I wonder if he missed me? I ask because in an idle moment I clicked on to an old e-pal, Michael Fumento, whom I first came across back in the days when I subscribed to the print version of The American Spectator. I always admired him for being one of the first of the few who demolished the idea of hetero-sexual AIDS when the politically correct were too frit to own up to the fact that AIDS was almost always a result of practices associated with the extreme homo-sexual fringe. Needless to say, the wrath of the liberati fell upon his head. He was amongst the first bloggers I made contact with once I had mastered (heh!) this computer-thingie. Mind you, when it came to demolition Fumento could dish it out faster and heavier than his many opponents. He is in that mould of pugnacious American polemicists, not to everyone's taste but I like him - whilst not agreeing absolutely with everything he writes.
However, one of his most favourite bones upon which he would chew and slaver was on the subject of stem cell research. Fumento is not a qualified doctor but over the years he has built up an enormous knowledge and expertise, plus a stable of very well qualified informants, which allows him to demolish (yes, that word again) some of the many spurious claims made in this sensitive area of research which touches upon the pain and anguish of many, many people. The main point, which Fumento makes clear over and over again, is that there are two types of stem cell research. The first deals with Adult Stem Cells (ASC) about which there is no controversy. Somehow the quacks can remove living cells from adults, stir them around, add a pinch of this, a peck of that and then, hey presto, they inject it into an ill person and they get better! Treatments based on ASCs are now almost 'old hat' and they have proven to be enormously successful in over 70 different ailments.
But ESCs, Embryonic Stem Cells, is a very different ballgame! In these procedures the stem cells are taken from dead babies. Oh dear, I shouldn't have put it that way, it will only cause the extreme feminists to kick off on one because to talk of 'dead babies' implies a criticism of abortion, so instead, one must talk of 'surplus foetuses' which is nicely clinical and detached, and anyway, as they might put it, what else are you going to do with the left-overs, so to speak, from all this IVF treatment that is going on? Happily, in this cruel age, there are still a few people with some sensitivity left, even if most of them live in middle America and so Congress has managed to cut most funds available for medical research using dead babies as a source material. This has crimped the style of some medical foundations who need the money, and their go-getting young researchers who are desperate to win a Nobel prize!
Earlier this month I heard the usual 'gasping, amazing, incredible', reports from reporters - whatever happened to the cynical journalist? - announcing that Geron Corp. were about to conduct live experiments using ESCs on people paralyzed with broken spines and that these ESCs would begin to remake the damage in the patients' backs and, lo, they would walk again! I have heard this sort of claim over and over again through the last 25-odd years and up to date not one single experiment has been tried on humans because they were all abject failures when tested on animals (whilst ASC research has proven to be a constant winner!) Anyway, will this, the very first ESC trial on humans prove successful? Unlikely, is the verdict of Fumento and his source on this story, David Bennet, a neuroscientist:
First, the animal research that led to the trial has been severely misrepresented, including by the late Ed Bradley on "60 Minutes," who enthralled viewers with talk of "paralyzed" rats who, after injections with ESCs, "were able to walk again."
But the rodents didn’t need wheelchairs; their injury was "moderate in severity," according to the study by Hans Keirstead and colleagues.
"I don’t understand [having] human trials because the animal studies aren’t very convincing," David Bennett , a University of Alberta neuroscientist renowned for his experimentation with spinal-cord injuries, told me. He thinks much more lab work should have been done.
"My gut feeling is that it’s a scam," he said.
As always, it is necessary to check the small print:
Geron says it will only treat patients injured in the preceding two weeks. Yet that’s when injured spinal cords are spontaneously generating new cells in an effort to heal. Studies in cats with completely severed spines show that with mere treadmill exercise, as one found , all of them could walk again without assistance, though sadly their mouse-chasing days were behind them.
Alas, humans don’t heal like cats. But even if none of Geron’s patients shows any improvement in sensation or mobility, sensitive tests like electromyography or one mercifully abbreviated to SEP can detect increases in cell growth or something called plasticity.
That would give Geron a chance to claim success when there was none.
So, when the headlines blare out, it's best to read the background and you will not find better background than Michael Fumento's site.
(*) St. John, V.viii
A "minor" point perhaps (notice, notice I placed the minor in quotes).
Anyway, muddling ahead, it is my understanding that the ESCs are to be extracted from one of several eggs a woman has "donated" in an effort to let some quack fiddle around mixing his potions and whatnot and applying his quackery in an effort to make at least one of the eggs viable - which said quack would then "implant" in said woman's well, you know so that she could then produce a smelly squealing little person.
If the above mentioned woman hasn't an intention in the world of replicating the "success" of Octomom (if you need an explanation, just ask) then any "left over eggs" will be cast down the toilet anyway - or however the "nice way" is of saying the eggs will be destroyed.
I'm totally unqualified to posit whether the "science" has a rat's ass in hell's chance of repairing spinal cord damage so I'll not venture an opinion either "Yea or Nay" as to that. (No matter my usual propensity for opining on other stuff I'm admittedly equally unqualified to opine on). But if the egg(s) is(are) to be placed in the trash anyway, why not allow the quacks to have a go?
It's not as if Obama hasn't printed up a bunch of dollars for the express purpose of funding "research." Whether you're aware of it on your side of the pond - recently it was announced "research" was funded to successfully capture copious quantities of whale-snot, the results of which will undoubtedly lead to further improvements for mankind.
Posted by: JK | Tuesday, 26 October 2010 at 08:36