Author Topic: US stem cell research sabotaged again  (Read 12958 times)

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Offline Liberator

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Re: US stem cell research sabotaged again
You guys go on and on about how the private sector is raping this, that or the other thing and is basically evil incarnate with no basis in reality.  And then when the shoe is on the other foot and it's at least a possibility that things could go horribly, horribly wrong you laugh and point fingers.  This confuses me greatly and troubles more than a little.
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Offline General Battuta

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Re: US stem cell research sabotaged again
You guys go on and on about how the private sector is raping this, that or the other thing and is basically evil incarnate with no basis in reality.  And then when the shoe is on the other foot and it's at least a possibility that things could go horribly, horribly wrong you laugh and point fingers.  This confuses me greatly and troubles more than a little.

Instead of making up a new fantasy to talk about and then claiming that we've bought into it (by the way, I want specific quotes to back up your claim that we're accusing the private sector of being a rapist incarnate evil), could you please respond to the responses to your previous point?

Are you here to discuss or just troll?

 

Offline MP-Ryan

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Re: US stem cell research sabotaged again
You guys go on and on about how the private sector is raping this, that or the other thing and is basically evil incarnate with no basis in reality.  And then when the shoe is on the other foot and it's at least a possibility that things could go horribly, horribly wrong you laugh and point fingers.  This confuses me greatly and troubles more than a little.
When you've finished your foray into that warped fantasy you've created, kindly respond to this post.  Until then, I'm not wasting my time on your silliness.
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Offline General Battuta

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Re: US stem cell research sabotaged again
Until you get past the notion that you have to kill babies to get the cells, you're going to fundamentally misunderstand the basics of this debate, Liberator.

 

Offline chief1983

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Re: US stem cell research sabotaged again
I actually did target parts of the private sector with my post, but Liberator, are you saying you agree with patents on the human genome?  Or that the private sector has a track history of openness with its medical achievements in general?  That was all that's been pointed out so far.
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Offline Herra Tohtori

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Re: US stem cell research sabotaged again
You guys go on and on about how the private sector is raping this, that or the other thing and is basically evil incarnate with no basis in reality.  And then when the shoe is on the other foot and it's at least a possibility that things could go horribly, horribly wrong you laugh and point fingers.  This confuses me greatly and troubles more than a little.


Public research will reduce costs of end products, make them accessible to wider target group and improve competition between multiple companies, as opposed to a situation where one company had done all the research privately, patented all research results and then demanded royalties for any company who would want to enter competition on that particular field and develope products based on such research. That only benefits the single company's shareholders, it makes the end product more expensive, and reduces the fairness of the competition.

In addition it's ridiculous what sort of things are "patented" on continuous basis.

As an example, patenting entire genomes or their parts is just as silly as if Enrico Fermi had patented fission reaction.

As far as I'm concerned, nothing that appears in the nature should be possible to "patent". Transgenetic plants are a good example - typically, genes aren't made from scratch. Grossly simplified, if you want a cold-resistant, high-yield type of the plant, you look at what parts of the genome make the cold-resistant variant cold-resistant, extract those, insert them into a high-yield cultivar's genome and hope that the hack-slash job you made plays nicely together with parts of itself. When you're done, you should have a high-yield cultivar with increased resistance to cold (or diseases or whatever).

But you did not do the work of evolution - you looked at the genes for cold resistance, took them from the cold-resistant cultivar's genome and transplated them into the high-yield cultivar's genome.

Because you didn't manually encode the DNA strings, you don't really have any right to patent the resulting genome. Sure, you can patent the specific way you did it and you can define a price for the end product, but you shouldn't be able to prevent someone else from doing the same thing.

If you want, you can keep the research results secret, but patenting something like this is ludicrous. Let's say someone else does the same research and comes to same conclusions, and does a similar or same gene transplantation. But if someone else did the research first and patented it, they would have no right to sell the end product because it would infringe on the patented genome of the cold-resistand high-yield cultivar.

This kind of things could be averted if basic research and resulting knowledge were mainly done via public funding. Private companies then could each access the knowledge and use it for their own developement, which they could of course patent within reasonable limits.


Oh and I realize that the patent issues of transgenetic plants has little in common with stem cell research - superficially. But the underlying issues are still the same.


I could see a case where a privately funded research figures how to create, say, embryonic stem cell line that produces widely compatible transplant organs, but would then proceed to patent said line of cells, which would severely reduce the actual usefulness of said discovery, for the monetary gain of rather narrow group of people.
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Offline MP-Ryan

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Re: US stem cell research sabotaged again
Since it's come up three times now in this thread, I'll just mention that the BRAC1 and BRCA2 gene patents formerly held by Myriad Genetics Inc were recently struck down entirely.  gene patenting is on its way out and, as most geneticists will tell you, this is nothing but [Martha Stewart Mode] a good thing [/martha].

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/business/30gene.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=business
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/patents.shtml

Also, some countries, Canada among them, do not enforce some gene patents - Health Canada has been quietly circumventing Myriads patent for years because patient health in breast cancer testing comes first.  For those not familiar with Myriad's business tactics, they have been charging exorbitant amounts for a very simple and easily performed genetic screening test because, well, they could.  The cost of Myriad's test was extremely prohibitive, despite the fact that the technology to do it very cheaply has been around for nearly a decade.  In short, it was a money-grab.
« Last Edit: August 29, 2010, 10:03:16 pm by MP-Ryan »
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Offline karajorma

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Re: US stem cell research sabotaged again
Liberator, I'm giving you a formal warning. If you wish to take part in a debate you must actually answer the points the other side make. If you continue to jump about ignoring everyone* who responds to you, you will be permanently excluded from Gen. Discuss.


