| Adult Stem Cell Research Shows More Promise Treating Heart Attacks |
| MIT Stem Cell Researcher Threatens Hunger Strike Over Tenure Denial |
| Hair Follicle Cells Offer Embryonic Stem Cell Research Alternative |
| MIT Stem Cell Researcher Threatens Hunger Strike Over Tenure Denial |
| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| December 22, 2006 |
| Boston, MA (LifeNews.com) -- A black Massachusetts Institute of Technology stem cell researcher who doesn't support human cloning says he is planning a hunger strike for next February if the prestigious college doesn't reverse its decision to deny him tenure. Dr. James L. Sherley, an associate professor of biological engineering, says he is a victim of racism. |
| Sherley has been an outspoken advocate against human cloning -- including the kind of therapeutic cloning his colleagues and other scientists want to use to create and destroy human embryos for their stem cells. |
| He has been fighting for tenure at MIT for over two years and hopes a hunger strike will change the minds of top school officials, including Provost L. Rafael Reif. |
| “I will either see the provost resign and my hard-earned tenure granted at MIT, or I will die defiantly right outside his office,” Sherley wrote in a strongly worded letter. |
| Sherley told the Boston Globe in January 2005 that fellow professors label him “stubborn” instead of “independent-minded" because he refuses to endorse human cloning and embryonic stem cell research. |
| In fact, Sherley, the son of a Baptist minister, is vocal in saying the practices involve the destruction of human life and shouldn't be supported and he was once involved in a shouting match with a colleague at a local restaurant. |
| Sherley was hired in July 1998 as an assistant professor and later promoted to associate professor. But if he is not granted tenure he will have to leave MIT and seek employment elsewhere. |
| Sherley told the Globe that Douglas A. Lauffenburger, the director of the Biological Engineering division, told him that he had strong recommendations letters for tenure but that he was denied it because of his views on stem cell research. |
| The professor said he hasn't been a victim of overt racism but said he is frequently asked whose research lab he works in when he has his own. |
| Reif ordered an investigation into Sherley’s case by three senior faculty members in late 2005. By January 2006, Reif concluded that there were no grounds to reconsider Sherley’s case for tenure. |
| This week, Sherley was told that the decision was to refuse him tenure. |
| Hair Follicle Cells Offer Embryonic Stem Cell Research Alternative |
| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| December 12, 2006 |
| Madison, WI (LifeNews.com) -- Scientists at the Medical College of Wisconsin have found what may be another alternative to embryonic stem cells. They have found that adult stem cells from hair follicles, which don't involve the destruction of human life to obtain, are different from other types of skin cells. |
| The researchers recently identified the molecular signature of hair follicle stem cells called epidermal neural crest stem cells. |
| The college says the study resolves conflicting scientific opinions by showing that these cells are distinctly different from other types of skin-resident stem cells. |
| The MCW research team has reported their findings in a recent issue of Stem Cells: The International Journal of Cell Differentiation and Proliferation. |
| Epidermal neural crest stem cells are found in the bulge of hair follicles and have characteristics that combine some advantages of embryonic and adult stem cells, according to lead researcher, Maya Sieber-Blum, Ph.D. |
| Similar to embryonic stem cells, they have a high degree of plasticity, can be isolated at high levels of purity, and can be expanded in culture. |
| Sieber-Blum says the hair cells are similar to other types of adult stem cells, as they are readily accessible through a minimally invasive procedure and could lead to using a patient's own hair as a source for therapy without the controversy or transplant problems associated with embryonic stem cells. |
| "We see the potential for cell replacement therapy in which patients can be their own donors, which would avoid ethical issues and reduce the possibility of tissue incompatibility," says Dr. Sieber-Blum. |
| The Medical College team in collaboration with Prof. Martin Schwab, director of the Brain Research Institute of the University of Z?rich, recently injected these cells in mice with spinal cord injuries. |
| According to the study, when grafted into the spine, the cells not only survived, but also demonstrated several desirable characteristics that could lead to local nerve replacement and re-myelination (restoration of nerve pathways and sheaths). |
| Neural crest stem cells generate a wide array of cell types and tissues. The cells can be isolated from the hair follicle bulge as multipotent stem cells, and then expanded in culture into millions of cells without losing stem cell markers. |
| "We grafted the cells into mice that have spinal cord injuries and were encouraged by the results. The cells survived and integrated into the spinal cord, remaining at the site of transplantation and not forming tumors," Dr. Sieber-Blum says. |
| The transplant of embryonic stem cells have caused problems in animal research because they have formed tumors that would cause severe problems in humans. |
| Sieber-Blum points out that the hair follicle cells may also be useful to treat Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, Hirschsprung's disease, stroke, peripheral neuropathies and ALS. Certain defects of the heart, and bone defects could also be treated through neural crest stem cell replacement therapy. |
| Adult Stem Cell Research Helps Dogs With Muscular Dystrophy, People Next |
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| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| November 15, 2006 |
| Milan, Italy (LifeNews.com) -- Adult stem cell research continues to show great promise and researchers in Italy have shown that adult stem cells can ease the symptoms associated with muscular dystrophy. The results, seen in dogs, show great promise for treating people down the road and avoid the ethical concerns of embryonic cells. |
| The scientists published the results of their research online Wednesday in the journal Nature. |
| Giulio Cossu, director of the Stem Cell Research Institute at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute of Milan in Italy, lead the team. They found that dogs with the condition were able to walk faster and even jump after the stem cell treatments. |
| The dogs had Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a muscle disorder that affects about 1 in every 3,500 boys. It is the most severe, yet the most common form of the disease. |
| "We do not know whether this will work in patients," Cossu said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press. However, he said he hopes to begin treatments on children next year or in 2008. |
| One five month old dog named Azor was limping because of the disease but after the treatments was able to romp around with other puppies. |
| "Azor regained incredible mobility, much more than when the treatment started," said Prof Cossu. |
| "He could not extend his hind limbs at first and was jumping like a rabbit. But it was amazing to see how he could then move, without any fatigue. In dogs, this is the best result so far." |
