British Section of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life

Daily Telegraph

By Roger Highfield, Science Editor

A safer way to turn one kind of cell into another has been developed that could make it much easier to develop revolutionary new treatments based on stem cells.

From Wesley J. Smith, 15 June 2008.

So many of these adult stem cell success stories come to me now, that I am unable to post them all here at SHS. Two recent examples: A new adult stem cell therapy is successfully restoring vision to people with chemical injuries and a genetic defect that causes impaired vision. From the story:

Using stem cells from tissue donors, surgeons grew the cells in the laboratory before transplanting them onto the patients' eyes.

Dr Julie Daniels, who is leading the research team, will present the results at a conference on regenerative medicine being held in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, today. She said: "Before the surgery the patients were barely able to recognise when someone was waving a hand in front of their face but we have restored their vision to the point they can read three to four lines down the eye chart."

Nineteen patients have now received the treatment, known as limbal stem cell therapy, at Moorfields Eye Hospital.

Meanwhile, scientists have discovered a molecule that may one day lead to important regenerative techniques with a patient's own nerve stem cells. From the story:

Inspired by a chance discovery during another experiment, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have created a small molecule that stimulates nerve stem cells to begin maturing into nerve cells in culture.

This finding might someday allow a person's own nerve stem cells to be grown outside the body, stimulated into maturity, and then re-implanted as working nerve cells to treat various diseases, the researchers said. "This provides a critical starting point for neuro-regenerative medicine and brain cancer chemotherapy," said Dr. Jenny Hsieh, assistant professor of molecular biology and senior author of the paper, which appears online today and in the June 17 issue of Nature Chemical Biology

This is the opposite of no news being good news. With adult stem cell research, too much news to fit manageably within a blog format is very good news, indeed.

From Wesley J. Smith.

Adult Stem Cells Taken from Parkinson's Disease Patients Produce Dopamin Making Cells in Brains of Rats!

This could be the early stages of some very good news for Parkinson's patients. Two years ago SHS readers learned that human paralyzed spinal cord injury patients have had feeling restored with their own nasal mucosa stem cells--a story utterly ignored by an MSM that would have shouted the breakthrough from the rooftops if it had been done with embryonic stem cells. And now, another type of human nasal stem cells from human Parkinson's patients have dramatically improved the brain functioning of rats giving hope for an eventual Parkinson's treatment. From the story:

The Griffith University study published today in the journal Stem Cells found that adult stem cells harvested from the noses of Parkinson's patients gave rise to dopamine-producing brain cells when transplanted into the brain of a rat. The debilitating symptoms of Parkinson's such as loss of muscle control are caused by degeneration of cells that produce the essential chemical dopamine in the brain...

Project leader Professor Alan Mackay-Sim said researchers simulated Parkinson's symptoms in rats by creating lesions on one side of the brain similar to the damage Parkinson's causes in the human brain. "The lesions to one side of the brain made the rats run in circles," he said. "When stem cells from the nose of Parkinson's patients were cultured and injected into the damaged area the rats re-aquired the ability to run in a straight line. "All animals transplanted with the human cells had a dramatic reduction in the rate of rotation within just 3 weeks," he said.

What about the side effects we've seen with ES studies? More good news:

"This provided evidence the cells had differentiated to give rise to dopamine-producing neurons influenced by being in the environment of the brain. In-vitro tests also revealed the presence of dopamine."

"Significantly, none of the transplants led to formation of tumours or teratomas in the host rats as has occurred after embryonic stem cell transplantation in a similar model. He said like all stem cells, stem cells from the olfactory nerve in the nose are 'naïve' having not yet differentiated into which sort of cells they will give rise to. "They can still be influenced by the environment they are put into. In this case we transplanted them into the brain, where they were directed to give rise to dopamine producing brain cells."

The advantage of using a patient's own cells is that, unlike stem cells from a foreign embryo, they are not rejected by the patient's immune system, so patients are free from a lifetime of potentially dangerous immuno-suppressant drug therapy.

Now that's what I am talking about!

From Wesley J. Smith:

This is great: A child with a fatal genetic disease has apparently been treated effectively with a combination of adult/umbilical cord blood stem cells. From the story:

In October 2007, Nate Liao received marrow- and umbilical cord blood-derived stem cells and progenitor cells from his healthy, tissue-matched brother. Over the next six months, the skin and lining of his GI tract slowly improved, and skin biopsies on days 60, 130, and 200 documented increasing amounts of collagen type VII. By day 130, Nate's skin and the lining of his GI tract were beginning to show clinical signs that his skin was anchoring to his body.