*Yes I realise that cause you know little about this subject you're getting corrections from lots of different people but you've ignored ALL of them. If you were at least picking one and answering I couldn't make a legitimate argument that you were simply trolling here.
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Offline Kosh

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Re: US stem cell research sabotaged again
Until you get past the notion that you have to kill babies to get the cells, you're going to fundamentally misunderstand the basics of this debate, Liberator.

Unfortunately there are hordes of people in america who think the same way.
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Offline Bobboau

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Re: US stem cell research sabotaged again
fun fact, you can do embryonic stem cell research using stem cells from fetuses that grow to be adults who can then be cured by the treatments that were developed using their cells.
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Offline Liberator

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Re: US stem cell research sabotaged again
Just had this thought in the shower, it's where most of my coherent thinking goes on(based on that statement, I should probably live in it :p)

But if In Vitro clinics discard thousands of embryos a year, why aren't these already being used by the Stem Cell researchers?
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Offline Turambar

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Re: US stem cell research sabotaged again
because of all the underinformed morons who think we will have abortion farms to harvest embryos

sometimes it's a real shame that democracy means people like that get the power to influence important decisions  :doubt:
« Last Edit: August 30, 2010, 07:39:04 am by Turambar »
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Offline Ghostavo

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Re: US stem cell research sabotaged again
Just had this thought in the shower, it's where most of my coherent thinking goes on(based on that statement, I should probably live in it :p)

But if In Vitro clinics discard thousands of embryos a year, why aren't these already being used by the Stem Cell researchers?

Without knowing much about the subject, I'd wager that they are being used. It's just that research doesn't need to use all of them and that without public funding, most research won't be done and as a result, the embryos won't be used.

If I understood correctly, this issue is not as much about the embryos as it is about irrational fear of science, whatever area it may be.
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Offline Bobboau

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Re: US stem cell research sabotaged again
But if In Vitro clinics discard thousands of embryos a year, why aren't these already being used by the Stem Cell researchers?

/*facepalm*/
really?
REALLY?

ok, normally I think this accusation gets thrown around too much, but you have got to be trolling.

They aren't being used because Bush made an executive order forbidding them being used, this topic is about the process of undoing the laws and orders and restrictions that Bush put over this field of research. every argument you have gotten into over this subject the side you were fighting was trying to get what you just suggested. in short they aren't being used because YOU fought to prevent them from being used.
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Offline General Battuta

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Re: US stem cell research sabotaged again
But if In Vitro clinics discard thousands of embryos a year, why aren't these already being used by the Stem Cell researchers?

/*facepalm*/
really?
REALLY?

ok, normally I think this accusation gets thrown around too much, but you have got to be trolling.

They aren't being used because Bush made an executive order forbidding them being used, this topic is about the process of undoing the laws and orders and restrictions that Bush put over this field of research. every argument you have gotten into over this subject the side you were fighting was trying to get what you just suggested. in short they aren't being used because YOU fought to prevent them from being used.

Well, it is sort of a fair question, and while your answer is true I want to add that the Obama administration recently loosened the guidelines such that Liberator's desire was achieved: the discarded embryos could be used IF the parents consented without duress.

Unfortunately this court decision has, in turn, reversed that, and we're back to status quo circa Bush.

 

Offline Bobboau

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Re: US stem cell research sabotaged again
I just don't get how he can argue this much, five pages in the thread alone, and not has such a rudimentary grasp on the subject! on the part of the subject his 'side' has control of!
there is only one answer, he b troll'n.
it's the only thing that makes sense.
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Offline karajorma

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Re: US stem cell research sabotaged again
Actually Liberator is a good example of the demographic Bush was appealing to when he passed that stupid executive order in the first place.

The fact that they don't understand the basics of the subject matter isn't going to stop them from saying yes or no to something in a very firm voice and with rock hard conviction that they are 100% correct to do so.

I don't think we can claim that the entire pro-life movement is trolling but the majority of them express similar sentiments to Liberator. That said, it is very tempting to assume that they might be. :p

Anyway, I'd rather Liberator is asking questions and hopefully learning something than what he has been doing so far. So I'm not going to say he's trolling while he's actually asking questions instead of giving ill founded opinions instead of debating.
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Offline chief1983

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Re: US stem cell research sabotaged again
I guess /b/ has a lot to learn from the Pro-Life movement when it comes to serious trolling.
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Offline Mongoose

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Re: US stem cell research sabotaged again
To be fair, there are plenty of people in the pro-life movement who are against the IVF procedures that produce all of those embryos in the first place.  That's sort of why I'm somewhat personally undecided on the ethics of using embryos consigned to the garbage heap, since I find their initial creation process inherently unethical.

 

Offline Liberator

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Re: US stem cell research sabotaged again
Ok, Bob, to be fair, I've only posted in this thread about 5 or 6 times(asinine or not).  Also, the reason I asked about the In Vitro stuff is because I saw it mentioned above and was genuinely curious about it.  I tend not to spend an enormous amount of time watching the news(Which includes Fox, The Big Three and the lesser networks) because I am sick of the amount of stupidity oozing from just about ever single person on there. 

The single worst thing that has happened to American Culture(please don't spew that "Melting Pot" bull hockey, we take the good stuff and bin the rest) is the advent of the 24 hour news cycle.  Because what ends up happening is that instead of 18 hours between broadcasts or 10 hours between publishing intervals to allow people to think and process what has been reported you have 4 major channels(Fox, CNN, (P)MS-NBC, and Headline News) and The Big Three egging things on and blowing a lot of it completely out of proportion to get people to turn on and watch CNN over Fox, or HN over MS-NBC.  It has also accelerated the speed that Politics happens, which is bad for a whole host of reasons I won't go into here.
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