| The research wrote that they found the best results when obtaining adult stem cells from other dogs but they said a patient's own stem cells may be able to work just as well and help them avoid having to deal with potential rejection issues. |
| Johnny Huard of the University of Pittsburgh, who didn't participate in the research, told AP the results are "a great breakthrough for all of us working on stem cells for muscular dystrophy." |
| Sharon Hesterlee, vice president of translational research at the Muscular Dystrophy Association, which helped pay for the research, told AP the study is one of the most exciting her group has seen in years and she is optimistic it will eventually lead to treatments for people. |
| The researchers used Golden retrievers for their experiments because they are the most accurate animal model of the human disease. |
| Cossu's team transplanted cells called mesoangioblasts, stem cells gathered small blood vessels in muscle, that are programmed to develop into muscle cells. |
| Muscular dystrophy comes in at least 20 forms and causes muscle wasting, progressive paralysis and eventually death. |
| Adult Stem Cell Research Shows More Promise Treating Heart Attacks |
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| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| November 14, 2006 |
| Baltimore, MD (LifeNews.com) -- Scientists at Johns Hopkins University continue to show the promise that adult stem cells have in treating the effects of heart attacks. The successfully grew adult stem cells from healthy heart tissue and used it to repair some of the tissue damage done to organs by heart attacks. |
| The researchers conducted the experiments on pigs as pigs' hearts closely resemble those in humans, making them a useful model in such research. |
| Following up on previous studies, Hopkins cardiologists used a thin tube to extract samples of heart tissue no bigger than a grain of rice within hours of the animals' heart attacks. They then grew large numbers of cardiac stem cells in the lab from tissue obtained through biopsy, and within a month implanted the cells into the pigs' hearts. |
| With help from a blue-dye tracking system, the scientists have shown that within two months the cells had developed into mature heart cells and vessel-forming endothelial cells. |
| Eduardo Marb?n, M.D., Ph.D., senior study author and professor and chief of cardiology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Heart Institute, says that is similar studies show the same success in humans, it would be easy to help numerous patients. |
| "This is a relatively simple method of stem cell extraction that can be used in any community-based clinic, and if further studies show the same kind of organ repair that we see in pigs, it could be performed on an outpatient basis," he said in a statement LifeNews.com obtained. |
| "Starting with just a small amount of tissue, we demonstrated that it was possible, very soon after a heart attack, to use the healthy parts of the heart to regenerate some of the damaged parts," he added. |
| Marb?n cautions that no overall improvements in heart function have yet been shown in these studies, which were not designed to establish such changes and used relatively low numbers of infused cells (10 million or less). |
| "But we have proof of principle, and we are planning to use larger numbers of cells implanted in different sites of the heart to test whether we can restore function as well," he says. "If the answer is yes, we could see the first phase of studies in people in late 2007." |
| The latest Hopkins findings are scheduled to be presented Nov. 13 at the American Heart Association's annual Scientific Sessions in Chicago. |
| They are believed to be the first results in animal studies to show that so-called cardiac stem cell therapy can be successfully applied with minimally invasive methods to circumstances closely resembling those in humans. |
| Scientists say the results build on earlier studies with cardiac stem cells in mice and humans that demonstrated success in regenerating infarcted heart muscle and restoring heart cell function post-infarct. |
| British Scientist Uses Adult Stem Cell Research to Treat Back Pain |
| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| December 4, 2006 |
| Manchester, England (LifeNews.com) -- A University of Manchester researcher has developed a treatment for lower back pain using the patient's own stem cells, which could replace the use of strong painkillers or surgery. Those options don't ultimate addresses the underlying cause of back pain in many patients. |
| Dr. Stephen Richardson, of the University's Division of Regenerative Medicine in the School of Medicine (FMHS), has developed the treatment in collaboration with German biotechnology company Arthrokinetics and internationally renowned spinal surgeons. |
| Richardson is hoping to enter pre-clinical trials next year. |
| Low back pain affects a large proportion of the adult population at some point in their lives and in many of these cases it is persistent, eventually leading to debilitating pain. |
| Currently, treatments address the symptoms -- mainly pain -- using a combination of painkillers, physiotherapy or surgery, removing tissue to relieve the pain or fusing the vertebrae above and below the painful disc. None of these options is ideal as they only treat the symptoms, not the cause, and are of limited long-term success. |
| The treatment Dr. Richardson is developing uses a cell-based tissue engineering approach to regenerate the intervertebral disc (IVD) at the affected level. This is achieved through the combination of the patients' own mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and a naturally occurring collagen gel that can be implanted through a minimally-invasive surgical technique. |
| MSCs are a population of progenitor cells found in the bone marrow of adults which can differentiate into many different cell types in the body. |
| Dr Richardson found that for several reasons he could not use cells from the IVD itself and thus spent a number of years developing a method of producing NP cells from MSCs. |
| "Once we have extracted the bone marrow from the patient and have purified the MSCs, they will be grown in culture and our patented method of differentiation will be applied," Richardson said in a statement. |
| "They will then be embedded within a gel which can be implanted back into the patient through an arthroscope," he explained. |
| The treatment has massive implications for the future of lower back pain treatment. |
| Congress Will Take Up Embryonic Stem Cell Research Bill Next Week |
| Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The House of Representatives is scheduled to take up a measure next week to force taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research. On Thursday, January 11, the House will debate overturning President Bush's limits on spending public funds on the research, which has never cured any patients. This is the second time Congress has attempted to require taxpayer funding for the unproven research. Last May the House voted for the bill by a vote of 238 to 194 but President Bush vetoed the measure in July. “It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect,” the president said at the time. He pointed to the use of adult stem cells, which the Bush administration has spent hundreds of millions of dollars promoting, as a more ethical and effective alternative because no life is destroyed in the process of collecting the cells and they have already developed cures. The House failed to achieve a two-thirds override vote shortly after the veto as it voted for the measure 235-193 -- some fifty-one votes short of the two-thirds needed. ACTION: Call your member of Congress at 202-224-3121 and urge strong opposition to the embryonic stem cell research funding bill. You can find specific contact information for your elected officials at http://www.house.gov. |
