Christian physicians & dentists decry new stem cell alternative

[Bluebear]

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 /Christian Wire Service/ -- The Christian Medical Association (www.cmda.org), the nation's largest association of faith-based physicians, today critiqued two recently reported developments in embryonic stem cell research that are purportedly designed to allay ethical concerns over treatment of human life. Both methods were reported in the October 17 online edition of Nature.

While applauding the search for ethical alternatives, the association's leaders say the procedures do not circumvent the moral dilemmas of destroying living human beings or exposing them to harm.

One procedure involves programming an embryo genetically so that it cannot successfully implant and develop in the uterus to become a baby.

CMA Executive Director Dr. David Stevens said, "Just because scientists have created a genetic time bomb in the embryo does not change its essential human nature. If a scientist removed most of the intestines of a newborn baby, that action would cause the baby to die later. That wouldn’t give them the right to kill the child in order to transplant its organs."

Another procedure involves removing a cell from an eight-cell embryo, then developing that removed cell in order to harvest embryonic stem cells.

Dr. Stevens noted, "The cell taken from the embryo to start an embryonic stem cell line, a separated blastomere, is actually a totipotent cell that can develop into a complete organism--a human baby. This process is essentially artificial identical twinning.

"Embryologists have long recognized that these early developing human cells called blastomeres have a regulative nature--a strong tendency for the system to be restored to wholeness. And in fact, the developmental capacity of separated blastomeres has been confirmed in animals, including in primates.

"So to emphasize that the original embryo is not killed is actually to employ a scientific sleight of hand. Researchers using this process may not destroy the first embryo, but they do destroy the second one.

"This method of research exposes the surviving human being to potential risk. Even if the surviving embryo is implanted in a womb, no one knows the long-term effect of preimplantation genetic diagnosis on children born after being subjected to the procedure. How many of us, if we could somehow be given the ability to guide our own embryonic development, would permit researchers to take out one of our first eight cells?"

Dr. Stevens added, "We applaud studies using animals to figure out ethical ways to obtain embryonic stem cells apart from the creation and destruction of human embryos. So far, however, no one appears to have accomplished this feat. Meanwhile, the good news is that adult stem cells are already providing real cures for real patients."

CMA Associate Executive Director Dr. Gene Rudd added, “While it is reasonable to fund basic science research in hopes of future benefit, that research should not compromise our ethical principles, and it should not be funded to the exclusion of more promising cures. Clinical trials and treatments using adult stem cells currently provide verifiable progress in treating the very diseases that embryonic stem cell researchers boast that they may cure in 10 years. Why should desperately ill people suffering from Parkinson's, paraplegia, diabetes and massive heart attacks have to wait for embryonic stem cell research to somehow try to catch up with adult stem cell research?"

To schedule an interview, please contact Margie Shealy at [phone] or by e-mail: [e-mail]. The Christian Medical Association is equipped with Ku Band Digital Uplink satellite and ISDN lines.

[longship]

1. Meddlesome priests!!!!

Why does our country have to suffer these ignorant fools?

[alphadog]

7. Well...

Uh...because we're a pluralistic society that respects others beliefs maybe?

[Bluebear]

8. "we're a pluralistic society that respects others beliefs maybe?"

Except for non-Christian beliefs these days.

[longship]

9. I thought that it meant that laws must have a secular pupose.

That's one of the four prongs of first amendment religious test, of which the failure of even one is fatal.

These lunatics must be stopped before they ruin the whole show.

And no, I am not talking about *all* religious people. I'm talking about the fundy lunatics who are trying to use legislative fiat to impose their views on others.

They'll want to make scientific research on stem cells illegal.

Those are the meddlesome priests of whom I speak.

[Zenlitened]

2. "Faith-based phsyicians"??? *snort*

:rofl:

[Bluebear]

4. Holy witch doctor!

:rofl:

[big johnson]

6. The penalty for promoting a false concept of God

is the same as ever and should be. God waits in the wings to be drug into existance, while blasphemers attempt to separate us from him forever. Certainly, I would drag them to the stake. And, pile the Sterno at their feet. Priests first. I'd send them to Savonarolla still smokin'.

[newyawker99]

10. Hi big johnson!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[MountainLaurel]

3. At least they give a Web site

So that I can get a list of who NOT to use as a physician (similarly, there's a "pro-life" physicians association). Already I can't go to the ER closest to me because it's a religious affiliated institution and I can't trust that my health would come before their dogma.

[Coastie for Truth]

5. My "faith based physicians" disagree

I follow Rabbi Daniel Eisenberg, M.D., who relying on Dr. Moses Maimonides, (Dr. Maimonides has "blogged" as "Rambam") said that

[geniph]

11. That is the most specious argument I've heard in a good while

That's not a whole hell of a lot different from complaining that men's masturbation is "killing potential babies" or a woman riding a horse could be "killing potential babies."

There's a hell of a lot of difference between potential human life and actual human life. Could we please stop the hyperfocusing on potential human life and maybe do something to improve the lot of the ACTUAL, living, breathing humans for once?

*shaking head*

I mean, who the hell wants to live in a society that's devolving into one that thinks we should be examining women's menses for fertilized eggs, and prosecuting any women who've thus expelled a zygote for murder? Think that's far-fetched? It was damned near proposed as law by one of these radical clerics last year. Some of these freaks want to make IUDs illegal.

What is with their obsession with sex???