Tag Archives: pro-life

Stem Cell Update II

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Hot off the presses: a stem cell paper connected to the disgraced Hwang laboratory in South Korea has been just retracted for misleading use of  photos that were claimed to be of different stem cells, but were actually the same (doctored) photograph.

The NY Times had a good article a few months ago on spotting doctored photos; Adobe Photoshop is a very useful tool in laboratory work so you can zoom in on areas of interest or clear up some noise. Astronomers also alter the color scales so X-Ray photographs, for instance, correspond to our visible spectrum (you’ll see how some beautiful photos of astronomical objects are called "false color"–this is an example).

Alas, these powerful programs can also be used for cheating.

Stem Cell Update

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Researchers in both the USA and Germany claim to have produced embryonic-like stem cells from testicular cells. The Germans published the results of their work on mice in Nature last week; the Americans claimed to have done similar things with human testes (ouch), but have not published in a peer-reviewed journal, but rather presented it at a conference. The group that did the work in America is also studying similar work on ovaries.

Presumably these cells can be entirely legitimate from a Catholic bioethical standpoint, provided that the germ cell (i.e., testicular or ovarian tissue) material is donated and procured in an ethical manner (which can get complicated, but we’ll leave that for another entry). The problem with embryonic research to date is that the process involves killing or harming human embryos, and perhaps involves involves cloning to boot. Since this embryonic-like cells are taken from adult donors, this intrinsic stumbling-block is removed.

In addition to avoiding that big ethical issue, this technique, if it works, would also avoid some serious technical barriers facing embryonic stem cells. If you give a patient stem cells derived from an embryo, you must either try to create a cloned embryo or else face the risk of tissue rejection. Human cloning has yet to done, now that Dr. Hwang was exposed as a fraud, and any therapy that involves such a concept faces quite a few issues with expense, technical validation, etc.

In other news, Geron Corporation, which holds the rights to the original human embryonic stem cell lines that Dr. Thompson derived at the University of Wisconsin Madison (thus sparking this whole debate) is preparing to launch a clinical trial of human embryonic stell cells on human patients–and just to clarify, unlike the embryonic-like stem cells that I mentioned above, these ones are derived from destroyed human embryos. I believe that this is the first such trial to happen in the USA in several years–in the last trial on Parkinsons Disease patients, the subjects’ symptoms got worse after getting the cells.

Investigating NFP: Ignorance

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Via the Natural Family Planning Discussion Board, here's a classic example of the general public's ignorance regarding NFP:

"How long is the Legislature of Nebraska going to do the bidding of the Vatican as expressed by the paid lobbyist of the Roman Catholic Church — Greg Schleppenbach — and the mouthpiece of the same church, Sen. Mike Foley?"

 "He was supposedly elected to represent the best interests of the citizens, not the agenda of the Roman Catholic Church. His latest bill shows where his loyalties really lie — not for women but for his church. He is against any form of birth control. He would have women have babies who do not have the resources to care for them."

"If a woman does not have the financial resources to take care of a child, then the state must help with food stamps, welfare, Medicaid and a host of other services. Are the citizens of Nebraska compelled to support the agenda of the Roman Catholic Church as put forward by Foley and Schleppenbach?"

"Natural family planning does not have a successful track record. Birth control and condom use are far more effective. The state should be subsidizing those methods in the search to cut state expenditures."

"Sen. Ernie Chambers is the only person who always stands between Nebraska and the domination of our lives as dictated by the Vatican."

"If the rest of the Catholic legislators want domination of the Vatican over Nebraskans, then back Foley and Schleppenbach. If you think that one religious belief system should not be dominant in state law and practices, then send Foley and his Roman Catholic agenda to the wastebasket."

Ruth C. Snyder, Lincoln

I feel as though I can almost hear this woman snearing.

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Investigating NFP: Supporting Families

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Those who have been following my series on NFP, especially Pius’ speech about large families, may find this short article interesting.

"In his weekly pastoral letter, Archbishop Agustin Garcia-Gasco of Valencia, Spain, said greater charity must be shown to those families that are most in need, for while ‘the working class was considered the poor in the past, today’s poor are the families.’”

"In his letter, the archbishop warns that in today’s world, ‘Choosing to have a family and raise kids is seen by many as way of ending up poor.’"

"’Families are the poor of our time,’ he said, noting that ‘all of us can contribute to establishing social changes so that the right to have a family is a reality.’ ‘There are many countries that have policies harmful to families,’ he warned."

If anyone knows where the full text of the Archbishop’s letters can be found, please let us know.

Update 03/25/06: Here’s an automated translation of the whole letter.  It’s not perfect, but it’s readable.