| Connecticut Awards Stem Cell Research Funds to Yale, Wesleyan Universities |
| Hartford, CT (LifeNews.com) -- The Yale School of Medicine and Wesleyan University are joining the University of Connecticut as recipients of grant money from the Connecticut Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee. The panel is charged with distributing $20 million in taxpayer money on stem cell research. UConn received funding for 15 grants and the grants to the other universities are the first in a 10-year $100 million program state lawmakers approved last year. Yale President Richard Levin told the Yale Daily News he was happy the Ivy League college received some of the grant money. "We've known that this was going to happen at some point, and we have been hoping that state money would come through," Levin said. Governor Jodi Rell issues a statement about the embryonic and adult stem cell research funding and said "Connecticut becomes a national leader" thanks to the 2005 law. That measure bans human reproductive cloning and the sale of human eggs, sperm and embryos, but allows human cloning for research purposes. The law prohibits human embryos used in research from growing past 14 days, which detractors say mandates that all days-old unborn children must be killed for their stem cells. The Connecticut stem cell research grants upset pro-life advocates because much of the money will be spent on embryonic stem cell research, which has yet to be tried on human because of numerous problems and involves the destruction of human life. |
| Connecticut Stem Cell Research Committee Sends 12M to University |
| Hartford, CT (LifeNews.com) -- The advisory committee charged with making recommendations for spending $20 million in taxpayer money on stem cell research in the state has awarded $12 million of the funds to the University of Connecticut. UConn received funding for 15 grants it submitted to the Connecticut Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee for work on both embryonic and adult stem cells. The grants to UConn, and also a handful of non-profit organizations, are the first in a 10-year $100 million program state lawmakers approved. In June, the committee received 70 funding requests, including dozens of letters from scientists and institutions wanting to conduct stem cell research. Two of the leading requests for funds came from Yale University and the University of Connecticut. Together, they applied for $12.5 million to build three research facilities where their scientists will study human embryonic stem cells. The new facilities are needed, the colleges say, because they can't use federal funds for embryonic stem cell research. President Bush, in August 2001, put forward an executive order prohibiting the use of tax funds to pay for new embryonic stem cell research because it involves the destruction of human life. Instead, Bush has spent hundreds of millions of dollars annually on adult stem cells, which have already provided dozens of cures and treatments. |
| New Jersey Will Award Millions in Embryonic Stem Cell Research Grants |
| Trenton, NJ (LifeNews.com) -- Just days after the New Jersey state legislature gave final approval to a $270 million plan to build new stem cell research centers there, Gov. Jon Corzine announced the state will spend millions of taxpayer funds on stem cell research. However, 70 percent of the $10 million worth of grants will go to scientists using embryonic stem cells, which involve the destruction of human life to obtain. That puts the state in league with California, Illinois, Maryland and Connecticut as one of the first states to spend taxpayer funds on stem cell research. "These grants, combined with the recently passed stem cell legislation, represent a serious and vital investment in this live-saving research," Corzine said, according to an AP report. Corzine said the grants were needed because of "absence of support at the federal level," however, the Bush administration has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on adult stem cell research, the only kind to show any progress with human patients. The $7 million in embryonic stem cell research grants will go towards building embryonic stem cell research facilities while the $3 million in adult stem cell research grants will go to academic, nonprofit and for-profit institutions. |
| New Jersey Legislature Passes Embryonic Stem Cell Research Bill |
| Trenton, NJ (LifeNews.com) -- The New Jersey legislature has finalized approval of a bill that would have the state spend $270 million on new stem cell research centers. Pro-life groups opposed the measure because the taxpayer money would partly fund embryonic stem cell research that destroys human life and is nowhere close to helping patients. The measure includes $150 million to build stem cell research institutes in New Brunswick, Camden, and an adult stem cell research facility at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark. The state Assembly approved the bill on a 53-24 vote with four Republicans joining all forty-nine Democrats voting for it. Marie Tasy, the director of New Jersey Right to Life, decried the vote and said it would result in "the exploitation of women and the mass production of cloned human embryos and fetuses for use in destructive experimental research." Tasy pointed to a 2003 law which allows scientists to clone and kill human embryos for research purposes. "[Scientists] will have absolute authority to clone and kill human beings through the embryo, fetal and newborn stages for their organs, parts and tissues,” Tasy said. The measure is part of a two-bill package that also includes legislation to put a referendum on the state ballot to borrow $230 million for stem cell research. New Jersey would borrow that amount over seven years. |
| California Stem Cell Research Grants Shouldn't Be Secret, Watchdog Says |
| Sacramento, CA (LifeNews.com) -- A head of a taxpayers group says the California stem cell research funding panel still needs more openness. John Simpson, an official with the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, says the California agency should take a cue from a similar panel in Connecticut that recently awarded grants there. California's stem cell institute should make public key information in its grants approval process now shrouded in secrecy, Simpson said. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine is planning to hold closed-door meetings to review 232 proposals from scientists at 36 nonprofit institutions to determine who will be awarded the first round $24 million in grants. "California's stem cell institute will tell you that they epitomize a transparent and publicly accountable operation, but it's simply not true," said Simpson. "In fact they won't even tell you who applied for public money or with whom they are affiliated." Simpson contrasted California's policy, where only grant recipients are identified, to Connecticut's process that discloses all applicants identities and affiliations and other key information. The grants were discussed and awarded at a public meeting where applicants were identified by name, he said, adding that applications for grants are public records when they are made, except that proprietary information can be redacted. |
