To be fair maybe he just didn't understand it. I'm sure there were alot of big words. I think they should make picture books out of the legislation for him to "read". You know, kind of like the Disney follow-along books on tape.
When White House political adviser Karl Rove signaled last week that President Bush planned to veto the stem cell bill being considered by the Senate, the reasons he gave went beyond the president's moral qualms with research on human embryos.
In fact, Rove waded into deeply contentious scientific territory, telling the Denver Post's editorial board that researchers have found "far more promise from adult stem cells than from embryonic stem cells."
The administration's assessment of stem cell science has extra meaning in the wake of the Senate's 63-37 vote Tuesday to expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. The measure, which passed the House last year, will now head to Bush, who has vowed to veto it.
But Rove's negative appraisal of embryonic stem cell research--echoed by many opponents of funding for such research--is inaccurate, according to most stem cell research scientists, including a dozen contacted for this story.
The field of stem cell medicine is too young and unproven to make such judgments, experts say. Many of those researchers either specialize in adult stem cells or share Bush's moral reservations about embryonic stem cells.
"[Rove's] statement is just not true," said Dr. Michael Clarke, associate director of the stem cell institute at Stanford University, who in 2003 published the first study showing how adult stem cells replenish themselves.
If opponents of embryonic stem cell research object on moral grounds, "I'm willing to live with that," Clarke said, though he disagrees. But, he said, "I'm not willing to live with statements that are misleading."
Dr. Markus Grompe, director of the stem cell center at the Oregon Health and Science University, is a Catholic who objects to research involving the destruction of embryos and is seeking alternative ways of making stem cells. But Grompe said there is "no factual basis to compare the promise" of adult stem cells and cells taken from embryos.
Grompe said, "I think it's a problem when [opponents of embryonic research] make a scientific argument as opposed to stating the real reason they are opposed--which is [that] it's a moral, ethical problem."
Last week, the journal Science published a letter from three researchers criticizing the claim that adult stem cells are preferable to embryonic stem cells. The authors included Dr. Steven Teitelbaum of Washington University in St. Louis, who has used adult stem cells to treat bone diseases in children. The authors wrote that the exaggerated claims for adult stem cells "mislead laypeople and cruelly deceive patients."
The bill heading for Bush's desk would expand federal funding of work on stem cells taken from embryos. Such cells come from extra embryos originally created for in-vitro fertilization. Many experts believe embryonic stem cells could one day help regenerate damaged tissue for patients with conditions such as diabetes, spinal cord injury or Parkinson's disease, though embryonic cells have not yet been tested in humans.
Adult stem cells, which usually come from bone marrow transplants or umbilical cord blood, are widely considered less flexible than embryonic stem cells in forming many types of tissue. Yet adult stem cells already are in common use for certain conditions, such as replenishing immune cells after cancer treatment and treating some bone and blood disorders.
Bush allowed limited funding of embryonic stem cell work in August 2001, but he banned funding of cells taken from embryos after that date. However, private foundations and companies have continued to fund new embryonic research.
Many scientists and lawmakers argue that the federal funding limitation has hindered progress.
White House spokesman Ken Lisaius on Tuesday could not provide the name of a stem cell researcher who shares Rove's views on the superior promise of adult stem cells.
One of the only published scientists arguing that adult stem cells are better is David Prentice, a former professor of life sciences at Indiana State University and now a fellow at the Family Research Council, a conservative advocacy group.
The letter to Science last week was critical of a list Prentice compiled of 72 diseases that have been treated with adult stem cells.
Yet most of the treatments on the list "remain unproven," wrote Teitelbaum of Washington University and his co-authors, who claimed that Prentice "misrepresents existing adult stem cell treatments."
Prentice said in an interview that the Science authors "put words in our mouths"--he never claimed that the adult stem cell therapies were proven, only that they had benefited some patients. But he said some of his citations were unwarranted..
"We've cleaned up that list now," he said. Asked how the errors occurred, he said, "I think things just got stuck in."
One of the scientists on Prentice's list is Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg, a pediatric hematologist at Duke University Medical Center who has used umbilical cord blood to treat Tay-Sachs disease and other rare disorders. Kurtzberg said it's wrong to see stem cell science as a competition with only one winner.
"We don't know enough about the potential of either kind of cell," Kurtzberg said. "I don't think one type is going to be the answer to everything."
Originally posted by: Meuge
On religious ground... one that will harden his support among the hateful, ignorant sheep.
Originally posted by: ECUHITMAN
The best part about all of this is Bush and Co. think they are preserving life by vetoing this bill. After a period of time these embryos are destroyed anyway so if they are 'killed' either way why not have them killed for the benefit of those that are currently living?
