Stem cell researcher makes paralyzed rats walk

[seriousstan]

So far, not a single person has been helped by human embryonic stem cells.

But in cramped university labs, a young neurobiologist with movie star good looks, a Carl Sagan-like fondness for the popular media and an entrepeneur's nose for profits is getting tantalizingly close.

Hans Keirstead is making paralyzed rats walk again by injecting them with healthy brain cells sussed from a reddish soup of human embryonic stem cells he and his colleagues have created.

Keirstead hopes to apply his therapy to humans by 2006. If his ambitious timetable keeps to schedule, Keirstead's work will be the first human embryonic stem cell treatment given to humans.

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/business/10441265.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

[htuttle]

1. That isn't precisely true

At least one person was already helped by stem cell treatments:

German surgeons repair skull with stem cells
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1080567

Surgeons have used stem cells from fat to help repair skull damage in a seven-year-old girl in Germany.
...
The girl had been injured two years before in a fall, which destroyed several areas of her skull totaling nearly 19 square inches, the German researchers reported.

Other surgeons had failed to correct the defects, and the girl wore a protective helmet. Her brain could sometimes be seen pulsating through the missing areas of her skull.

But several weeks after the stem-cell surgery, she was able to leave her helmet behind, the researchers report in the December issue of the Journal of Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery.
(more at link)

Old Europe beat us to it.

[jhgatiss]

4. Read more carefully

He is proposing the first human embryonic stem cell therapy. The girl with the skull repair was helped by stem cells derived from her own fat cells.

[medeak]

14. doctor in China is having terrific success

am member of Parkinsons discussion board (for husband) and hooked up to some incredible doctors.

We're all going nuts as Chinese fellow is curing paralysis by injecting stem cells into spinal cord... he doesn't know how or why...no study going on.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,7369,1363339,00.html

[sniffa]

2. Let's not get too excited yet

i'd Like to hear what the first Lady has to say about this?

[progressiveBadger]

3. nice :) n/t

[jhgatiss]

5. What does SHE have to do with anything? n/t

[Liberal Veteran]

12. Here ya go...

LANGHORNE, Pa. - First lady Laura Bush defended her husband’s policy on embryonic stem cell research Monday, calling Democratic rival John Kerry’s criticism “ridiculous” and accusing proponents of overstating the potential for medical breakthroughs.


“We don’t even know that stem cell research will provide cures for anything — much less that it’s very close” to yielding major advances, Bush said.

[tk2kewl]

7. lol

[Liberal Veteran]

10. No doubt....Since she wowed us with her vast knowledge of...

...bio-cellular comprehension, she would know better.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

16. She'll say "Now we can help injured soldiers get back to the front lines.

Because science is how God help's us kill terrorists."

And now for my post about fighting propaganda with PROPER-GANDA:

I hope this makes sense to the many new DU-ers who are only just starting to try and understand why so many good people embrace terrible things and call it 'morality' and what to do about it.

Psychology is the most important tool for understanding how we got into this mess and why.

Left, Right, Center comprise a FALSE VOCABULARY TO CONFUSE THE ISSUE
OF KILLING PEOPLE FOR MONEY.

Some people get the scam and some don't and enable it creating a very confused American public split into
1) Those who kill people for money and hide the evidence
2) Those who don't and fight to expose the evidence

This polarity of awareness within the two main political parties alienates some who choose to sit between murder and justice and call this 'Centrism.' But denying justice is not moderation, it is STILL INJUSTICE.

"Because I don't trust the 'radical fringe' who want to either
1) throw all the Jews in the oven (right wing)
OR
2) throw none of the Jews in the oven." (left wing)

"Yes, all things in moderation. So the right answer is in the middle.See? Politics is all about...compromise.
-Compromising your values." (DLC/DNC)

The Tactic We Must Deal With Or Die:
Psy-ops culture war tactics of Orwellification-
'Weaponize the good, demonize the outraged liberals who protest this.'

This is the way the domestic culture war (psy-ops propaganda to intentionally stir people up and chill dissent) works:

Take something, like the US government, do terrible things with it.

Then, when liberals criticize the terrible things, claim they are criticizing the good part and so 'liberals must be bad.'

"They hate us for our freedom."
"They are jealous of our virtue because they are sooooo bad."
Amazingly, this really resonates in A MASTER RACE MENTALITY!