| Rich Donors Fund California Stem Cell Research Panel During Lawsuit |
| Sacramento, CA (LifeNews.com) -- The California panel charged with disseminating billions of dollars over the next ten years for stem cell research and human cloning hasn't sold a single bond to raise money for the grants because of lawsuits against it. However, rich donors have kept the agency afloat with millions in private donations. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine can't sell bonds because they could be worthless if lawsuits against it succeed. That hasn't stopped rich Californians from giving CIRM $31 million to allow it to continue operations and make the first round of small grants. rich donors such as Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad and sound-technology pioneer Ray Dolby who are giving not only to CIRM but local universities to expand their stem cell research efforts. Earlier this year, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg donated $100 million to his alma mater Johns Hopkins University. "I was amazed by the number of wealthy Californians who have stepped up and decided to support a public agency," Owen Witte, director of the new Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Medicine at UCLA, told the Post. "I've never heard of anything like this." The lawsuits say the committee has failed to live up to state laws governing open meetings and conflicts of interest and they say the state is legally obligated to have more control over the panel than Proposition 71 set up. |
| Reporter Further Exposes Abortion-Stem Cell-Beauty Treatment Scandal |
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| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| December 18, 2006 |
| London, England (LifeNews.com) -- British reporter Matthew Hill has uncovered a grisly practice where babies from Ukraine are killed via infanticide or become victims of abortions for their stem cells for dubious beauty treatments. The practice involves ravaging the babies' bodies for organs and stem cells. |
| As LifeNews.com previously reported, Hill produced a documentary for the BBC showing how a hospital is snatching newborns and aborted babies and giving their parts and cells to stem cell firms around the world for controversial beauty injections. |
| Hill writes in a Monday article in the London Daily Mail newspaper about how he uncovered the scandal, including a videotape of post-mortem examinations. |
| He says a charity worker at a hospital in the eastern Ukrainian city Kharkiv showed him the videotape. |
| "Officially, the cells are taken from aborted fetuses with the mothers' consent," Hill writes, but "there could also be hundreds of babies stolen to order, to feed demand for stem cells from around the world." |
| Hill says the first hint he found of the bizarre trade came from stem cell researcher Stephen Minger, from Kings College. |
| Minger told Hill that a Barbados clinic called the Institute For Regenerative Medicine, had contacted him to get his endorsement of the IRM beauty treatments involving the injection of stem cells from the dead babies. |
| Minger said he refused, saying there were no studies backing up IRM's claims the injections would have the desired effect. He also was upset at how the babies were harvested for their stem cells, saying some of the babies could have been "liquidized" to obtain the cells. |
| "I find it very distasteful that they are used for beauty treatments," Minger told Hill. "As far as I can tell from what's been published, a lot of people go to this clinic in Barbados feeling a bit run down, or that their skin has just lost some elasticity, and they are getting 'smoothies' or perk-me-ups." |
| The Daily Mail report says IRM buys the stem cells from the Ukraine hospital. |
| Hill went to Barbados to get more information and he eventually met with one of IRM's senior doctors, Shami Ramesh. |
| Ramesh said he would show Hill proof of how the beauty injections work or how they help patients with various diseases. |
| "This 'proof' turned out to be one study of a single patient with motor neurone disease and another of eight cardiac patients. The numbers were too small for proper analysis and the data had not been published in any reputable peer-reviewed journal," Hill wrote. |
| Ramesh said the best proof was in how many patients kept coming back for more injections. |
| Hill said Ramesh denied allegations that the stem cells his firm uses come from newborn babies snatched form their mothers and killed for their cells and body parts. |
| "He said he had faith in the Institute of Cryobiology in Kharkiv, the source of the stem cells used by the Barbados clinic, but added that 'maybe in the future we will go and check it out,'" Hill wrote in the newspaper report. |
| Hill then traveled to Ukraine and said Dr. Valentin Greshenko, head of the Institute of Cryobiology refused to be interviewed. |
| Searching for details, he went to the Maternity Hospital Number Six, located in a high-crime section of Kharkiv. |
| There, he interviewed a 26 year-old woman, Svetlana Plusikova, who had a normal pregnancy but was told after birth that her baby was stillborn. Doctors refused to let her see the baby. |
| "I think she was stolen. If she was dead I should have been allowed to see her. I think a lot of young mothers like me lost their children, but right now nobody turns to the police," she told HIll. |
| Dimitry and Olena Stulnev shared with Hill their own story of how their baby was shown to them and then doctors claimed the baby died the next day. Hospital officials refused to provide them more information or allow them to see their baby. |
| Hill said he eventually obtained videotaped evidence of the infanticides and abortions from Tatyana Zhakarova, from the Federation Of Families With Many Children. |
| "Tatyana discovered many more infants had died at the hospital in similarly odd circumstances. And after intensive lobbying, the authorities eventually agreed to have the tiny bodies of around 30 babies exhumed and examined," Hill wrote in the Daily Mail. |
| "Tatyana showed me the video she had been allowed to record of the post-mortem examinations that followed. The gruesome film shows the carcasses of babies, some of whom were full-term, with their organs and brains missing," Hill added. |
| In an attempt to prevent exposing the truth, officials have apparently apprehended Tatyana's 20 year-old son. He has been missing since October and she fears he's been killed. |
| Ultimately, Hill was granted five minutes to talk with Maternity Hospital Number Six's chief doctor Larysa Nazarenko. |
| "The children are not lost," she told Hill. "They are not stolen -- that's just somebody else's illusion." |
| "There is no such therapy," she said, according to the London newspaper. "No work in this hospital is connected with the use of cells. This is the wrong address. I deny everything." |
| Hill reports that the Council Of Europe has started its own investigation of the barbaric stem cell trade and it's first report talks of a "culture of trafficking of children snatched at birth and a wall of silence from hospital staff upwards over their fate." |
| Clinics Use Tissue From Babies Killed in Abortions for Cosmetic Injections |
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| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| August 8, 2006 |