On a side note, I find pro lifers hysterical. Some support capitol punishment, support the war in Iraq, but are 100% against the destruction of a clump of cells.
Originally posted by: GoPackGo
Originally posted by: Meuge
On religious ground... one that will harden his support among the hateful, ignorant sheep.
whose religion? Certainly not mine.
Some of you are a bit sensationalist in your attacks on the religious right.The Extreme Right Wing Zelots who's ultimate desire is to control everyones life - America's Taliban.
Originally posted by: Starbuck1975
Some of you are a bit sensationalist in your attacks on the religious right.The Extreme Right Wing Zelots who's ultimate desire is to control everyones life - America's Taliban.
For all its faults, the religious right has Constitutional protection to its beliefs and values...and one of those values just happens to be opposition to the notion of stem cell research...
that is so harsh. who are you calling hateful ignorant sheep exactly?Originally posted by: Meuge
On religious ground... one that will harden his support among the hateful, ignorant sheep.
people like to use the word ignorant in here for some reason. the President is not ignorant. he is definitely opinionated on the topic of stem cell research, but he is not lacking education or knowledge.Originally posted by: PrinceofWands
Originally posted by: 2Xtreme21
How moronic is this President?
Edit: Link
On what ground does Bush think he is standing??
On the grounds he's an ignorant religious zealot with no intention of representing the people of the United States, only his own twisted aspirations.
Bush to stem cell community: Drop dead
President's veto of embryonic research funding reflects incoherent policy
COMMENTARY
By Arthur Caplan, Ph.D.
MSNBC contributor
President Bush?s embryonic stem cell policy began with lies and has now ended with one.
Bush reserved his first veto as president for one of the only valuable things this do-almost-nothing Congress has managed to actually get done.
With a flourish of a veto pen that has remained dormant no matter how dopey Congress has been, the Senate bill allowing public funding of embryonic stem cell research has been consigned to the legislative trash can.
An administration that has shown itself over and over again to have trouble telling the truth is now telling Americans in wheelchairs, those with damaged hearts, babies who are diabetic and those left immobile by Parkinsonism not to worry. The president, whose grasp of science left him unable to identify creationism as a fundamentally religious idea, and his trusty sidekick Karl Rove, rarely seen in a white lab coat but who knows something about rats, having been in Washington for some time now, claim to know best which medical research is most likely to benefit diseased Americans in the future.
When Bush uttered his first confused words on the subject of embryonic stem cell research five years ago in August 2001, he said that he was opposed to embryonic stem cell research since it involved the destruction of human life.
He noted that there were embryos, and many of them, already in existence in infertility clinics and left unwanted by those who created them. But he held it was wrong to use those in research. Instead, he told us, he had found a way out of the dilemma of how to do embryonic stem cell research without destroying any embryos.
What had Bush figured out that no one in the scientific community could see then and remains unable to see now?
There were, he said, 60 stem cell lines that had been made from embryos which held ?great promise that could lead to breakthrough therapies and cures.? If he gave federal money to support research on those lines and funded research on adult stem cells, such as bone marrow, fetal blood cells taken from umbilical cords and other adult stem cells found in skin, muscle and the intestine, then all would be well.
Wrong science, flawed ethics
The president?s supporters, a much larger set then than now, blessed his insight and his wisdom in producing a marvelous "compromise" and pronounced the quandary over stem cell research resolved.
Except, as even the president must have known and some of his most vocal supporters knew, the president was talking through his hat.
There were never 60 embryonic stem cell lines available for research. Not even close. Even if there had been, that number would never have been enough to support serious research on diseases and disorders for very long, as experts in embryonic stem cell research found out in less than a year.
Not only was Bush?s science wrong, the ethics behind his so-called compromise were deeply flawed, too.
If the president deemed it moral to use cell lines made from human embryos that had already been destroyed, then why would he argue that other embryos headed inevitably for destruction couldn?t be the source of new stem cell lines?
In fact, if the president was so concerned about the fate of embryos, why did he not speak out to close infertility programs around the country that destroy embryos? Why did he not try to shut down privately funded embryonic stem cell research? And, if the president was so worried about destructive embryo research, why did he not propose a ban on bringing across our borders any cure or therapy that might be discovered overseas if it was based on embryonic stem cell research?
If adult stem cell research were really an alternative to embryonic, then why have nearly all but the tiniest handful of the experts who work on stem cells maintained that this is false? And why has the president failed to secure the agreement of a single medical or scientific society of any standing with his position that a combination of funding a small number of existing stem cell lines made from human embryos and a push behind adult stem cell research is the best strategy to mend damaged brains and heal broken spinal cords?
