Embryonic Stem Cells Unnecessary for Medical Progress :: Argumentative Persuasive Topics

Embryonic Stem Cells Unnecessary for Medical Progress Reporting on new research by Dr. Donald Orlic of the National Institutes of Health and others, indicating that adult bone marrow stem cells can help repair, and restore function in, damaged hearts: "Until now, researchers thought that stem cells from embryos offered the best hope for rebuilding damaged organs, but this latest research shows that the embryos, which are politically controversial, may not be necessary. 'We are currently finding that these adult stem cells can function as well, perhaps even better than, embryonic stem cells,' Orlic said." - "Approach may repair heart damage," MSNBC, March 30, 2001 (www.msnbc.com/news/552456.asp) * * * "Umbilical cords discarded after birth may offer a vast new source of repair material for fixing brains damaged by strokes and other ills, free of the ethical concerns surrounding the use of fetal tissue, researchers said Sunday." - "Umbilical cords could repair brains," Associated Press, February 20, 2001 * * * "PPL Therapeutics, the company that cloned Dolly the sheep, has succeeded in 'reprogramming' a cell -- a move that could lead to the development of treatments for diseases such as diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The Scotland-based group will today announce that it has turned a cow's skin cell into a beating heart cell and is close to starting research on humans... The PPL announcement...will be seen as an important step towards producing stem cells without using human embryos." - "PPL follows Dolly with cell breakthrough," Financial Times, February 23, 2001 * * * "[O]rgan-specific adult stem cells appear to display much more plasticity than originally thought. Stem cells isolated from one tissue can differentiate into a variety of unrelated cell types and tissues... These findings raise the exciting possibility of using bone marrow transplantation to treat a wide variety of disorders, such as muscular dystrophies, Parkinson disease, stroke, and hepatic failure." - E. Kaji and J. Leiden, "Gene and Stem Cell Therapies," Journal of the American Medical Association, February 7, 2001, p. 547 * * * "[S]ince adult bone marrow has recently been found to contain stem cells of previously unrecognized 'plasticity' that are able to form a variety of types of cell -- muscle, liver, neural, bone, cartilage, endothelial, and perhaps others -- it may be possible to use marrow stem cells in cytotherapeutic approaches to a wide spectrum of diseases, such as cardiac disorders, muscular dystrophy, liver disease, neurodegenerative conditions, and joint diseases.