Stem Cell Research - Failing at the Frontiers of Ethics
Wisconsin Governor Vetoes Cloning Ban
By JR ROSS, Associated Press Writer
MADISON, Wis. - AP - Gov. Jim Doyle vetoed legislation Thursday banning human cloning, saying it would criminalize research that could one day cure diseases such as Parkinson's.
Doyle, a Democrat, said the potential medical benefits of stem cell research were more important than concerns over "cells in a dish."
"Respect for human life means you don't your turn back on cures [killing
human babies] that can save human lives," said Doyle, whose mother suffers from Parkinson's.
Republican state Sen. Joe Leibham, who authored the legislation, insisted the ban was meant to set
an ethical standard for research that would prohibit the creation of an embryo to be destroyed for research.
"I don't think we as a government should be endorsing the creation of a human life and then
the destruction of a human life [i.e.
DEATH] for the hopeful potential that it may provide medical benefit for someone down the road," Leibham said.
The bill would have banned reproductive cloning, the creation of babies using existing human cells, as well as so-called therapeutic cloning, in which embryos are created by injecting human eggs with a living person's cell to grow other cells.
Story
Here
Proven results of adult stem-cell research
AgapePress- Feb 18/05 - A pro-life advocate says the media virtually ignores the proven results of adult stem-cell research while touting the remote and, so far, unsuccessful practice of embryonic stem cell use. There are many recent examples of exciting medical breakthroughs involving the use of adult stem cells, a practice that does not require the destruction of human embryos.
Pro-life and medical ethics advocates have urged funding and support for adult stem-cell research because it has been proven beneficial and because, unlike embryonic stem-cell research, it does not result in the termination of human life. Brad Mattes, executive director of the Cincinnati-based Life Issues Institute, says the media, because of its left-leaning pro-abortion bias, is ignoring some incredible discoveries that have led to actual cures. "One in particular," he notes, "is a 52-year-old woman who was cured from rheumatoid arthritis.
She had it in 28 of her joints; and doctors took stem cells from her sibling and had amazing results. Within a year she no longer needed any medication of any kind." And Mattes says there are many more cases where adult stem cells have resulted in cures. Still, he says the use of embryonic cells is pushed by those whose agenda is to legitimize the killing of unborn children, which includes embryos.
Q&A: embryo & Human Baby cloning
UK Guardian - - As a UK scientist is granted a permit to clone human embryos, Simon Jeffery and Jane Perrone examine the issues involved
Tuesday February 8, 2005
Who wants to clone a human embryo [Future human baby] and why?
Professor Ian Wilmut, head of the team that created Dolly the sheep, and Professor Christopher Shaw, of the department of neurology at King's College London, have been granted a licence to clone human embryos for medical research into motor neurone disease (MND).
Who gave them the permission?
The application was approved by the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. Britain does not allow reproductive cloning - creating a human baby with donor DNA - but is more sympathetic to the therapeutic cloning
[machine induced cloning] for medical purposes proposed by Prof Wilmut of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh. In August last year, it gave scientists from the University of Newcastle the green light to clone human embryos. Their research - which aims to treat a host of incurable diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and diabetes - nevertheless provoked fury from
anti-abortion groups.
What are their concerns?
From the anti-abortion viewpoint, an embryo is a human life from the first moment of its existence and it is unjustifiable to create a human life in order to experiment on it. Cloning is controversial in the United States, where the House of Representatives voted for a total ban. When the Pope visited George Bush in 2001, he told the US president that the scientific procedure was as evil as infanticide. Washington is pushing for a United Nations ban on all cloning, while other nations, led by Britain, are leading the call to allow cloning for medical experiments.
Frozen Embryo Adoption Awareness program.
Recently, I was privileged to sit on the grant review committee for the department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C. for the Office of Women’s Health and the Office of Population Affairs. The grant was the first ever funding for Frozen Embryo Adoption Awareness program.
There has been Congressional testimony on what should be done with frozen embryos. Should they be used for research? Destroyed? From these Congressional Hearings it was learned that there are an estimated 100,000 frozen embryos in the United States that are in cryogenic limbo. Parents conceive and no longer need the embryos, or divorce and can’t decide what to do with them. Rather than destroy the little lives for research, another option is to place them for adoption through programs such as Nightlight Christian Adoption’s Snowflakes program. So, Congress designated $1 million to promote awareness of adoption as an option for frozen embryos who are facing being destroyed.
Dana Serrano Chisholm is executive director of the Women’s Resource Network, a network of pro-life organizations.
