Wednesday Buffet (with some anti-war sauce)

Wednesday Buffet (with some anti-war sauce)

Today’s news is mostly non-research related, and none of it is earthshaking, so I’m throwing it together in one entry.

NPR has two summary stories; one’s a Q&A on stem cells, and one’s a timeline of the stem cell debate. Nice and clear, but probably not new information to people who are already interested in stem cells.

There’s also a little bit of international news. I neglected to report yesterday on the new Adult Stem Cell Research Centre opening in Australia; the news was covered by various Australian newspapers. The press release appeared on EurekAlert today. The Australian government is invest $22 million (Australian) in the center, which will be based at Griffith University in Queensland. The Australian government continues to have taken no action on the Lockhart report, which recommended permitting therapeutic cloning when it was released some months ago.

In US politics, the state House of Colorado voted yesterday to pressure the US Senate into passing a bill that would lift some of the restrictions on embryonic stem cell research funding. The Grand Junction Sentinel reports that some of the debate framed embryonic stem cell research as using “human bodies.” One opponent was quoted as saying that taxpayers shouldn’t pay for research they are morally opposed to: ““When some of we the people ... do consider this to be experimenting with human bodies, then ... we shouldn’t go down that road.”

[Hello! I’m morally opposed to war, but my taxes go to it—and this government has spent way way way more on Iraq than it will ever spend on science. What about those human bodies? It would be great if we could choose as taxpayers where to allocate our money and a budget could be drawn up based on that. Of course some programs would fall apart and it wouldn’t work, but it would be interesting to see where Americans really value putting their money.]

OK, end of the editorial. In other US political news, the Kansas City Star has an article about comments made yesterday by Missouri Senator Jim Talent opposing the ballot initiative which would legalize embryonic stem cell research and somatic cell nuclear transfer. His Democratic opponent for Senate accused him of riding a “painful” fence because he withdrew support for a federal bill that would ban human cloning but still says eh is opposed to cloning. He supports the “altered nuclear transfer” procedure, which is still highly experimental. He did say, “What I have found over the years is people want you to analyze the situation, take the position that you think is right, and they generally appreciate that kind of approach, even if they don’t agree with you.” And I agree with him on that. Decisions made on conscience that have been informed by rational thinking and critical analysis have to be respected. The Star also had an article about the approaches being taken by opponents to embryonic stem cell research in the Missouri legislature. It also outlines the debate about embryonic stem cell research as it is being played out in state politics in clear terms. Again, an opponet said that taxpayers should not be in the position of “funding research they find morally repugnant.”

Again, I find war morally repugnant. Let’s see the pro-lifers do something about my values for not killing people who have been born.

Boy, I’m just feeling cranky and oppositional today. Not to mention off topic. I hope some nice interesting research come along.