-Caveat Lector-
Well, that was quick! All of 48 hours and already they are
demanding MORE cell lines. Looks like some more human life has to
be taken but not to worry as we can always blame the Pope. He
reads the paper, doesn't he?
Ditto those 40 million abortions.
Is the embryo human, yes or no? It is not a fish, fowl, etc.?
Human.
It is 'alive'? Yes or no? Yes, or the cells would not be alive.
I would think this was destruction of human life and the cheapening
thereof had I not learned of the 'Pope Loophole' whereby he can be
blamed for virtually everything that has ever happened by virtue of
his knowing of it. He must know about this for Bush consulted with
him and therefore this is all his fault.
And as for his apologizing for the castrati of the 1500's and such,
that Archbishop he has kidnapped and is holding against his will
had better watch it and be careful. No telling what he will do to
him! And frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn for I have learned
a very valuable lesson in the blindness and loyalty to one's own
personal agenda and one's own belief system even if it flies in the
face of facts as others do. 3 million dead ROMAN Catholic (NOT
Orthodox) in Poland alone and the legacy of such as Fr. Kolbe speak
louder than all the lies and Holocaust myths of the revisionists.
~Amelia~
Thompson reassures skeptical scientists
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE
of the Journal Sentinel staff
Last Updated: Aug. 10, 2001
Stem Cell Research
Photo/AP
Tommy G. Thompson speaks Friday at the National Institutes of
Health in Bethesda, Md.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson
reassured skeptical scientists Friday that enough viable embryonic
stem cells exist to enable them to do sufficient research to
explore the cells' potential for curing diseases.
Also Friday, University of Wisconsin-Madison officials said they'd
been assured that UW's five stem cell lines would qualify for
federal funding under President Bush's proposal.
"We have been told that ours will work, but not officially," said
Andrew Cohn, a spokesman for a UW-affiliated research foundation.
James Thomson, the UW scientist who pioneered the stem cell
research, said Thompson called him Friday and asked him to support
Bush's decision to allow funding only on existing stem cells
already derived from embryos and not for work that would involve
destroying more embryos.
Thomson said he wished Bush had allowed more work to be funded, but
added, "This gets it going, and that's what has to be emphasized."
At a news conference Friday at the National Institutes of Health,
Thompson and others talked about the 60 stem cell lines they claim
exist now, and said Bush's decision would allow plenty of research
to be done.
"Make no mistake, this is a bold step forward," Thompson said.
Embryonic stem cells are master cells that can form virtually any
tissue or organ in the body. A cell line is a collection of
genetically identical cells that are able to live and perpetually
divide in a lab dish. Each cell line must have been established
from a different embryo.
All day, prominent scientists from Harvard University on the East
Coast to Stanford University on the West Coast disputed Bush and
Thompson's assertion that so many true cell lines exist now.
Paul Berg, a Stanford University Nobel laureate, said he was
"mystified" when Bush said there were more than 60.
"The most anybody I've talked to is aware of is probably 10 or
less," he said.
"I thought there were only about a dozen out there," said Catherine
Verfaillie, who heads a stem cell research center at the University
of Minnesota.
"The president evidently is privy to information unknown to me and
other members of the scientific community," said Douglas Melton, a
stem cell researcher at Harvard.
Thompson said that's exactly the case. He said no one had ever done
a formal investigation and count of them, nationally and
internationally, until he requested it as part of the research Bush
asked him to do in making his decision on the funding issue.
"We were surprised by the number 60," Thompson said.
He described the cell lines as genetically diverse, robust and
viable, and stressed that each came from a different embryo.
"A lot of the research was being done behind closed doors and being
protected for proprietary reasons," Thompson said.
5 other countries
Lana Skirboll, director of science policy at NIH, said the cell
lines are in five countries besides the United States - Sweden,
Israel, India, Australia and Singapore. She said NIH has an
inventory, but would not release it because of the need to protect
the commercial interests of the businesses involved that willingly
shared confidential information with federal officials.
But she identified these three and said they collectively have 17
stem cell lines:
WiCell, a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation,
which manages the commercial aspect of work done by UW scientists.
UW officials say WiCell has five cell lines.
BresaGen, an Australian firm that is doing embryonic stem cell
research in Athens, Ga.
ES Cell International Pte Ltd., or ESI, which was formed by
investment groups in Singapore and Australia and has licensing
rights to stem cell lines developed at research centers in those
two countries and Israel. It has a joint venture with a Cleveland
firm, Quark Biotech Inc., that has research centers in Israel and
Chicago.
UW's Thomson said it is possible that many others have made stem
cell lines since he established the first one in 1998.
"While it's difficult, there are competent people out there," he
said. "My guess is that most of them are academics," that is, at
universities as opposed to being employed by the private companies,
he said.
Thomson also said he hoped they were true cell lines that are
genetically distinct from any others that have been made.
"That can be proved quite easily," he added.
Thompson said NIH was starting a registry of embryonic stem cell
lines to have records on which of them had been created by the Aug.
9 deadline Bush set for qualifying for federal funding.
"We don't expect any grants to be made until next calendar year at
the earliest," Thompson said.
"The best and the brightest will now be coming forward to do this
research," Skirboll said.
Thompson said that from the start, it has bothered him that
scientists made conflicting claims about the superiority or utility
of embryonic, placental and adult stem cells and that there was no
science to settle the dispute.
"Now we're going to be able to make that comparison," he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Aug. 11, 2001.
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