Professor Ian Wilmut and a team at Kings College in London plan to clone early stage embryos to study motor neurone disease (MND).
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (UK) is expected to grant consent.
Professor Wilmut says it would mean the disease can be studied in unprecedented detail. But critics argue that testing human embryos is immoral.
Therapeutic cloning for research has been legal in the UK since 2001 and it would be only the second time the authority has given consent.
The professor's team was the first to apply for a therapeutic cloning licence in the country.
Up until now, scientists have wanted to create cloned embryos to see if they can be grown into tissues to repair damaged body parts, explained the BBC Science Correspondent Pallab Ghosh.
But Professor Wilmut's proposal is different as he does not plan to grow healthy replacement tissue.
Instead he aims to deliberately clone embryos that have MND from patients who have the condition.
Baby Crunching Profits:
Calif. Cell Research Interests Scientists
Nov 9/04
SAN FRANCISCO - A 21st-century gold rush is
on in California after the voters approved $3 billion for human embryonic stem
cell research.
At least one out-of-state biotech company is already making plans to move
to California. Stem cell start-up businesses are expected to emerge. And
universities are hoping to recruit some of the field's brightest minds to take
part in the biggest state-run research project in U.S. history.
The voters' 59 percent approval of the bond measure on Election Day
represents a resounding rejection of Bush administration policy, which has
sharply restricted federal funding for research that involves the destruction of
human embryos.
Stem cells can potentially grow into any type of human tissue. Many
scientists believe stem cells could someday be used to repair crippling spinal
cord injuries and treat an array of diseases, including diabetes and
Parkinson's.
Proponents and critics alike expect the new agency created under the
ballot measure, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, to serve as
a state version of the National Institutes of Health .
But myriad questions remain to be resolved as election night euphoria
gives way to the hard work of creating an agency that can dole out $300 million
a year in grants for 10 years.
No one is sure when the first dollar will be allocated or where the agency
will be located, though biotechnology booster groups from San Diego to the San
Francisco Bay Area are working on their sales pitches.
University of California officials said the measure will help them attract
top stem cell researchers to the state and encourage talented undergraduates to
enter the field.
"California will be the epicenter of stem cell research in the
future," said Dr. Edward Holmes, medical school dean at UC-San Diego.
"Many people were reticent to move into this field, but this will attract
some of the best and brightest young minds."
Worcester, Mass.-based Advanced Cell Technology, said it will soon open a
California laboratory so it can apply for grants. Its chief executive has
already moved to the San Francisco Bay area, and the company is trying to line
up financing from California investors.
"It's a very favorable environment, and this could serve as a wake-up
call for the rest of the country," said Dr. Robert Lanza, Advanced Cell's
research chief.
Lanza also said he has been approached by California venture capitalists
and other investors to launch a stem cell start-up company. He said he declined
the offer.
Proposition 71 foes worry that long before any useful therapies are
discovered, most of the benefits will go to venture capitalists and others with
ties to the biotechnology industry, who contributed $28 million to get the
measure approved.
"Many questions remain unanswered about conflicts of interest among
the scientist-entrepreneurs promoting Proposition 71, about the high cost of any
treatments that are eventually developed, and about health risks to women from
whom eggs for research cloning will be obtained," said Marcy Darnovsky of
the Center for Genetics and Society in Oakland, which opposed the measure.
The newly created institute can employ no more than 50 people and will be
managed by a 29-member board to be appointed over the next 40 days. The board
will name the agency's chairman and a vice chairman, key appointments that could
devolve into political fighting.
Stem Cell Debate: Basic Terms & Definitions
Cloning Concerns
Bill Muehlenberg
The stuff of science fiction just a few decades ago has now become reality. Indeed, some scientists are speaking of human cloning becoming reality in just a few short years. The modern technological breakthroughs that have taken place recently have taken the idea of cloning out of the realm of comic books and science fiction and put it into the public arena. Yet the subject of cloning, like other new biotechnological and biomedical developments, has tended to focus on the hows and whys of science, instead of the ifs and oughts of ethics.
In addition to a whole range of ethical questions that must be explored before we even consider the possibility of human cloning, other questions need to be addressed: questions of personal identity, and questions of the nature of families and relationships. In an age which has seen the traditional family redefined and transformed into whole new shapes and sizes, the issue of cloning will further raise questions of what is a family, let alone what is a human.
