The other day I returned to an old e-pal from way back when I used to subscribe to The American Spectator. He was, and still is, a typical Right-wing, hard-punching polemicist, a type of whom I am somewhat wary, but who redeemed himself in my eyes (for what that's worth!) by backing his arguments with facts and figures and references. He first came to my attention when he attacked head-on the prevailing hysterical nonsense over AIDs and pointed out that provided you avoided a certain esoteric sexual habit, and the re-use of needles for injecting drugs, you were extremely unlikely ever to catch the disease. Needles to say, the homosexual lobby which had high-jacked the AIDs bandwagon flounced about in high outrage at his ideas which are now accepted orthodoxy. His name is Michael Fumento. I should add that I still retain some doubts because I once asked him if he had ever changed his mind on any of the things he had written about and he replied in the negative. Such constancy is indicative, shall we say, and on one particular subject I disagreed with him completely. Anyway, returning to his site I was pleased to see that he was still banging on about a favourite subject of his with which I totally agree, that is, the difference between Adult Stem Cell (ASC) research and Embryonic Stem Cell (ESC) research.
Happily for those of you reaching for the 'Off' switch the debate does not concern Christian morality but just good, old-fashioned economics. The debate can be easily described thus:
ASC has been going for decades and has been wonderfully successful, by which I mean that in over 70 different medical conditions they have passed clinical trials and have been used on a constant basis on sick people with excellent results. ASC has now been joined by a 'new kid on the block' called Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (IPSC) which are crafted from human skin and altered so that they resemble some of the characteristics of embryonic cells - but with one huge difference - they lack the ultra-sensitivity of embryonic cells which has stalled so many attempts to make them work and, of course, they avoid any moral aversion people might have.
On the other hand, we have the record of ESC which has so far produced in the way of ready-to-go treatments, er, nil, zilch, none! In fact absolutely no ESC research has even reached clinical trials standards - ever. Back in 1998 some researchers, eager for governmental cash, promised that cripples would walk again (who managed that 'miracle' last?) in the next decade. In 2007 the very same researcher described the day of success as "decades away" - and note the plural. Even our very own, much loved TV scientific pundit, Lord Robert Winston, said in 2005, "I am not entirely convinced that embryonic stem cells will, in my lifetime, and possibly anybody's lifetime for that matter, be holding quite the promise that we desperately hope they will."
And yet, and yet . . . with all the ignorant, crass, fashionable stupidity that politicians find so easy to assume, both British and American governments are preparing to splurge your money on chasing this chimera when already tried, tested and proven treatments exist and new adaptations of those treatments need finance to expand their possibilities. Why? Look no further than the anti-Christian 'liberati' and the 'Feministas' who are determined to impose their view that an embryo is simply a globule of cells and that if Christians are against interfering with it, they are for it! They dominate the media and know all the tricks of the agit-prop trade. The universities are right behind them eager for your money to keep their labs in the style to which they aspire. If you're not sure where your money should go, then just remember this, 'It's economics, stupid!' and shrewd investors put there money into proven projects.
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