| London, England (LifeNews.com) -- Women from around the world are traveling to clinics in various locations that are now offering face lifts and cosmetic surgery using tissue from babies who have been killed by abortions. |
| Pro-life advocates are strongly condemning the practice and saying the taking of human life is never warranted -- especially for such a self-serving purpose. |
| Women like Susan Barrington, a 52-year-old housewife from England, are heading to places such as Barbados, the Dominican Republic, Moscow and Rotterdam to obtain the treatments. |
| She has been given the final go-ahead form a local clinic to travel abroad for the treatment that promises to make her look 10 years younger and doesn't mind that lives have been sacrificed to enhance her beauty. |
| To produce the treatments, clinics are using tissue from babies killed in abortions from 6 to 12 weeks into pregnancy and stem cells obtained from destroying human embryos to inject into a client's face. The fetal cells then begin a supposed rejuvenation process that makes the skin look younger. |
| To obtain the cells, women in underdeveloped nations are paid up to $200 dollars to carry a baby up to the optimum eight to 12 week period when the fetuses are “harvested” for their stem cells which are then sold to exclusive cosmetic clinics. |
| Both pro-life advocates and scientists who favor stem cell research are upset by the promotion of these injections. |
| UK stem-cell researcher Colin Blakemore told the London Daily Mail newspaper that the therapies are "highly experimental" and risk damaging the reputation of legitimate stem cell researchers. |
| He also complained that these clinics were located in tourist destinations and unregulated by any international body. |
| "And if anything goes wrong afterwards, it is hushed up to prevent damage to the business," he told the newspaper. |
| In a statement given to LifeNews.com, Concerned Women for America condemned scientists for using tissue from abortions and embryonic stem cells for the treatments. |
| “This fad illustrates the extremes to which embryonic stem cell use can lead," CWA senior fellow, Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, said. “It is hard to believe that such atrocities are going on today." |
| "The ethical and moral ramifications of such treatments are staggering; the experimental aspects are equally troubling," Crouse explained. |
| "Not only is the origin of the fetuses immoral and inhumane; there are medical problems and complications associated with the injections," Crouse concluded. "This savage and repulsive ‘brave new world’ of human sacrifices in the quest for eternal youth is a prime example of the end results when all moral boundaries are destroyed.” |
| Some of the clinics include the Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Barbados where injections are done using tissue from aborted babies. The clinic is located in the luxurious Villa Nova hotel, where American and Russian scientists have targeted upper class British and American women. |
| More than 50 clinics exist in Moscow, the Russian capital, including the Cellulite Clinic. There, cells from a wide range of sources including aborted babies and human embryos are used. |
| Abortion, Infanticide of Ukraine Babies Fuels Stem Cell Research Industry |
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| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| December 12, 2006 |
| London, England (LifeNews.com) -- A new report from the BBC in England says that the abortion and infanticide of healthy babies in Ukraine is fueling its stem cell research industry. The news service obtained disturbing video footage of post-mortem examinations of babies showing their bodies ravaged for organs and cells. |
| The BBC says it spoke to many mothers in the city of Kharkiv who say they gave birth to healthy babies only to have members of the hospital maternity staff take them and kill them for research. |
| Local authorities exhumed the bodies of 30 infants and unborn children from a cemetery used by one maternity hospital. Video footage of that was given to the British news service and the Council of Europe. |
| The tape shows brains and organs having been stripped from the children and some of the bodies dismembered. |
| One pathologist told the BBC that the footage doesn't show typically post-mortem practices and he believes the babies have been killed to obtain stem cells from their bone marrow. |
| The council says there is a trafficking of children snatched at birth and silence from local hospitals that are profiting from it. |
| The report follows on the heels of news that some Ukrainian women are being paid $200 to get pregnant so they can have abortions after eight weeks and the stem cells from their aborted baby can be used for beauty injections from women from England and other countries. |
| "This commoditization of human life is pernicious, may be growing, and is of crucial concern in many fields," bioethicist Wesley J. Smith said in response to the news. |
| "Cloners need human eggs for each cloning attempt. If human cloning ever took off, it would require tens of millions of eggs, and the worry is that poor women will become so many egg farms," Smith said. |
| "I am convinced that cloning will research will eventually lead to fetal farming--which if personhood theory is accepted, would be perfectly permissible," he added. |
| "When we lose sight of the need to promote human exceptionalism and its corollary, the intrinsic value of human life, these are the territories we enter," Smith concluded. |
| Science Adopts Rules After Fake Embryonic Stem Cell Research Papers |
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| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| November 28, 2006 |
| Seoul, South Korea (LifeNews.com) -- Leading scientific journal Science has adopted new rules following an investigation into how it could have published two misleading papers from a South Korean scientist and his research team. |
| The papers made fantastic claims about embryonic stem cell research studies that turned out to be false. |
| A six-person review committee consisting of stem cell researchers, an editor from the journal Nature, and members of the Science editorial boad determined that the editors of Science followed the correct review procedures at the time the papers were published. |
| "In handling fraudulent stem-cell research articles, journal editors went above and beyond existing procedures to try and verify the findings, but in today's competitive publishing environment, more stringent, less trusting safeguards are now essential," the committe said, according to a Science statement LifeNews.com obtained. |
| "The journal's current procedures, based on an assumption of trust in the basic integrity of the vast majority of researchers, must be revised to acknowledge the risk of misleading, distorted, or fraudulent findings," the committee concluded. |
| They said new polices the scientific journal has adopted would prevent future problems. |
| The committee suggested that Science and other leading medical journals adopt a template to use to review high profile papers on controversial scientific or political issues. |
| High-risk submissions should then be subjected to an additional level of scrutiny, such as more comprehensive access to primary data, the committee said. |
| Even so, the committee emphasized: "No realistic set of procedures can be completely immune to deliberate fraud." |
| The committee also said the journals should pay more attention to what role the authors of the papers actually played in the research. |