It is this brave new world of redefined personalities, families and social roles which makes human cloning seem both tempting and plausible. As ethicist Leon Kass has put it: "In a world whose once-given natural boundaries are blurred by technological change and whose moral boundaries are seemingly up for grabs, it is much more difficult to make persuasive the still compelling case against cloning human beings".
The Stem Cell Cover-Up
Michael Fumento
At the same time, ESCs [ESC= embryonic stem cells
] have become even more suspect ethically in the eyes of many people. The original ethical concern was that many see the destruction of human offspring, no matter how young, as an abortion. Some prominent abortion opponents believe human life only begins upon implantation in the uterine wall; therefore destruction of embryos would not count as such. Nonetheless, even to some of these people the thought of ripping apart the byproduct of human conception for the sake of science invokes images of Nazi eugenicist Josef Mengele or of Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein.
This more recent worry has nothing to do with destroying life but rather with the creation of it - cloned human life. While growing embryos into blastocysts (see note at end of article) often is referred to as “therapeutic cloning” or “research cloning” to distinguish it from the process of creating a human being, the two processes follow parallel tracks. If that blastocyst is implanted into the womb and it survives, voila! - nine months later you have a clone just like something out of Star Wars Episode II. No doubt most ESC researchers haven’t the least desire to take the next step, but that’s not the issue. What counts is that they are developing a technology that others can build upon to refine the process of creating human clones.
Thus, ESCs have in their favor nothing more than a decaying theory that they may have greater plasticity. Going against them are the ethical concerns and that they are years behind ASCs in commercial applications.
But there’s a huge ESC industry out there, with countless labs packed with innumerable scientists desperately seeking research funds. Private investors avoid them because they don’t want to wait perhaps 10 years for commercial products that very well may not materialize and because they’re spooked by the ethical concerns. That leaves essentially only Uncle Sam’s piggy bank, primarily grants from the National Institutes of Health, to keep these labs open. This, in brief, explains the “stem-cells wars,” the perceived overwhelming need grossly to exaggerate petri-dish advances with ESCs, while life-saving new applications of ASCs are downplayed or ignored.
The Case Against Legalised Euthanasia
First, let us define our terms. Euthanasia is not about halting futile treatment. Nor is it about the alleviation of suffering (this is known as palliative care). Euthanasia is an act that directly and intentionally causes a person's death. Thus there is, as one auther puts it, a "crucial difference between taking a life intentionally and allowing a death naturally. The first is homicide, and the second is a natural death".
As Andrew Lansdown explains, "euthanasia has little to do with refusing futile or extreme treatment. The man who rejects a heart transplant or declines a third bout of chemotherapy is not committing suicide, but rather is accepting the inevitability of his own death. The doctor who withholds or withdraws undue treatment at the request of a terminally ill patient is not killing his patient but rather is refusing to prolong his patient's life at any cost. Properly understood, euthanasia involves an intentional act to end a person's life. Opponents of euthanasia do not advocate the unnecessary and unwelcome prolonging of human life by artificial means. Rather, they oppose active measures to bring human life to a premature end."
Euthanasia, then, is about one thing only: the killing of another person. It does not matter whether this is done with a gun or a lethal injection - the effect is the same.
Calif Supr. Court: State Law on Killing of Unborn Baby Expanded
The killer of a pregnant woman can be found guilty of the murder of her unborn baby as well, even if the assailant did not know the victim was pregnant, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday.
Medical Front/Facts Surface- Doctor: Unborn Baby Feels Pain After 20 Weeks
LINCOLN, Neb. - A type of abortion now recently banned under a new federal law came with severe consequences: the method of death would cause "severe and excruciating" pain to 20-week-old unborn babies, a medical expert on pain testified Tuesday.
GRANDMOTHER LANGUISHES IN PRISON
For most of the past four years, (that was back in 99) the grandmother of four has languished in prison, with only two, 20-minute weekly visits breaking the loneliness and monotony.
Western Detention Centre is no place for a softly-spoken, bible-reading lady, but Linda Gibbons finds a "special source of inspiration" in Jesus Christ.
The true crime of Linda Gibbons?
More complicated than most. According to the authorities, obstructing a peace officer and breaking probation. Praying, picketing and offering counselling outside Toronto's abortuaries was shifted over into the realm of criminal activity, back in the days when strident feminist Marion Boyd, was Ontario's first Attorney General without a law degree.
CHRIST ON TRIAL AT COLLEGE PARK COURT
Feb 04 - It seems that Jesus Christ was on trial at College Park Court on February 2.
How else to explain that in the testimony of an officer of the law, he was uncertain as to whether Christ was Jesus?