Regenerative medicine has tremendous potential--and so much can be done without moral controversy.

A big proof of principle advance has been announced on the IPSC front. Human brain cells have been reverted to an embryonic-like state with drugs--and without using any cancer-causing gene, reducing the need for virus vectors. From the story:

A major advance in transforming one kind of cell into another is reported today that will likely to render plans to clone human embryos redundant in the quest for revolutionary new treatments...Now a team at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Germany, reports in the journal Cell Stem Cell that they have used drugs to help turn brain cells from an adult back into embryo like stem cells.

And what does this potentially mean?

While Yamanaka introduced four genes, at least two linked with cancer, to turn back the clock so they became more embryo like, Dr Ding uses just two genes, along with drugs, reducing the need for viruses and doing away with the cancer gene.

Dr Ding believes that, someday, chemical cocktails might be used instead of viruses to reprogram cells for cell-based therapy. One cocktail of small molecules would be used to revert specialized adult cells back to an earlier developmental stage, and then a second cocktail would differentiate the cell into the type needed to replace diseased cells in any organ or tissue. "This study is a proof of principle that this kind of approach is possible," he says.

So adult stem cells seem to be the therapeutic answer whether made from pluripotent stem cells or in their own right.

Daily Telegraph
By Andrew Gimson

The sight of a legislator trying to stop mankind hurling itself down a slippery slope will always command the admiration of this column.

Edward Leigh (C, Gainsborough) took on this gallant role at the start of yesterday's debate on whether to approve stem cell research on human-animal hybrid embryos.

As Mr Leigh stepped on to the slippery slope, he must have known that he would very soon be run down by the massed optimists sliding so confidently into the abyss.

But before that happened, Mr Leigh conceived it his duty to try to call a halt.

So Mr Leigh urged MPs that the creation of human-animal embryos is "ethically wrong and almost certainly medically useless ... this is a step too far and it should therefore be banned".

Mr Leigh pointed out that even in this liberal age, the Commons does still ban some things.

It did not wish "to better regulate capital punishment. It simply stopped capital punishment".

As far as hybrid embryos are concerned, Mr Leigh referred to the articles of Roger Highfield, Science Editor of this paper, "who doesn't normally support my views".

But the idea that any scientific evidence could conceivably be adduced against the creation of hybrid embryos brought Dr Ian Gibson (Lab, Norwich North) to his feet.

Dr Gibson used to be dean of biology at the University of East Anglia and tried to trip Mr Leigh by asking him: "What is the difference between animal DNA and human DNA in terms of numbers of bases?"

Mr Leigh prudently avoided hazarding a guess, but observed that it was no good attempting "if I may say so ... to blind us with science", after which he showed that he was not trying to found his case on a profound knowledge of genetics.

For Mr Leigh said he had received an email from someone who "told me I was 30 per cent a daffodil and 80 per cent a mouse". We have to say there is nothing mousy about Mr Leigh, and we also find the bit about the daffodil implausible. Nor, if we were forced to suggest a flower to which he might be related, would we say the shrinking violet.

If Mr Leigh is anything, he is a geranium, for his features are bright red.

We met him once at a party, and he observed in a melancholy tone that he is sometimes unjustly assumed by journalists to be a heavy drinker, which is not the case.

Mr Leigh has a skin condition which makes him appear red, though at heart one can be assured he is true blue.

Mr Leigh grew serious again, contended that "we cannot and should not be spliced together with the animal kingdom", and ended with the pitiful words given by Mary Shelley to Frankenstein's monster: "I the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on."

To our delight, Sir Gerald Kaufman (Lab, Manchester Gorton) joined Mr Leigh in warning the House it was on a slippery slope.

"If you permit the creation of a hybrid embryo now what will you permit next time?" he asked.

But Dawn Primarolo, a health minister, was soon putting the case for "a pragmatic solution" and the vote went the Government's way, in favour of hybrid embryos.

One could not help being reminded of Dean Inge's remark about the Gadarene swine: "No doubt they thought the going was good for the first half of the way."

By Nic Fleming, Science Correspondent

Scientists have created stem cells from skin taken from patients with seven different diseases, raising hopes for potential new treatments.

The breakthrough will allow researchers to gain insights into the cause of illnesses including Type 1 diabetes, Down's syndrome and Huntington's disease.

Last November researchers in Japan and America developed induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cells, which can apparently transform into any of the 200 or so different cells found in the body.