| “We are committed to accepting the major findings of the report, and to making our new procedures clear to authors, reviewers, and readers as they are developed,” Science editor-in-chief Donald Kennedy said. |
| The investigation began after Science was forced to retract two papers written by Hwang Woo-suk and his research team. |
| The papers claimed the team created patient specific embryonic stem cells that would overcome the problems of a patient's immune system rejecting the cells in treatments. The other paper claimed Hwang's team successfully cloned a human embryo to be killed for her stem cells. |
| Both claims turned out to be false as the members of the team admitted they faked the research and probes by Seoul National University and the South Korean government confirmed the fraud. |
| Science retracted the February 2004 and June 2005 papers in January. |
| Hwang and his team have since been fired from their positions at SNU and Hwang and associates are on trial on charges they embezzled public and private funds meant for research. A conviction could lead to years in prison. |
| Hwang has since started a new animal cloning lab and hopes to continue the kind of research that led to the creation of Snuppy, the first cloned dog. |
| Member of Fake Embryonic Stem Cell Research Team Clones Female Dog |
| Seoul, South Korea (LifeNews.com) -- A scientist who was a member of Hwang Woo-suk's team that falsified embryonic stem cell research in an international scandal says he has cloned the world's first female dog. The only success Hwang's team had was the cloning of the first dog, a male Afghan hound, and this claim would expand on that. Lee Byeong-chun, a veterinary professor at Seoul National University, claims he's created the first female cloned dog, another Afghan hound he's named Bona. The team submitted a paper about the cloning to the international veterinary journal Theriogenology. Lee said Bona was born June 18 using animal cloning technology and said two other female dogs, named Peace and Hope, were cloned as well. He says DNA tests prove they are all authentic clones. "This was a process that must be done to see if a cloned dog has reproduction capabilities," Lee told The Associated Press. The cloning process is meant to "advance medical research" Lee told Reuters, and "and it is not yet intended for people to clone their pets." |
| Hwang Woo-Suk: I Can't Prove How Stem Cell Research Funds Used |
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| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| November 14, 2006 |
| Seoul, South Korea (LifeNews.com) -- The South Korean government finished questioning embattled embryonic stem cell research scientist Hwang Woo-suk on Tuesday. Hwang, who has been charged with embezzling public and private research dollars, told the court he could not prove how all of the money was spent. |
| Prosecutors asked Hwang Tuesday if he had receipts showing the cost of purchases associated with his successful cloning of a dog and failed cloning of a mammoth. |
| "I don't have any data that can prove it," Hwang said. |
| He said he didn't have receipts to show where the money went that he used to clone an Afghan hound called Snuppy, the world's first cloned dog. Hwang indicated his team used some of the funds to purchase dogs from dealers. |
| Hwang also said that part of the funding for the cloning experiments came from a major South Korean electronics firm that backed his efforts to try to clone a mammoth from frozen cells. He previously said some of the funds came from the Russian mafia for the questionable cloning experiments. |
| Hwang told the court in July that he spent more than $1 million in corporate donations on "peripheral activities related to research." At that time, he indicated that he obtained three samples of mammoth tissues from glaciers and tried to thaw them three times for cloning but failed. |
| In a late October hearing, he admitted he covered up the intent of the expenses in reports. |
| "Some of the money was spent in contacting the Russia Mafia as we tried to clone mammoths," Hwang said. "But you can't say that, so we expensed it as money for cows for experiment." |
| Prosecutors have said that Hwang misspent $2.9 million in state funds and private donations, some of which went into a personal bank account. Other money is alleged to have gone to paying reporters for favorable coverage and expensive trips and gifts for other scientists. |
| However, he denied those charges and said money only went to research purposes. Hwang said paying for expenses for his colleagues and research materials added up. |
| "Do you know how hard it is to secure four or five animal ovaries at butcher shops? You need to keep the workers there happy," he said, according to Reuters. |
| During the July hearing a prosecutor asked Hwang if any of the money supposed to be used for research wound up in his personal bank accounts. Hwang did not deny that this happened and said, "I did have the money managed separately." |
| Hwang previously admitted that he used some of the money meant for research to clone tigers, pay for housing for a junior scientist, pay for a wedding for a colleague, and fund overseas trips for members of his research team. |
| He also indicated he deposited research funds into bank accounts under the names of colleagues and frequently withdrew large sums of money and put it in suitcases and took it to undisclosed locations. |
| "Some of it had to go to uses of a highly classified nature," he said at the time. |
| In February, South Korea's Board of Audit and Inspection said millions of dollars were placed in Hwang's personal bank account that should have been deposited for research. |
| Prosecutor Lee In-kyu also said Hwang embezzled $900,000 in private and government donations to the research. After getting more than $35 billion in research funds from the government and private donors, South Korean prosecutors say Hwang misused much of the money by laundering it through 63 bank accounts set up under false names. |
| Lee indicated Hwang's team also paid for human eggs for research, which is a violation of the nation's bioethics laws. |
| Hwang and his team "indelibly hurt the people as well as the families and patients of hard-to-cure diseases," Lee said. "Some scientists abused the people's high expectations and a lack of peer reviews and disregarded ethics of research to attain their own goals." |
| Hwang and others indicted on the charges could spend up to 10 years in prison and another three years for violating bioethics laws about obtaining human eggs for research. |
| According to a Reuters report, Hwang took the stand for 30 minutes Tuesday to answer questions and the next hearing in the case is set for December 12. |
| Hwang and his research team came under international scrutiny when it was revealed that they fabricated the entirety of their human cloning and embryonic stem cell research. |
| He has set up a private lab where he is engaging in animal cloning experiments. |
| Hwang Woo-Suk Research Team Violated Policies on Egg Collections |
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| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| November 27, 2006 |
| Seoul, South Korea (LifeNews.com) -- A South Korean governmental committee issued a report last week on the human eggs Hwang Woo-suk's research team collected for its embryonic stem cell research and human cloning experiments. The panel said Hwang's team violated numerous guidelines and misled women. |
