the new human life: fertilization between two organisms or cloning of a single organism. The fertilization and embryonic stem cell harvesting is, sadly, legal. Taxpayers simply cannot foot the bill. Cloning is illegal by federal law, and the Bill in MO is trying to make cloning a right under their constitution (no judicial review).
Stop screaming the equivalent of \”the sun orbits the earth\” and getting mad when everyone tells you that you are mistaken. These are facts, not theories or concepts. These are some of the few scientific facts that have a legal standing (DNA testing) in our courts. Your tak e on this is just completely full of errors. I think we have beaten this to death because you don\’t want to face your misconceptions. This debate is becoming useless. Either learn what is the fact or just drop it. You have no chance of convincing me 2+2=5 or any other moderately trained or ecperienced person in biology or medicine. That is why I am so angry at the snake oil salesmen. They know better.
You have a chance to sway my vote and my opinion, correct me if you can. I have been looking this stuff up for 5 months or so, good thing i archived my research. However wanting to stop the discussion isnt going happen. Frankly im ready to discuss, not flame.
First of all i am not mad AJ. The fact that you question my education without asking my background, is insulting. Not because you say im wrong and i will point out how wrong you are, about this so called human cloning issue with SCNT. I have posted what is fact. You havent responded with an answer to my question, given your lil explaination on IVF, im guessing you support it. I do too BTW.
You say IVF is not cloning, i agree, but SCNT is not about cloning human beings either. It is about creating and extracting E stem cells from manipulated ovums, wich are formed from no fertilization process whatsoever. So lets check what you said that was insulting and then the position you took on defining a human being.
What you expouse to is SCNT theoretically can clone human beings. BTW it hasnt been done. You also stated the embryo, DNA arguement.
AJ said:
“Yes BD, I have a BS in biology and after reading your first comment (I see them in reverse order) I say with certainty you would fail HS biology. As Marchtogether pointed out, by your ‘logic’ (and you have no idea how it pains me to use that word in this instance) an IVF child is not human.”
Very insulting and full of false assertions made by you. It did indeed insults me and i havent even begun to question your education, or your persona, however you were quick to make sure i knew yours. Why is that? oh but who cares. BTW i never said that an IVF child was not human, your words not mine.
I wana talk issue, not political motivated hype adds and assertions made by political candidates. I wana talk the exact verbage of the initiative wich bans human cloning (human reproductive cloning). The different lines of cloning and the confusion of them all. Oh and get this. Well you will see.
AJ: “Embryos are not a group of cells like skin or an appendix. They are a living organism.”
The term embryo is a “multicellular diploid eukaryote” in its earliest stage of development. Of course they are not like skin or an appendix, but an embryo is a multicellular organism.
AJ: “The embryo, having the joined DNA of mother and father, is a human being. What do you think I have been saying?”
Q1. How is it SCNT can be called human cloning? When SCNT doesnt use a fertilization process (the joining together germline cells) wich developes a zygocite then into an embryo?…..wich means the fathers DNA is not present by means of fertilization, but substituted using somatic cells from Mr. Donor.
wiki:”scientists transfer genetic material from the nucleus of a donor adult cell to an egg whose nucleus, and thus its genetic material, has been removed.”
Umm exactly where did moma’s DNA go? Good thing the germ cell (oocyte) carries it.
wiki: “After being inserted into the egg, the somatic cell nucleus is reprogrammed by the host cell. The egg, now containing the nucleus of a somatic cell, is stimulated in such a way that it begins to divide.”
wiki: “Oocyte can reprogramme an adult nucleus into an embryonic state after somatic cell nuclear transfer, so that a new organism can be developed from such cell”
The only way one could say that cloning accurs after SCNT, is when this created embryo, is reinserted back into the mothers womb for a natural term and most scientists agree no human being would carry to full term. To this day using the SCNT reproductive cloning process has not happened. Oh and it sounded like i was talking about IVF, without fertilization.
Reproductive Cloning defined:
Wiki “The reconstructed egg containing the DNA from a donor cell must be treated with chemicals or electric current in order to stimulate cell division. Once the cloned embryo reaches a suitable stage, it is transferred to the uterus of a female host where it continues to develop until birth.”
Research Cloning defined:
Wiki: “To obtain stem cells that are genetically matched to the donor organ.” Parts (such as an organ) are cloned using genetic material from a patients tissues in hopes to develope a stem cell line for study.
According to the official text of the initiative.
Section 2: .
*(1) No person may clone or attempt to clone a human being.
*(2) No human blastocyst may be produced by fertilization solely for the purpose of stem cell research.
Ill end with this.
6. As used in this section, the following terms have the following meanings:
(1) “Blastocyst†means a small mass of cells that results from cell division, caused either by fertilization or somatic cell nuclear transfer, that has not been implanted in a uterus.
(2) “Clone or attempt to clone a human being†means to implant in a uterus or attempt to implant in a uterus anything other than the product of fertilization of an egg of a human female by a sperm of a human male for the purpose of initiating a pregnancy that could result in the creation of a human fetus, or the birth of a human being.
The initiative is not a lie. The title of the initiative doesnt hide a damn thing, read the text of the initiative.
Something else if you think utilizing ovums to obtain embryonic stem cells through SCNT or IVF leftovers, knowing they would otherwise be discarded, is somehow destroying life….Well you got some explaining to do.
BD,
Your wrong, we are done. Your 5 months was a wasted effort.
The reason I am being blunt and strong is, unlike confusing 2+2=5, your mistakes mean allowing human beings to be killed. You\’re playing doctor and are not qualified.
AJStrataa
BD, first let me say that I am not a biology major and only took one biology course in HS. Let me explain to you in simple terms why I think AJ is not interested in discussing this with you. You are attempting to argue your case with logic, not biology, and your logic is extremely illogical. Let me give you one simple example. you say:
Section 2: .
*(1) No person may clone or attempt to clone a human being.
As used in this section, the following terms have the following meanings:
(2) “Clone or attempt to clone a human being†means to implant in a uterus or attempt to implant in a uterus anything other than the product of fertilization of an egg of a human female by a sperm of a human male for the purpose of initiating a pregnancy that could result in the creation of a human fetus, or the birth of a human being.
Well, that is not the meaning of cloning at all.
They say cloning is prohibited and then define cloning as something it’s not.
Cloning is the duplicating (in humans) of the embryo.
Now to let it develop into a living human, it would have to be implanted. But the ” ‘cloning’ was the’ duplication’ ” and that is what the bill would legitimize , so they could use these “non clones’ for experimentation. By trying to redefine cloning, they would be able to say that by not implanting “cloning” wouldn’t have taken place.
Anybody can see that this SCNT is just another word for cloning. It is just duplicating an embryo.
It may be too simple to say this but Bank robbery is just withdrawing money out of a bank, illegally. A ‘ withdrawal’ is a legal transaction and shouldn’t end up with you in jail. Calling a Bank Robbery a withdrawal will NOT keep you out of jail. Calling cloning something else, doesn’t make it something else.
You have tried over and over to restate the same invalid argument and it gets tiresome to see your frustration at not being able to accept that you are wrong and stating the same thing ‘one more time’ is not gonna suddenly make it right.
This initiative does nto support reproductive cloning and is illegal under federal guidelines. Until you show me a identically cloned human being using SCNT then you have no basis for arguement other than theory. Theory is not biology.
BD are you kidding me? That doesn’t even warrant an answer.
when you are ready for some serious discussion let us know. Until you get over this frivolity, there is nothing to discuss.
Still you have no evidence of human cloning. Figured as much. Serious discussion you claim to be all about. Show me a cloned human child first.
BD, you’re just being silly