Denialism

Category: Stem Cells

  • Adult stem cell lies – everything old is new again

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    MarkH
    in

    It’s come time to lie about science again – this time about the reality of embryonic stem cell pluripotency – and some of the old lies are coming back out of the storage shed. For instance, Andrew Breitbart on Real Time last night, and in a video from (liar for Jesus) Tony Perkins of the…

  • Lifting the stem cell ban – was there any point?

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    MarkH
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    President Obama has lifted the ban on embryonic stem cell research enacted by Bush, but I’m left feeling that this intervention came many years too late. Pledging that his administration will “make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology,” President Obama on Monday lifted the Bush administration’s strict limits on human embryonic stem cell research.…

  • Tumors in a (quack) human stem cell therapy

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    MarkH
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    It’s almost like a bad Yakov Smirnoff joke, “In America you test therapies in animals before giving them to humans, in Russia…” All I can do is wonder, what were they thinking? Injecting stem cells into a kid’s spinal fluid to correct a genetic disorder? Are they insane? Stem cells, in particular embryonic and fetal…

  • Reprogramming adult cells into pluripotent stem cells – what do these new results mean

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    MarkH
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    You guys might have noticed I’ve been quiet lately, that’s because I’ve scheduled a thesis defense and am under deadlines. However, I couldn’t let these two (1) papers(2) on reprogramming of human adult cells into stem cells slip by without some comment (NYT piece here) These reports are a follow-up on landmark animal studies that…

  • Saletan on the Ethics of Stem Cells

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    MarkH
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    William Saletan takes the position that progressives have no real bioethical position on stem cells in his most recent column in Slate. I’m a bit disappointed with Saletan over this one, because in his never ending quest to be thoughtful about everything, he’s usually much more fair to people – even those he disagrees with.…

  • Reprogramming adult cells into embryonic stem cells

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    MarkH
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    As promised, I’m going through the three papers from last week about the re-programming of adult cells into an embryonic-like phenotype. Since it is three papers I’ll go through first what’s common to all three, and then what each group did special. First of all, let’s summarize the method one more time.

  • The death of a wedge issue

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    MarkH
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    I hope this time I’m finally right about this. I’ve been hopeful that some strategy of developing stem cells would allow us to bypass the absurd ethical restrictions from those who think one type of destruction of an embryo is worse than another. Particularly promising were spermatogonial stem cells, but they could only be made…

  • Promising Embryonic Stem Cell News

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    MarkH
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    This new paper from Stem Cells is a wonderful example of the potential of human embryonic stem cells (hESC) to treat diseases like Type I diabetes. The reason type I diabetes is such an obvious target for hESC therapy get a little complicated, but I’ll walk you guys through this paper, and recent results in…

  • Adult Stem Cell Nonsense

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    MarkH
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    For this Friday afternoon I thought I’d rehash a previous post from denialism.com on adult stem cells and those that hype results inappropriately to disparage embryonic stem (ES) cells. It all started with an exciting JAMA article about using autologous stem cell transplants to help treat type I diabetics who still had some capacity to…