BBC: Healthy newborns killed in the Ukraine - for stem cells

[leftyladyfrommo]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6171083.stm

This news is awful. I guess there is a flourishing stem cell market - international - and there is real evidence that healthy newborns are being killed for their stem cells.

This along with news of the millions of female infants aborted on killed at birth in India.

I feel like we are living in such dark, dark times.

[SemperEadem]

1. Mr. Gorbachev

tear down this wall!!!!

See what a wonderful society Reagan helped to create in the former Soviet Union? Sex trade and stem cell harvesting are the only profitable industries there now--but there aint' no more of them red commies, by gawd!

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

2. What the fuck are you talking about?

You are way, way off base.

[SemperEadem]

22. sarcasm get by you much?

I see I have to do a remedial posting...

but no, I'm not way way off base. You should educate yourself on conditions in the former Soviet Union before reaching for base profanity instead of a reasoned explanation as to why you think what I say is wrong.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

26. Blaming Reagan for crimes that occured in Poland...

...decades after he was in office and years after he died seems... a little farfetched. Or a lot farfetched. Or just silly.

[piedmont]

33. Poland? I thought the OP was about the Ukraine? nt

[SemperEadem]

34. Poland? Who said anything about Poland?

Poland the the Ukraine are two different countries altogether.

[smirkymonkey]

30. Don't forget organized crime!

The Russian Mob is the crown jewel in Russia's prosperous new economy!

:sarcasm:

[valerief]

3. Well, as long as they're not the Unborn, then you won't hear an

outcry from the wingnuts.

[leftyladyfrommo]

4. That is exactly what I thought.

Why don't those people put their energy where it might really do some good - like in the Ukraine.

I had no idea that stem cells were such a huge market. Where there is money awful things happen.

[iamjoy]

9. Actually, We Will

They will point to this and blame the people who want to do fetal stem cell research. They will say this is where we end up when we start relaxing morals. They will point to the diminished value of life in too our culture. They will counter-point - if you don' object to stem cell research on a fetus, why do you care if it is done a few weeks down the line in fetal development.

[truth2power]

5. Excuse me! I'm no scientist, so...

feel free to dispute this, but I thought the definition of "stem cells" was that they occur in the embryo, before they have a chance to specialize, so to speak. At that time the cells can become cells from any organ etc. After the child is born, how could there be these non-differentiated cells?

This story smells. Anyone who can clear this up? As I said, I'm not trained in the life sciences, so maybe I have it all wrong. :shrug:

[mainer]

8. That was my first reaction too

Although you can find stem cells in umbilical blood, it doesn't require the death of the newborn.

[Missy M]

12. I agree that this story smells....

When they use the words "may have been" and "it could possibly be a result" it means this is speculation at this point.

[valerief]

13. You're right. It does smell like a pot-stirrer. nt

[rodeodance]

17. these would no longer be 'embryonic' stem cells. just the kind of stem

cells every person has.

[truth2power]

29. OK. Guess I'll have to research this further. n/t

[lectrobyte]

31. Yeah, sounds very psych-op'ish to me. Just like those Kuwaiti incubator

babies...

[FedUpWithIt All]

32. If i am not mistaken any cells harvested would be no different...

the cells harvested from an adult's bone marrow.

They would be far less useful than core blood, embryonic or amniotic stem cells.

Recent studies are showing that the most useful stem cells may be those harvested from amniotic fluid.

If this story is true it is so disturbing.

[Briar]

6. Ah - the smell of the free market at work

Isn't it foul?

[Lurking Dem]

7. Can someone please explain

why a newborn's cells would be any different than adult stem cells? Embryonic cells come from blastocysts, not babies.

[rodeodance]

19. exacly. the article does not refer to 'embryonic' stem cells. My uneducated

guess is that is is easier to snatch a newborn??????

[Lurking Dem]

25. Story still makes no sense.

Parents could sell the cord blood without killing the baby. You can get stem cells from the placenta as well and from bone marrow.

There is absolutely no point in killing a baby.

It sounds like someone wrote the story who thinks "adult stem cells" refer to cells from adults rather than cells that have matured into a person.

[hlthe2b]

10. documentation from Pat Robertson and Falwell?

No offense to the OP, nor necessarily the BBC, but something seems fishy about this story.... Even the less biased MSM can be duped sometimes....:shrug:

[Lurking Dem]

11. I agree.

This story seems planted.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

14. This story is bullshit

Newborn infants couldn't be harvested for fetal stem cells - they are no longer fetuses. You could, however, harvest adult stem cells from newborns, just as you can from any other human being. But there wouldn't be any reason to kill the newborn to harvest the cells.

The first place I saw this story was on a christo-conservative wackjob's news site, and I have my doubts.

[ToolTex]

15. This is all BS.

[gollygee]

16. This sounds like some science fiction movie plot

more than real life.

I agree that as I understood it, fetal stem cells were worth something but baby stem cells wouldn't be worth any more than adult stem cells. So I don't get it.

[leftyladyfrommo]

18. I just looked at the Scotsman - this article is there, too. And people

there are questioning it.

I hope it is a plant. But life is so cheap in some places that it really could be true.

[annabanana]

21. no it couldn't

New born stem cells are the same as yours and mine. It's the undifferentiated cells in the blastocyte that are different...

[nealmhughes]

20. Yes, it is true, and BatBoy is in charge!

Come on BBC, we expect better out of you.

Are you sure this wasn't from the World Weekly News or a Brazilian Fortean pub?

[valerief]

24. Yeah, or whitehouse.gov? nt

[rodeodance]

23. Ukraine baby theft claims probed (another story from this page)--there

maybe be something to this.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4189558.stm

Ukraine baby theft claims probed

Pregnant mother (generic)
The mothers of the babies were said to be all in excellent health
Harrowing reports of babies stolen at birth and human organ removal in an Ukrainian city are to be investigated by a top European political body.

The Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly is sending a rapporteur to Kharkiv as Ukraine's prosecutors delve into the cases of three mothers.

"People are afraid to even give birth now," Kharkiv campaigner Tatyana Zakharova told the BBC News website.

The main hospital under scrutiny has dismissed accusations against it.

Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (Pace) rapporteur, is to visit Maternity Hospital No 6 after her arrival on Monday and will meet local parents, Ms Zakharova and Ukrainian officials.

Her trip will also take her to the capital, Kiev, amid reports that babies may have been snatched at birth in other Ukrainian cities.

[leftyladyfrommo]

27. That is sickening. n/t

But remember all of those little children in those awful Romanian orphanages?

[Rosemary2205]

28. Snatched for organs, not stem cells.

Equally horrific but BBC needs to get it's info right.