OR:

Neo-cons put a baby in hot water.
Liberals accuse them of abuse.
Neo-cons claim that 'liberals hate babies.'

Christmas has been weaponized the exact same way.

Neo-cons use religion to kill people with the New Crusades.
Liberals cite First Amendment separation of church and state.
Neo-cons claim that 'liberals hate God, Jesus, Santa, etc.'

Neo-cons use our children as troops to kill for oil.
Liberals scream bloody murder.
Neo-cons claim 'liberals hate our troops.'

That last one is the most dangerous because it will lead to a Tienanmin Square situation where our own troops will be called in to stomp on 'enemies of the state' or PROTESTERS.
http://museums.cnd.org/June4th/massacre.html
(Photos of Tienanmin Square Massacre of Protesters)

The Inaugaral parade will see Bush* literally hiding behind our troops so that the hostility of the protesters will be used to claim that liberals are against the troops 'just like the Fallujan insurgents.'

Unh-oh. Orwellification of 'save our troops from war' into 'kill our troops by not supporting the war.'

January 20, 2005 is the next big psy-op event to create a Brown Shirt movement in this heavily armed and polarized country.

SO...

Re-Orwellification OR Flipping the Polarity on Evil Back to Good:

The Master Race mentality of American Exceptionalism Saving the World and the Christian-Inanity of being the wrathful smiting 'Chosen Few' are the binary agents of American Fascism.

There's no time to back up 358 degrees to explain to the public how the democratic humanity of 'We the People'+'All God's Children' has been perverted into American fascist 'Divine King Stomping out Satanic Infidels.'

SO FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE! CHANNEL THE PASSION FOR VENGEANCE INTO
A PASSION FOR JUSTICE! People WANT to be part of a dramatic movement in their lives which TV has turned into a movie script starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Indiana Jones, and Mel Gibson fighting evil.

Fight propaganda with...PROPER-GANDA!!!
I recommend pushing forward just 2 degrees USING those so so deeply entrenched-through-propaganda attitudes with a campaign of renewed reverence for

1) The Bill of Rights and US Constitution
2) Jesus' teachings about caring for the poor and needy.

These are the tenets of The American Revolution AND Christian values which also define liberalism!! This is the Just Father model of government that replaced the Strong Father dictator hundreds of years ago.

I just told a Navy recruiter standing in line for lunch all about Operation Vigilant Warrior, Peak Oil, Bush/Saudi-financed terrorism etc. in a friendly way and concluded "I know people like you are trying to do the right thing but you're being given bad info."

He was actually interested and said "Thanks, I'll go look that up when I get back to my computer."

We must flip the polarity of these ideas back to caring for ALL people instead of Republican Eugenics that justifies death by both poverty and war as being necessary 'collateral damage' for the greater good of the herd.

Don't let the fascists push us back into the bloody past.
Help guide your neighbors towards the Evolving Door so they aren't part of the murder-for-profit scam. Tell them how it works and has deceived them despite their good intentions.

[loudsue]

18. REALLY great post, JohnOneillsMemory!!

And you are soooo right about that!!

:loveya: And I, for one, honor the Memory of John O'Neill.

:kick::kick:

[Pastiche423]

6. Rats have been made able to walk

for years via stem cell injections.

This is nothing new.

[Oldpals]

8. Stem cell

There is a case in South Korea where a woman walked as a result of using stem cells from the umbilical cord.

[Pastiche423]

15. That woman did not "walk"

She stood up from her wheelchair and shuffled forward and back a few paces with the help of walking frame and leg braces. (Most any para w/strong upper body strength could do the same.)

She is still paralyzed.

Furthermore, there has been no confirmation that the results show that umbilical cord blood stem cells are of benefit.

Yet.

[tk2kewl]

9. maybe he can inject the undeveloped part of juniors brain

that is supposed to be his conscience

[Fridays Child]

11. Oh, my. He IS a handsome man. Look...

[David Zephyr]

13. Laura Bush Spoke on This Subject Clearly in August 2004

"It's not fair to raise false hopes because stem cell research is very, very preliminary. We don't even know that stem cell research will provide cures for anything — much less that it's very close to yielding major advances" --- Laura Bush, August 9,2004

[shoelace414]

17. that sounds amazingly

like "you can have all the armor in the world and still get blown up."

[Sandpiper]

19. I'm waiting for Mel Gibson to weigh in

And tell us why it's unethical to cure paralysis.