Dr Willy Lensch and colleagues at the Harvard Medical School have used this technique to develop IPS cell lines from seven diseases.

Dr Lensch said: "This will help us to understand the environmental causes that push these undefined cells to become diseases.

A team at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Massachusetts also reported that they had seen improvements in rodents with Parkinson's disease using reprogrammed IPS cells.

Rudolf Jaenisch, who led the research, said: "This experiment shows that in-vitro reprogrammed cells can in principle be used to treat Parkinson's disease."

From the Irish Independent

By David Quinn
Friday April 25 2008

Sir, I will happily respond to David Aaronovitch’s challenge (Comment, March 25) when he will answer me these questions.

First, does he think that there is any difference between humans and other animals, and does this difference matter? Secondly, what makes him think he can reduce the function of religion (which Jews, Christians and Muslims have traditionally seen as being about public truth) to the provision of “comfort and companionship”? Thirdly, where in St Paul’s letters to the Corinthians — or anywhere else for that matter — does the Apostle attack the “sinful mixing” which Mr Aaronovitch seems to think is the sole subject matter of Leviticus?

The Right Rev Tom Wright

Bishop of Durham

Sir, Once the sanctity of human life is abandoned in favour of utilitarian solutions, however admirable, justifications will in time be found for just about anything. Of course, we will always have the good old liberal conscience to restrain us. But evidence demonstrates how easily the liberal conscience deceives itself.

Jonathan Luxmoore

Religious News, Warsaw

Sir, Some journalists and politicians may have missed the point regarding the Catholic Church’s position in relation to hybrid embryos. Even if scientific advances showed that this research could lead to a cure for every known disease, Catholics and many others would still be opposed. This is because the research involves the interference and destruction of human life at an early stage, with potentially catastrophic consequences. In the same way that it is not in the remit of scientists to pronounce on metaphysical issues such as the cause of the material Universe and the “big bang”, scientific advances cannot make experimentation on human embryos morally acceptable. This research has rightly been banned in the majority of other European countries with good reason; to belittle the Catholic Church’s stance on this serious issue is unfair and dangerous.

Dermott O’Gorman

Wallington, Surrey

Sir, It should not be forgotten that the present view about the human embryo was not always held by the Catholic Church. In the Middle Ages its status was argued over seriously, and Thomas Aquinas himself held that for the first few months of life it was, in Aristotle’s classification, only a vegetable. Without wishing to support that, I suggest that the view that at the very first stage of conception the embryo is fully human is only a dogma.

Pamela Huby

Harlington, Beds

Sir, I have been greatly disappointed to learn that the Prime Minister has pledged a free vote on elements of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. This is not because such an issue does not warrant such freedoms of conscience. Maintaining unquestionable ethical standards is vital to any new statute. The reason is that, once again, a religious organisation has successfully managed to introduce its own moral dimension to an issue that will affect the lives of millions of people regardless of their individual beliefs.

Any religious organisation is entitled to air its views and some, if not many, may choose to listen. Some adherents may even choose not to avail themselves of the derived benefits of such scientific programmes. Others, however, will choose to benefit, and no religious group has the right to interfere with freedom of choice. Once again, religion has provided us with a compelling reason for keeping it thoroughly divorced from matters of state.

Dr Stephen Merron

Wolverhampton

Sir, Professor Colin Blakemore (letter, March 24) is right to draw attention to the plight of patients with incurable diseases, but is mistaken in his belief that embryo stem-cell research is the way forward. Despite the huge sums of money that the Government has spent so far in supporting this research, to date it has yielded nothing of significant therapeutic value.

On the other hand, adult stem-cell research is actually yielding promise along several lines of research into serious diseases. Professor Shinya Yamanaka and his team at Kyoto University have now found a way of programming adult stem cells to have the same properties as embryo stem cells. Similar work is going on by Professor Boris Reizis and team at Columbia University Medical Centre, New York, and by Professor Robert Blelloch and colleagues in California. Professor Ian Wilmut, who led the team that created Dolly the sheep, has publicly backed Professor Yamanaka’s work (indicating that cloning is no longer essential). The adult stem-cell route is now being researched for use in a vast range of diseases including heart disease, leukaemias, Parkinson’s disease and motor neuron disease.

Dr Matthew Thalanany

Colchester

Sir, Many opponents of this Bill are concerned less by the issues at hand and more by the failure to make legislation stick. Rabbi Jonathan Romain (letter, March 24) is right that there are many aspects that could be justified, but we know that, like the the gun crime laws, legislation will not be enforced. The Bill must be rejected until we have a legislature that can be trusted to ensure effective implementation of the safeguards he mentions.