Grandparents Linda Gibbons, Rev. Ken Campbell and Anneliese Steden were in court, where they were officially arraigned, charged with "obstructing a peace officer" on Sept, 9, 1998.
The first witness heard at the Feb. 2 trial was Sheriff David Usher, who presented and read the much referred to "Interim Injunction," which brought the three grandparents before the court in the first place. Sheriff Usher concluded that the defendants, all of whom he personally recognized, had been silently picketing on the sidewalk in front of the Gerrard Street East Scott Abortion Clinic last September.
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Directive on Human Embryo Research
Please Note: This does not make experimentation on Human embryos (Babies) illegal. It only restricts the Federal Funding that can be used for this research.
What follows is a letter that the Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Management and Budget John J. Callahan sent in February 1997 to all institutional officials
regarding the human embryo research ban that has been in effect since Fiscal Year
1996. Individuals accessing this site are reminded that Congress, in its Fiscal Year 1998 law making appropriations for the National Institutes of Health, continued the human embryo research ban. This means that no Federal research funds may be used for the creation of a human embryo for research purposes or for research in which a human embryo is destroyed, discarded or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater than that allowed for research on fetuses in utero. Further, Congress, in its FY 98 appropriations act directive, expanded the definition of a human embryo to "include any organism, not protected as a human subject under 45 CFR 46 as of the date of the enactment of this Act, that is derived by fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means from one or more human gametes or human diploid cells."
Assistant Secretary Callahan's letter addresses another legislative provision that also remains in effect, requiring publications derived from work done with Federal support to contain reference to the Federal support received and the proportion of the work supported.
Congress continued both the ban on human embryo research and the Federal support attribution provision in the Fiscal Year 1998 appropriations bill. For detailed information regarding these and the other legislative directives contained in the FY 98 appropriations law, please go to:
grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/not98-013.html
.
Please also note that sometimes, the research is accomplished and is called research on "Pre-embryo"
Frozen pre-embryos -report...Society of Human Genetics...for genetic research
participating in studies Whether human research protections should be extended to embryos
More information at: http://medlineplus.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/cbm/hum_exp.html#150
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Information and Recommendations for Physicians Involved in the Co-Culture of Human Embryos [mixed] with NonHuman Animal Cells
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NIH FUNDING OF RESEARCH USING SPECIFIED EXISTING HUMAN EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS
Release Date: August 27, 2001 (Supercedes NOT-OD-01-058 dated August 23, 2001)
NOTICE: NOT-OD-01-059
National Institutes of Health
In accordance with the President's announcement of August 9, 2001, (http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/aug2001/od-09.htm), the National Institutes of Health is initiating a process to enable researchers to use Federal funds to conduct research using human embryonic stem cells as long as the derivation process (which begins with the destruction of the embryo) was initiated prior to 9:00 p.m. EDT on August 9, and the following criteria are met: the stem cells must have been derived from an embryo that was created for reproductive purposes and was no longer needed; informed consent must have been obtained for donation of the embryo; and that donation must not have involved financial inducements. The President's complete remarks and related information are available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/08/20010809-2.html.
Investigators may not conduct research on any human embryonic stem cells
until the NIH issues the policies and the procedures that will enable
researchers and their institutions to document adherence to the criteria
established by the President for use of these cells with Federal funds
(direct and F&A). NIH has issued an update on existing human embryonic stem
cells that can be found at http://stemcells.nih.gov/.
In order to facilitate research using human embryonic stem cells, the NIH is
creating a Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry that will list the human
embryonic stem cells that meet the eligibility criteria. Specifically, the
laboratories or companies that derived the cells listed on the Registry will
have provided a signed assurance that the derivation process was initiated
prior to 9:00 p.m. EDT on August 9, 2001; the stem cells were derived from an
embryo that was created for reproductive purposes and was no longer needed;
informed consent was obtained for donation of the embryo; and that donation
did not involve financial inducements. The Registry will be accessible to
investigators on the NIH Home Page http://www.nih.gov.
Initially, the Registry will contain basic information about the cells. This information will include a unique identifier; the name of the company or laboratory that derived the cells; contact information for the company/laboratory; and an assurance that the cells meet the President's criteria. In the future, to further assist researchers, additional information may also be included in the Registry, such as details about the derivation of the cells, the number of passages, culture conditions, and growth characteristics; a description of efforts to characterize the cells, including molecular markers and evidence of pluripotency; relevant publications; DNA fingerprinting data; and quality assurance data, such as the results of tests for Mycoplasma and standard human pathogens.