| The National Consultative Ethics Committee for Life report indicated that 100 of the 138 women Hwang's team secured human egg donations from were treated improperly under the country's bioethics guidelines. |
| The board said women were not adequately notified of the potential risks in the egg collection process and it said that written consent forms used in soliciting the women's eggs were not properly submitted for review. |
| The committee also verified that Hwang did coerce two junior researchers in 2003 to donate their human eggs for his team's studies. |
| Revelations about the egg donations came to light in November of last year and paved the way for the intense scrutiny that revealed all of Hwang's human cloning and embryonic stem cell research was fraudulent. |
| The committee said it planned to introduce more stringent measures in light of the abuses, according to a Korean Times report. |
| "To prevent possible recurrences of these unethical practices, we plan to strengthen the Institutional Review Board and strictly ban trades of human eggs,’’ the committee said in a statement," according to the newspaper. |
| The news is disturbing to bioethics observers because people on both sides of the stem cell research debate are concerned that egg donations take advantage of women, especially the poor, and can lead to coercion. |
| Meanwhile, the South Korean government has submitted a bill to the nation's legislature to limit to three the number of times women can donate their eggs for research in order to reduce exploitation. |
| Previously, government prosecutors said they found Hwang's team used 2,236 ova taken from 136 women between November 2002 and December 2005. The number is far more than the 427 eggs Hwang's team claims to have used. |
| The government report said Hwang paid millions of dollars to 25 women who provided eggs for his research through the Hanna Women's Clinic in the first eight months of 2005. |
| In June, a hospital lost a court case in which a woman who donated her eggs for the research was not told about the risks involved. |
| The Seoul Central District Court ordered Mizmedi Hospital to pay over $63 million to a woman who donated her eggs. The court said the hospital's fertility clinic should have told her that the egg extraction procedure could result in infertility. |
| The 52 year-old woman filed the lawsuit against Roh Sung-il, head of the clinic, and Hwang. |
| A panel of judges on the court determined that Mizmedi Hospital intentionally failed to tell the woman about the dangers. |
| The woman, identified only by her family name Han, had the egg extraction procedure done and later failed to become pregnant. Her lawsuit originally asked for more than $525 million. |
| Roh was listed as one of the specialists in the two papers Hwang's team submitted to the scientific journal Science. The papers claimed the team successfully cloned a human embryo and cloned patient-specific embryonic stem cells that would overcome immune system rejection issues. Both claims turned out to be false. |
| Hwang Woo-Suk's Stem Cell Research Team Will Do Animal Cloning |
| Seoul, South Korea (LifeNews.com) -- Hwang Woo-Suk became the international laughingstock of the scientific community when his embryonic stem cell research was found to be completely fraudulent. He and some of his colleagues could go to jail over charges of embezzlement, but they're moving ahead with new cloning efforts. Hwang is making a quiet comeback in a new cloning lab he set up 35 miles south of Seoul in Yongin where some of his former Seoul National University research team members are helping him. They are conducting animal cloning with the intent of creating animal organ transplants that can be used in treating humans. "He is working with some 30 researchers there, mostly junior researchers who worked with Hwang [at SNU]," Hwang lawyer Lee Geon-Haeng told AFP. Cloning expert Park Se-Pill told the French press agency about the specifics of Hwang's new research. "Hwang is working on producing animal hearts from cloned pigs for human transplant," Park said. Park said Hwang's team had "unrivaled" cloning technologies and said South Korea "must not allow Hwang's technology to go down the drain." |
| Hwang Woo-Suk Wants to Resume Embryonic Stem Cell Research Work |
| Seoul, South Korea (LifeNews.com) -- He became the laughingstock of the international scientific community after his entire embryonic stem cell research work was found to be fraudulent. Hwang Woo-suk says he wants to resume the controversial studies, though his timing is ironic as it comes one year after the problems began. On November 24 last year, Hwang held a press conference to acknowledge concerns that two of the junior researchers on his team had used their own human eggs in their research experiments, violating international guidelines. Those problems led to further scrutiny of Hwang's research that eventually showed two papers his team published were false. The team claimed to have cloned a human embryo and created patient-specific embryonic stem cells that could overcome the hurdle of a patient's immune system rejecting them. Both claims were untrue. Later, a probe revealed Hwang knew the research was fraudulent and Seoul National University banned him and his colleagues from teaching there or conducting research on its campus. Now, Hwang is on trial for charges that he embezzled public and private money intended for research and spent it on himself, lavish gifts and trips to his colleagues, and in bribing members of the media to obtain favorable news coverage. If convicted, he could spend seven years in prison. Hwang resumed his animal cloning research at a private lab in August, but his lawyer Lee Geon-haeng tells the Korea Times Hwang wants to resume embryonic stem cell research. "Hwang wants to work on human embryonic stem cells again. He seems to think that creating patient-specific stem cells is the only way to apologize for all the stir he has caused,’’ Lee said. "He has confidence that he could create the cells in about half a year should he and his men be allowed to do so,’’ Lee added. |
| Stem Cell Researcher Wants to Make Patient-Specific Stem Cells |
| Seoul, South Korea (LifeNews.com) -- Embryonic stem cell research took a blow this year when a South Korean team falsely claimed it made patient-specific stem cells for use in treatments. Now, another South Korean scientist says he thinks he can create the patient-matched cells, which would be able to overcome rejection issues. Hwang Woo-suk's team claimed to have created such cells but the entirety of their research was proven fraudulent. The ability to clone patient-specific cells is important because, unlike in adult stem cell research, embryonic stem cells have failed to overcome immune system rejection issues when implanted as treatments in animals. However, Park Se-pill at Cheju National University, tells the Korea Times he can make the cells in six months as soon as research involving human embryos is allowed. "Technologically speaking, we will be capable of deriving stem cell lines from cloned human embryos in about half a year," Park told the Times. "We have the goal of launching studies on cloned embryonic stem cells and our new lab will have a team for that purpose," Park, the third scientist to harvest stem cells from human embryos, told the newspaper. Park said he and his research team have opened a new stem cell research center in Seoul. |
| Pro-Abortion Actress Julianne Moore Sends Planned Parenthood Fundraiser |
