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Fr. Robert's Blog
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House Passes H.R. 3 |
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On January 11, 2007 passed H.R. 3, to amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for human embryonic stem cell research. One thing that struck me is that January 11th on the civil calendar is December 29th on the ecclesiastical calendar, the day we remember the Holy Innocents. The Holy Innocents were those children killed by Herod when he was trying to kill the infant Christ.
In many ways this is appropriate, embryonic stem cell research is the experimentation on and killing of unborn children.
What makes this truly sad is that there is no benefits to embryonic stem cell research. Any treatments using embryonic stem cells have resulted in no healing of individuals but rather the creation of benign tumors in those being treated.
While adult stem cells have saved many lives, many of know people that are alive today due to a bone marrow or stem cell transplant. (In a bone marrow transplant, it is the stem cells in the marrow that provides the cure.) Adult stems cells come from donors including cord blood.
Then why did the House pass H.R. 3?
The answer is embryonic stems cell research is legal in the U.S. but is largely unfunded. Most medical companies do not do embryonic stem cell research. The reason being they do not see the pay off in embryonic stem cells. There is no indication any treatment will work using ESCs. But adult stem cells are a proven cure to many types of cancers and other diseases and promise to be the cure for more diseases. That is why you see many medical companies focus on cures that use adult stem cells. There is no question that medical companies are in the business of making money. Cures for cancer, Parkinson's disease, and paralysis would be worth billions.
If ESCs held promise for a cure would not these businesses be funding Embryonic stem cell research?
But the dirty little secret, that most supporters of ESC research don't know, is that companies to a large degree do not fund the research because it doesn't hold the promise of cures. That is why the push for Federal funding,
Where else can you get an idea funded that holds no real promise of results.
I would encourage all readers to support adult stem cell treatments by signing up to be stem cell and bone marrow donors. Information can be found at http://www.marrow.org
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