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Human Embryo Produced from Frozen Ovarian Tissue
MONDAY, March 8/04 - (HealthDayNews) -- For the first time, scientists have been able to obtain a human egg from frozen ovarian tissue, fertilize it, and get an embryo.
Although the novel procedure did not result in a pregnancy, it does offer hope for the hundreds of thousands of women who go through early menopause as a result of cancer treatment.
"The most significant achievement in this study is to show that ovarian tissue can be frozen and banked for as many as six years and can still retain its function, such as producing estrogen hormone and eggs that are able to be fertilized and undergo development into embryos," says Dr. Kutluk Oktay, lead author of the study. "The findings give further hope that this procedure eventually can result in a pregnancy."
The study appears in the March 13 issue of The Lancet, which released the results online Monday.
What might frozen embryos say?
Adopting 'surplus' embryos from their frozen limbo
Pro-life groups have staged "rescues" at abortion clinics over the years in an effort to save unborn children. Now, a new movement is underway to "rescue" the thousands of human embryos created through in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and placed in frozen storage indefinitely.
This movement carries different names in various parts of the country, but the objective is the same: to transfer frozen human embryos into the wombs of "adoptive" mothers who will give birth. Since the Catholic Church teaches that in-vitro fertilization is immoral, the whole idea of such human-embryo "adoption" has stirred spirited debate among moralists and bioethicists.
The Vatican, meanwhile, appears to be standing back to see how the whole discussion plays out.
The idea of such adoptions first surfaced in England in 1996, when thousands of frozen embryos were to be destroyed under a 1991 British law that said "surplus" human embryos could be frozen for a maximum of five years, unless the genetic parents requested an extension. In in-vitro fertilization, multiple embryos are created in the lab because implantation success is unreliable. "Surplus" embryos remain frozen and eventually are destroyed if the genetic parents do not claim them.
Pro-life people condemned the planned destruction of the British embryos, and some groups called for volunteers to "adopt" an embryo.
Spare embryos ‘should be donated to infertile couples’
Sunday Herald - More than 116,000 frozen human embryos are presently stored in UK clinics, over twice the number that was held four years ago.
The embryos are left over from infertility treatments and are stored for up to 10 years. Some will be used by couples who want to increase their families at a later stage, but many will be destroyed.
Around eight embryos are created in each IVF cycle and normally only two are implanted in the womb. The couple must then decided what to do with the rest – freeze them for their own use later, donate them for research, store them for an infertile couple who cannot create their own embryos, or have them destroyed.
In March 1999 there were 51,346 frozen embryos stored in the UK. This figure jumped to 97,719 by March 2001 and 116,252 by March of this year.
But despite the high number of left-over embryos, only around 190 a year are donated to infertile couples who cannot create their own.
Twins born from 12-year-old frozen embryos
Long-term freezing had no negative impact, says doctor
JERUSALEM - Feb 4/04 - An Israeli women gave birth to healthy twins from 12-year-old frozen embryos, and her doctor said no other successful pregnancies had resulted from embryos frozen for so long.
The boy and girl were born nine months ago to a Jerusalem couple that had first used in vitro fertilization in 1990, when 12 embryos were deep frozen, said Dr. Ariel Revel of Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital.
“This is the longest time that frozen embryos have been used,” Revel said, noting that the previous longest recorded use of frozen embryos was seven years.
According to Revel, the birth of the twins shows that long-term freezing does not have any negative impact on the embryos.
Many frozen embryos go unclaimed
Kim Lamb Gregory January 31, 2004 Times Record News
About 400,000 human embryos are kept in frozen storage in the United States, with little agreement on what to do with the thousands that are unclaimed.
Donate them for research? Give them to infertile couples? Keep them in storage indefinitely?
Fertility specialist Dr. Michael Feinman sees them as potential life. "It's unconscionable to have freezers with unclaimed embryos," he said.
Nationally, the closest thing to a count of unclaimed embryos is about 16,000 - a figure that came out of a 2002 study for the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, a Washington, D.C., agency that oversees about 94 percent of fertility clinics. The study, called "Cryopreserved Embryos in the United States and Their Availability for Research," suggests that up to 4 percent of the nation's frozen embryos are unclaimed.
Feinman, with 10 percent unclaimed just in his California office, said he believes the national number might be higher. "Nobody really knows how many unclaimed embryos there are, but they're in the hundreds of thousands," he said.
