this isn't just about TV personalities

[editrx]

I know this is a hot topic. I'm sure there are people I know, unawares, who disagree with the scientific concept of using embryonic stem cells for medical research. Heck, I know some members of my own family disagree strongly enough that I wouldn't even dream of bringing up the topic in their company

Comments

[elorie]

You tell 'em. I haven't even been able to think clearly about this, because I start sputtering. But, yeah. Exactly.

I understand

[valeriapalmer]

what you're saying - and I have fibro and undifferentiated connective tissue disorder to deal with and some time ago I would have been completely against any curbs on stem cell research. I would never have believed that someone might conceive in order to harvest stem cells .... but then there were the cases where people had sterilizations reversed and major fertility treatments to conceive children with the stated purpose of becoming cell donors for a sibling - even to the point of testing embryos to get the most likely possibilities (what happened to the ones that didn't make the cut?) so yeah, I have qualms and worries. I don't approve wholly of the current situation in the US, but I'd like to see it made impossible for someone to conceive just to harvest desired cells.

Re: I understand

[editrx]

Like you, I don't see the point of conceiving just to harvest embryonic stem cells. There are plenty that exist without the insanity of that.

But the scare tactics of the far religious right have the majority of the country thinking that "stem cell research" equals "women having babies that are then killed for research." That's just plain nonsense. The existence of Bigfoot is more real than that. Besides, embryonic stem cells are from the very first division of cells at the earliest "embryonic" stage.

I know you know that and that I'm preaching to the choir. :-) But some people don't know that -- and they react in a kneejerk fashion to the term, not realizing they're reacting to a wholly created scare tactic instead of to scientific reality.

But for some, reality is ... not our reality. I find that even scarier, but you can never, ever reason with them. I have family in this camp

Re: I understand

[editrx]

Oh, and, er, I do know that there have been a few (well-publicized) incidents of some mothers having conceived in order to harvest pieces for a sibling that has some sort of need ... which I find ... beyond icky. I mean, children aren't like handbags, and yet some people treat them as such. I find that repulsive as well as incredibly unethical. If there's a child existing who has matching tissue and is old enough and mature enough to make a decision to donate a kidney or a piece of a liver or a bone marrow donation, more power to 'em. But a baby? Or having a child grow up under the pressure that they exist simply to aid their sibling? The ethical and psychological effects of that are devastating, in my opinion. (And, yeah, I'm opinionated. :D )

Re: I understand

[valeriapalmer]

Not only that, but in one case I read about, they had the doctors sorting through the available embryos to select 2 or 3 with the best potential match - so what happened to the "rejects"? That sort of mentality and the willingness of physicians to do it does bother me greatly. I'm also bothered by the embryos created for in vitro that are frozen and never used, eventually discarded.
I'd probably be happier is I didn't think about this stuff - the far right is clearly nuts, but on the other hand there clearly are also people that would do exactly what the far right claims - conceive so they could harvest "the right cells". And that's not a comfortable thing - even though I'm a Republican, I don't like the lunatic fringe to get correct.

[hakeber]

Word. Linked here by ginmar. Will be pimping. For my family it's the lesser Lupus (for which I only have the blood marker for...so far) and adult onset diabetes, which I don't have...yet...and would like to never have.

[editrx]

When you say "lesser" lupus, do you mean discoid (cutaneous) rather than systemic (SLE)? I hate to be the bearer of what could be bad tidings: 10% (which is a low estimate) of discoid patients become systemic, and there's no way to predict it. I'm glad to hear you're not suffering from SLE, as having the ANA titer is going to show in SLE as well as discoid. (Ask me sometime about the ANA test and how inaccurate it is, even with full-blown SLE. I wrote a lot about that in my book on lupus.) I do hope you keep well! (I went and peeked in your LJ when you added me earlier today -- I'm surprised we haven't run into each other before!)

[hakeber]

Actually, I'm willing to bet we have run into each other...a decade or more ago...when I was still doing Worldcons...think knee length brunette hair...and yes, I have heard the ANA titer is not quite so accurate. I will have to ask my mom, and have pointed her here, as she is the one who has had to live with lupus for decades. All I know is she said it wasn't the childhood onset lupus, which is so often deadly, but the one that often onsets during or shortly after pregnancy (did for her) or muchmuch later in life (did for my grandma) and usually let's the sufferer live a very long life... For me, it's been the ever delightful thyroid issues. I just love hormones, yes I do.

[editrx]

There is no childhood onset lupus -- it can and does onset at any time usually after adolescence and most usually at 25-35 or even 40. There is an infant lupus which is a misnomer -- it actually isn't lupus at all, but a discoid form of autoimmune response that looks like the malar rash, and goes away without a recurrence ever again. Many women get lupus coming to the surface (flares) during pregnancy or pregnancy can even clear it up for others.

Was below-elbows brunette hair, here, during Worldcons of ages past, but it's growing out again during this mostly flare-free period, and it's down almost to my elbows again. You may know my spousal unit, Elric.