G. Sasse

Broughton Astley, Leics

A man's jaw was refashioned using adult stem cells from his own fat. From the story:

I can't think of anything pithy to write here, there are so many of these stories being reported these days. But we shouldn't let that make us sanguine about how remarkable moral regenerative medicine is turning out to be.

Washington Times

From combined dispatches

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI yesterday defended the Vatican's right to speak out on bioethics, including its opposition to artificial procreation methods and embryonic-stem-cell research.

He also dismissed criticism that the Roman Catholic Church blocks scientific progress.

"Church teaching certainly cannot and must not weigh in on every novelty of science, but it has the task to reiterate the great values which are on the line and to propose to faithful and all men of good will ethical-moral principles and direction for new, important questions," Benedict said.

He brushed off those who criticize the church "as if it were an obstacle to science and to humanity's true progress."

The pope singled out as "new problems" the freezing of embryos, selecting which embryos should be implanted after testing them for defects, research on embryonic stem cells and attempts at human cloning.

He decried them as proof that "the barrier protecting human dignity has been broken."

Benedict was addressing a meeting of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a powerful Vatican office that safeguards doctrinal orthodoxy. He headed the office before being elected pope in 2005.

"When human beings in the weakest and most defenseless state of their existence are selected, abandoned, killed or used as pure 'biological material,' how can one deny that they are being treated not as 'someone' but as 'something,' " he said.

It was the pope's latest foray into scientific issues. On Monday, he warned against the "seductive" powers of science, saying it was important that science did not become the sole criteria for goodness.

U.S. Cardinal William Levada, Benedict's successor as head of the doctrinal department, said it was mulling the possibility of preparing a new Vatican document on bioethical issues.

Korean scientists have created pluripotent stem cells from normal skin cells and have further improved the technique. From the story:

Park said the overall process of making the stem cells is similar to those by U.S. and Japanese scientists, there has been a marked improvement in the success rate. "Foreign scientists used the so-called retrovirus, but we made headway by attaching the lentivirus to the transporting vector, and inserted it into the somatic cell of the lab animal," he said.

This process resulted in a stem cell being confirmed by a fluorescent microscope. The team claimed it was able to push these stem cells to differentiate into liver, nerve and muscle tissues. They said efforts are underway to recreate the process using human somatic cells.

Patent applications are also being filed. The lawsuits to come as various bioetechnology companies vie to become the next Microsoft or Google are sure to keep lawyers happily litigating for years to come.

Ignoring that New Jersey voters recently rejected a $450 boondoggle bond issue to pay for embryonic stem cell research, New York State is funding the research to the tune of $600 million without even giving the people a chance to vote on the issue. And those behind the effort have no intention of letting nonsense like ethics get in the way. From a column by members of the New York Task Force on Life and the Law:

This could be great news aways down the road for diabetics. From the story:

An international team of researchers has finally managed to locate stem cells in the pancreas--in mice, at least.

If the findings are confirmed in humans, they could pave the way for dramatic new therapies for diabetes, namely the regeneration of beta cells so the body could once again produce its own insulin. Until now, scientists had all but abandoned hopes that the pancreas made its own stem cells because they had failed to find evidence to support the theory. But any clinical advances from the new research are still a long way off, experts cautioned.

Adult stem cells are ubiquitous. I am not a scientist, but from what I am reading, it may turn out that pluripotency will not be so important after all for clinical uses because ASCs exist in so many tissues.

David Burrowes MP has introduced a Bill to encourage umbilical cord blood to be donated at birth so that it can be stored for public use. Umbilical cord blood can be used for the treatment of diseases and for further research of new treatment methods using cord blood stem cells - providing an alternative to embryonic stem cell research. The Bill received its first reading and was ordered to be read a second time in October.

Links

• David Burrowes’ speech on Hansard

  http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm080108/debtext/80108-0004.htm

Press release from Comment on Reproductive Ethics.

(17 November, 2007)

‘The decision to give up on human cloning by the best known mammalian cloner in the world, Prof Ian Wilmut, is good news for us all and very good news for the integrity of science,’ said Josephine Quintavalle from Comment on Reproductive Ethics.

‘For years now the evidence has been mounting that cloning is a very difficult to achieve safely and successfully, and that the number of human eggs required is so high as to represent an insuperable hurdle in itself.