An "unclaimed" embryo is one whose donors haven't renewed their storage contract or responded to repeated correspondence from the storage facility.
400,000 Human Embryos Frozen in U.S.
Number at Fertility Clinics Is Far Greater Than Previous Estimates, Survey Finds
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 8, 2003; Page A10
The freezers of U.S. fertility clinics are bulging with about 400,000 frozen human embryos, a number several times larger than previous estimates, according to the first national count ever done, released today.
The unexpectedly high number -- by far the largest population of frozen human embryos in the world -- is the byproduct of a booming fertility industry whose success depends on creating many embryos but using only the best. Although most of the embryos are being held for possible use by the couples who wanted them, a large proportion will never be needed, experts said
CNet - Nov 10/04 - Medical-supply company Henry Schein has agreed to distribute implantable radio frequency identification chips to doctors' offices across the country--the first major sales push for the technology since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved it for medical use last month.
The rice grain-size devices, called VeriChips, enable doctors and other medical staff to instantly retrieve patients' medical records by scanning chips injected into the fatty tissue in their arms--much like a clerk scanning a can of peas at the grocery store. The distribution deal, announced Wednesday, is a big one for VeriChip maker Applied Digital. Henry Schein, based in Melville, N.Y., sells medical supplies to nearly 115,000 private medical practices in the United States and booked $3.4 billion in sales last year.
Links to Books at Amazon that deal with the issues surrounding the implications of experimentation on humans, Cloning Humans, & Euthanasia
The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide
The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code: Human Rights in Human Experimentation
The Arrogance of Humanism by David Ehrenfeld
Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy
The
Politics of Victimization: Victims, Victimology, and Human Rights
The
Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution
Embryonic Stem Cell Research is
Unecessary, Adult Stem Cells Already Proving Successful
"Embryonic stem cell research has failed to produce success in even one human experiment," says Gayle Atteberry, executive director of
ORTL. Ms. Atteberry, in responding to Secretary of State Bill Bradbury's roundtable discussion about stem cell research today, explained some of the known problems with embryonic stem cell research.
"One of the most substantial problems with embryonic stem
cells," explained Atteberry, "
is their unpredictability in growth. Many times they grow so rapidly they cause tumors in patients who have volunteered for medical
research."
In contrast, Ms. Atteberry explained the success of adult stem cells: "Currently there are over 45 diseases which have been cured or treated with
adult stem cells. Adult stem cells can be found in bone marrow, blood, fat, and even umbilical cord blood."
Embryonic stem cells can only be obtained by killing a living human baby embryo. Using existing frozen
human embryo babies at in vitro fertilization clinics is often suggested as a way to use the frozen embryos for the "greater good". Over 97% of embryos stored at the clinics are being held for the parents' future use. Scientific demands of embryonic stem cell research will quickly use up the supply of frozen embryos. That is why scientists are energetically pursuing cloning of human embryos.
"Embryonic stem cell research, which kills a human embryo and has so far remained completely unsuccessful, is
unnecessary," said Ms. Atteberry. " We already have an alternate way for research, a way which does not involve killing human embryos, and a way which is already working-adult stem cell research."
ORTL, 4335 River Road North, Salem, Oregon 97303
Source: http://www.ortl.org/
For more information call us at (503)463-8563 or email ortl@ortl.org.
Electronic Privacy Information Center - Practical Privacy Tools
Microsoft XP Spying on You
Microsoft has programmed Windows XP to contact other computers and transfer information from the user's computer to the other computers:
a) If you have only three DVDs that your children watch sometimes on your home machine that is always connected to the Internet (through a broadband connection), you may not care that Microsoft knows when they watch them. If you seldom use the Windows XP help facility, you may not care that Microsoft is able to know the level of expertise of the people who use your computer.
However, if you are using Windows XP in a large corporation or a government, the fact that another organization believes that it can gather data from you may be completely unacceptable.
This article is support for your own investigation.
The Microsoft article tells how to disable the hidden downloading. However, the disabling is very time-consuming. Also, Microsoft has a history of using defect fixes and security fixes to change the operating system settings. This means that all the settings would need to be checked after every defect fix or security vulnerability fix.
Source: http://www.hevanet.com/peace/microsoft.htm
Article in Spanish http://www.hevanet.com/peace/microsoft-es.htm
Zone Alarm - Firewall Protection - Free version at:
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp
Webroot Spysweeper (look for Try It - Spy Sweeper)
Popup Blocker (Panicware) (look for the Free Version)
Spybot Search & Destroy (better for older systems)