Read story here from today’s fish wrap on the creation of stem cells without using embryos. The Japanese and American research teams used skin cells to create the equivalent of human embryonic stem cells. Scientists quoted in the article have likened this development to a “moon walk” and the invention of the light bulb.
President Bush has taken a lot of heat for his decision to restrict tax-payer funding of embryonic stem-cell research. We’ll freely admit that we are not experts in this field but we were supportive of the President for two reasons: 1) We didn’t feel comfortable using tax-payer money on medical research that contained ethical reservations and 2) If embryonic stem cell research was the greatest thing since canned Spam as we have been told over and over, then we figured that private money would just start rolling in which would be able to bankroll the necessary research because any benefits derived from this research would be of benefit to society AND make someone a whole lot of money.
The universal health-care crowd has yet to get it through their ever-thickening skulls that this is how things work and this is how things get done. Similar to any other service or commodity that is available to us in our society, if you want good health care and you want the benefits of cutting-edge medical research, then you are going to have to pay for it.
But hey, this post wasn’t meant as an excuse to lecture about that but rather it is (was) to be a bright, cheery post celebrating an apparently monumental medical advancement and which hopefully eliminates one of our two reservations about stem cell research.
President Bush has taken a lot of heat for his decision to restrict tax-payer funding of embryonic stem-cell research. We’ll freely admit that we are not experts in this field but we were supportive of the President for two reasons: 1) We didn’t feel comfortable using tax-payer money on medical research that contained ethical reservations and 2) If embryonic stem cell research was the greatest thing since canned Spam as we have been told over and over, then we figured that private money would just start rolling in which would be able to bankroll the necessary research because any benefits derived from this research would be of benefit to society AND make someone a whole lot of money.
The universal health-care crowd has yet to get it through their ever-thickening skulls that this is how things work and this is how things get done. Similar to any other service or commodity that is available to us in our society, if you want good health care and you want the benefits of cutting-edge medical research, then you are going to have to pay for it.
But hey, this post wasn’t meant as an excuse to lecture about that but rather it is (was) to be a bright, cheery post celebrating an apparently monumental medical advancement and which hopefully eliminates one of our two reservations about stem cell research.
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2 comments:
If the second reason to question stem cell research isn't government funding of it, then I'm at a loss as to what it might be.
As for opposing government funding, I've got no real problem with it. For research areas that are scientifically important, but have no apparent immediate commercial payoff, I'm happy to have NSF or DARPA pay for it. It doesn't amount to that much money and there is a moral argument to be made for advancing knowledge for its own sake.
Its the unknown benefit that I have a problem with.
NASA or DARPA is a different animal. At the end of the day I know we are going to put a man on the moon (Mars?), satellites in orbit or the ability to blow-up stuff, etc. Don't mean to be flip (I'm kind of giddy over LSU's loss) but there are some known quantities and benefits both direct and indirect that I can go along with regarding spending public dollars that are not nearly as apparent with embryonic stem cell research.
If the alleged future benefits of stem cell research are attainable then the private funding will respond in kind.
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