‘The work of Prof Yamanaka, developing patient-specific stem cells without the use of embryos, is the stream-lined way forward and it is great credit to the professionalism of Wilmut that he is able to acknowledge the benefits of this route forward. To be willing to change one’s mind in science is a sign of great integrity and real intelligence and we congratulate Prof Wilmut for his stance.

‘If full human cloning can be rejected on scientific grounds, what to make of some of the nonsense going before the House of Lords as we speak? A debate this Monday on the new Human Fertilisation & Embryology Bill will focus on all manner of interspecies embryos, created from animal and human tissue, and using the cloning processes. None of this research is necessary or desirable.

‘As a country we must follow the Wilmut lead and put behind us all meddling with human cloning and animal/human hybridisation. There are other ways to cure patients, and they are not only safer and simpler, but they are also ethically acceptable to us all.’

See: Daily Telegraph

The following images are from the Christian Concern for our Nation website. They show the protest that took place in Parliament Square during the debate in the House of Lords on the HFE Bill. The protest was against the legalisation of animal-human hybrid embryos, and consisted of girls in bunny masks and boys in cow masks holding up signs reading "No animal human hybrids".

From telegraph.co.uk.  Read the original here.

By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent Last Updated: 2:03am BST 27/06/2007

Human-animal hybrid embryos conceived in the laboratory - so-called “chimeras” - should be regarded as human and their mothers should be allowed to give birth to them, the Roman Catholic Church said yesterday.

Under draft Government legislation to be debated by Parliament later this year, scientists will be given permission for the first time to create such embryosfor research as long as they destroy them within two weeks.

From the New York Times.

June 6, 2007

By NICHOLAS WADE

In a surprising advance that could sidestep the ethical debates surrounding stem cell biology, researchers have come much closer to a major goal of regenerative medicine, the conversion of a patient’s cells into specialized tissues that might replace those lost to disease.

The advance is an easy-to-use technique for reprogramming a skin cell of a mouse back to the embryonic state. Embryonic cells can be induced in the laboratory to develop into many of the body’s major tissues.

The Times (London)

January 8, 2007, Monday

Scientists believe that they have found a way of gathering embryonic stem cells that does not harm the unborn child and may end the ethical storm surrounding the procedure.

Stem cells, which can grow into different types of tissue that can be used to regenerate damaged body parts, are usually harvested from embryos.

A breakthrough in the United States has shown that by using ammiotic fluid human stem cells could be harvested without killing the unborn foetus.

Read the original article here.

October 29, 2006

The political strategy of pro-cloners and pro ESCR advocates to conflate “stem cell research” with “embryonic stem cell research”–as Michael J. Fox did in his deceptive ads–may be causing very real, if unintended, harm to human patients. Apparently some people confuse embryonic stem cell research from bone marrow stem cells, to the point that those seeking to add names to the bone marrow donation registry are having trouble meeting their recruitment goals. From the story:

‘Our need is so much larger than the transplants that we do,’ [Julie] Tilbury [coordinator of the National Marrow Donor Program for the Rock River Valley Blood Center] said. ‘The biggest challenge is we just don’t have the donors.’ Tilbury said confusion about the difference between adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells is one barrier to convincing people to join the registry. ‘Often times, when you hear stem cells, there’s a belief that there’s only one type of stem cells–those that come from embryos,’ she said. ‘The reality is that there are so many different sources of stem cells. Our marrow is one source.’

The sowing of confusion to win a political debate, so that “stem cell research” is used as a synonym for “embryonic stem cell research” is not only dishonest, but it could be dangerous to sick people’s health.

Posted by Wesley J. Smith

The Big Stem-Cell Breakthrough
That you're not hearing about . . .
by Wesley J. Smith
10/31/2006 12:12:00 PM

DID YOU SEE THE SIZE OF THOSE HEADLINES? "Stem Cells Used to Create Artificial Liver," the New York Times screamed on its front page. "Breakthrough! Stem Cells to One Day Create Organ for Liver Transplant," was how the Washington Post put it. "Stem Cell Breakthrough Demonstrates Viability of New Science," yelled the Los Angeles Times. "Stem Cell Hope for People with Liver Disease," agreed USA Today. The story was so big that Katie Couric narrated a special report, expressing her profound gratitude for the hope these dedicated stem-cell scientists had brought to suffering humanity.

What's that? You didn't see those headlines? You say you somehow missed the story? Well, don't blame yourself. You are not out of touch. The above headlines never appeared, the stories have not been written.