Evidence that the president?s views rest firmly on a foundation of deception layered with a rich mix of confusion and inconsistency is to be found in the enthusiasm with which Britain, China, India, Israel, Australia, Russia, Sweden, Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, Singapore, Korea, South Africa, France and many other nations have launched embryonic stem cell research programs.
The only people who continue to put faith in the policy of promoting government funding for only adult stem cell research that the president is still babbling on about are the president, his close advisors, some conservative groups motivated by deeply-held religious views concerning embryos and a few neoconservative polemicists who seem desperate to find an issue that might bring them redemption after doing such a fine job contributing to the design of American foreign policy under Bush.
Sending a clear message
With his veto of the bill creating federal funding and regulation over embryonic stem cell research, the president continues to ask us and, more notably, those who are sick and ailing amongst us, to swallow a false, morally incoherent policy.
Not too long after the president?s first speech on the subject, the sick and ailing recognized the president was not wise, but rather wacky, and decided to do something about it. With the help of high-profile efforts involving Nancy Reagan, Christopher Reeve, Mary Tyler Moore, Michael J. Fox and a less visible but incredibly committed and hugely influential phalanx of disease advocacy organizations a sound policy about embryonic stem cell research was articulated.
The policy to permit closely monitored federal funding swung hearts and minds in both houses of Congress. Governors and state legislators and, yes, even those in the media began to understand that the only sensible strategy in the battle against disease, infirmity, disability and death is to put the chips of public funding behind all forms of stem cell research ? embryonic and adult.
With his veto the president has now reaffirmed a policy that never made any sense, garnered no scientific support to speak of, was abandoned by both houses of Congress and the leaders of his own party and, most importantly, got no traction with those most in need of the benefits of the research ? patients and their families.
The president has now told doctors, researchers and patients to drop dead. Science policy in the Bush administration is best made in the White House, not by scientists and not by Congress.
Originally posted by: moshquerade
the President is not ignorant. he is definitely opinionated on the topic of stem cell reason, but he is not lacking education or knowledge.
that would've been ignorant. :laugh:Originally posted by: Todd33
Originally posted by: moshquerade
the President is not ignorant. he is definitely opinionated on the topic of stem cell research, but he is not lacking education or knowledge.
I just about spit my coke on my monitor, thanks for the laugh.
Originally posted by: moshquerade
people like to use the word ignorant in here for some reason. the President is not ignorant. he is definitely opinionated on the topic of stem cell research, but he is not lacking education or knowledge.Originally posted by: PrinceofWands
Originally posted by: 2Xtreme21
How moronic is this President?
Edit: Link
On what ground does Bush think he is standing??
On the grounds he's an ignorant religious zealot with no intention of representing the people of the United States, only his own twisted aspirations.
i wouldn't wish bodily disintegration on my worst enemy, but hey, that is the difference between people like you and people like me.Originally posted by: PrinceofWands
Originally posted by: moshquerade
people like to use the word ignorant in here for some reason. the President is not ignorant. he is definitely opinionated on the topic of stem cell research, but he is not lacking education or knowledge.Originally posted by: PrinceofWands
Originally posted by: 2Xtreme21
How moronic is this President?
Edit: Link
On what ground does Bush think he is standing??
On the grounds he's an ignorant religious zealot with no intention of representing the people of the United States, only his own twisted aspirations.
I disagree. I believe he is not only unintelligent, but dedicated to remaining uninformed and incapable of dealing with reality in any form.
Of course, the fact that I consider him one of the worst politicians of all time, and would just as soon break him into tiny bits as give him the time of day, might bias my opinion somewhat.
If the reason for this opposition to stem cell research is that the cells are destroyed, why doesn't the religious right ban fertility clinics all together? They are destroying the majority of fertilized embryos they produce anyway.
Oh right, the religious right doesn't understand science so they can't adopt a consistent policy.
Originally posted by: moshquerade
i wouldn't wish bodily disintegration on my worst enemy, but hey, that is the difference between people like you and people like me.Originally posted by: PrinceofWands
Originally posted by: moshquerade
people like to use the word ignorant in here for some reason. the President is not ignorant. he is definitely opinionated on the topic of stem cell research, but he is not lacking education or knowledge.Originally posted by: PrinceofWands
Originally posted by: 2Xtreme21
How moronic is this President?
Edit: Link
On what ground does Bush think he is standing??
On the grounds he's an ignorant religious zealot with no intention of representing the people of the United States, only his own twisted aspirations.
I disagree. I believe he is not only unintelligent, but dedicated to remaining uninformed and incapable of dealing with reality in any form.
Of course, the fact that I consider him one of the worst politicians of all time, and would just as soon break him into tiny bits as give him the time of day, might bias my opinion somewhat.