From issue 2574 of New Scientist magazine, 21 October 2006, page 7. Original here

Don't say cloning, say somatic cell nuclear transfer. That at least is the view of biologists who want the term to be used instead of "therapeutic cloning" to describe the technique that produces cloned embryos from which stem cells can then be isolated. This, they argue, will help to distinguish it from attempts to clone a human being.

But will it? Kathy Hudson and her colleagues at the Genetics and Public Policy Center in Washington DC asked more than 2000 Americans whether they approved of deriving stem cells from embryos produced by cloning. For half of the sample they used the term "SCNT" instead of "cloning", and this raised approval ratings from 29 per cent to 46 per cent, Hudson told a meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics in New Orleans last week.

SCNT would also be used in any attempt to clone a human being, so Hudson also asked about creating babies using SCNT. This too raised the approval rate from 10 per cent to 24 per cent - which is not what scientists had in mind.

Copyright The Weekly Standard 2006.

Original article is available here.

More hype from stem cell entrepeneurs

"NEW STEM CELL METHOD avoids destroying embryos," the New York Times headline blared. "Stem cell breakthrough may end political logjam," chimed in the Los Angeles Times. "Embryos spared in stem cell creation," affirmed USA Today. Reporting the same supposed scientific achievement by Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), the Washington Post quoted the company's bioethics adviser Ronald Green: "You can honestly say this cell line is from an embryo that was in no way harmed or destroyed."

Unfortunately, you can't "honestly" say that. The above headlines - like Green's statement and innumerable similar press accounts around the world - are just plain wrong. While ACT did indeed issue a press release heralding its embryonic stem cell experiment as having "successfully generated human embryonic stem cells using an approach that does not harm embryos," the actual report of the research led by ACT chief scientist Robert Lanza, published in Nature, tells a very different story. In fact, Lanza destroyed all 16 of the embryos he used, just as in conventional embryonic stem cell research.

Herald Sun, 3rd August 2006

One justification for Premier Bracks’ $250,000 expenditure on his luxury world tour earlier this year was that he had “secured a historic stem-cell agreement in the US....” (Herald-Sun 16/7/06). Taxpayers are entitled to details of this agreement because of Bracks’ well publicized ambition that Victoria break the states’ agreement with the Federal 2002 legislation banning human cloning. Bracks and Premier Beattie of Queensland, who harbours similar ambitions, are out of step with other state premiers and with Labor Party policy which bans cloning.

London, England (LifeNews.com) -- Two leading British scientists say that any potential cures from embryonic stem cell research are many years away, if they ever occur. They said that some of the hoopla created by the media and lawmakers who want to fund the controversial research has distorted the public view of it.

Professor Colin McGuckin, a specialist in regenerative medicine at the UK's Newcastle University, says the potential for embryonic stem cell research to cure diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease had been exaggerated.

(c) Copyright: LifeSiteNews.com.

WARSAW, Poland, July 24, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Polish parliament has issued a resolution against research using human embryos, in response to the European Union’s recent vote to provide funding for embryonic stem cell research.

Sejm, the lower chamber of the Polish parliament, issued the resolution, which passed with a strong majority of 341 votes in favour and only 47 against. 20 votes were withheld.

Original article available here.

JEFFERSON CITY - Feminists and Southern Baptists may seem like any unlikely alliance to some, but a growing number from both groups are joining forces in an effort to defeat a proposed amendment to the Missouri constitution that they see as a means of exploiting women.

Missourians Against Human Cloning (MAHC) is spearheading the battle against the "Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative" on which Missourians will vote Nov. 7. Passage of the initiative would allow taxpayer funds to be used for embryonic stem cell research.

"A new Gallup poll sponsored by CNN and USA Today finds the level of support for using taxpayer funds for embryonic stem cell research on the decline. The poll has a majority of Americans backing federal funding, which is out of step with other surveys showing the opposite." LifeNews.com 16 August 2005

"As the House of Representatives Tuesday votes on possibly expanding federal funding of embryonic-stem-cell research — legislation the president has promised to veto — there are some real concerns about how far we've already stepped into a 'Brave New World.' With those concerns in mind, and a big-picture look at all the issues involved in this new world, Wesley J. Smith, a lawyer and consumer activist (friend and collaborator of Ralph Nader even!) recently produced A Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World. He addressed some of these issues Monday in an interview with NRO editor Kathryn Lopez. Bottom line: 'All is certainly not lost.'" National Review 24 May 2005