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| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| December 8, 2006 |
| Hollywood, CA (LifeNews.com) -- Actress Julianne Moore, who has stared in movies such as Hannibal and Boogie Nights, is the latest Hollywood star to send out a fundraising pitch for Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion business. The donor letter is nothing new as Moore has been on the pro-abortion group's board of directors for years. |
| Calling herself a "passionate supporter" of the "remarkable" abortion business, she said the organization "is on a roll, making progress that we've long hoped for." |
| "As a long-standing member of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Board of Advocates, I'm asking you to lend your year-end support to one of my favorite causes," Moore urged. |
| In the letter, Moore outlined the kinds of things she's done to support the pro-abortion group. |
| "Over time, I've done whatever I can to help Planned Parenthood succeed, from donating signed auction items from my films, to speaking out for choice in the media, to participating in Planned Parenthood events around the country," Moore said. |
| She said Americans should be "especially proud of Planned Parenthood." |
| Moore lauded the group for winning over the counter status for the morning after pill "for women 18 and older." However, the FDA decision to sell the Plan B drug without a prescription allows men to purchase it as well -- something that concerns pro-life advocates who say it allows sexual abusers to cover up their crimes. |
| The actress also applauded Planned Parenthood for defeating the South Dakota abortion ban, in what she called a "landmark victory," and thanked the group for going to the Supreme Court to defeat the ban on partial-birth abortions. |
| "Please send a year-end gift to Planned Parenthood Federation of America today," Moore concludes. |
| Her letter follows just days after a similar fundraising pitch from Felicity Huffman and William Macy. |
| The couple, married in 1997, urge Planned Parenthood supporters to donate to the abortion business -- saying it's time for abortion activists to get on the offense after years of responding to pro-life advocates. |
| They came under fire for saying, "We support Planned Parenthood because we believe life is sacred," despite the fact that it does more abortions than any other company. |
| During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Moore appeared in a series of films that received Oscar recognition including The End of the Affair ("Best Actress" nomination) and her two 2002 films, Far From Heaven ("Best Actress" nomination) and The Hours ("Best Supporting Actress" nomination). |
| Her film, Freedomland, opened in February 2006 to mixed reviews and Moore's latest film Trust the Man is directed by her husband, Bart Freundlich and also features her son Caleb. |
| Moore also drew complaints for her donations to pro-abortion presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004. |
| ACTION: Contact Julianne Moore c/o Steven Huvane, 700 San Vicente Bulevard, Suite G 910, West Hollywood, California 90069 or send a fax to 310-289-6677. |
| Biotech Firm Modifies Embryonic Stem Cell Research Technique Claims |
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| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| November 23, 2006 |
| Los Angeles, CA (LifeNews.com) -- A leading biotech firm that came under fire for claiming to have created a new technique to obtain embryonic stem cells without destroying human life has modified its claims. In a new paper submitted to the scientific journal Nature, Advanced Cell Technology confirmed previous LifeNews.com reports indicating the assertions were false. |
| In an addendum to the original report, ACT admitted that none of the 16 human embryos in the original experiments survived the attempt at creating a new technique. |
| ACT also clarified its own claims about it's research, now saying that it "might" be possible to obtain stem cells from a human embryo without killing it. |
| In the Thursday paper, ACT went on to say that "none of the biopsied [human] embryos" involved in the research survived. |
| Ultimately, ACT scientists extracted two embryonic stem cell lines from the 16 human embryos but, like other methods of obtaining the cells, the ACT methods resulted in the killing of all 16 human beings. |
| Though the new paper establishes that one cell from a human embryo, called a blastomere, could generate embryonic stem cells, the ACT team destroyed the human embryos by using several cells from them. |
| Even if the ACT team had used just one cell from each embryo, more human embryos would have to be used and likely eventually destroyed. |
| Nature requested the addendum after ACT and Nature press releases in late August misstated the results of the study and claimed the new technique solved the ethical problems that pro-life advocates have with embryonic stem cell research. |
| Dr. Ritu Dhand, Nature's chief biology editor, said the correction was sought to make the original paper easier to understand. He also said experts reviewed the correction “just to be sure that everything was as it should be.” |
| “There was nothing either scientifically or technically wrong with the paper,” Dhand said. |
| Though the original ACT paper had no flaws -- it admitted that all of the human embryos were destroyed and a new technique to obtain embryonic stem cells without destroying human life was not created -- the press statements about the paper were misleading. |
| Nature later apologized for the wrongful claims in its own press releases on the ACT research. |
| Instead of apologizing for its own false assertions in its press release, ACT stood by its claims in media interviews and sent a threatening letter to LifeNews.com after the pro-life news service exposed ACT's false statements. |
| The false statements caused the company's stock to triple in price after several months of decreasing values. The stock price is back down to its original level prior to the controversy. |
| The correction paper was written by Irina Klimanskaya, Young Chung, Sandy Becker, Shi-Jian Lu and Robert Lanza. |
| Leading Embryonic Stem Cell Research Firm Threatens LifeNews.com |
| http://www.LifeNews.com/bio1869.html |
| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| November 16, 2006 |
| Los Angeles, CA (LifeNews.com) -- A leading biotech firm that |
| engages in cloning and embryonic stem cell research has launched |
| a scathing attack on LifeNews.com, the pro-life newswire service. |
| The CEO of Advanced Cell Technologies sent LifeNews.com a heated |
| letter late Wednesday threatening the news service if it didn't |
| stop reporting the truth about its research. |
| ACT came under fire in September when it issued a press release |
| claiming to have created a new embryonic stem cell research |
| technique that voided the concerns of pro-life advocates by |
| obtaining the cells without destroying human life. |
| The press release, and subsequent news coverage, lauded the new |
| technique as an ethical panacea in the embryonic stem cell |
| research debate |
| "Until now, embryonic stem cell research has been synonymous with |
| the destruction of human embryos," Robert Lanza, the study's |
| senior author, said in an August 23 statement obtained by |
| LifeNews.com. |
| "We have demonstrated, for the first time, that human embryonic |
| stem cells can be generated without interfering with the embryo's |
| potential for life," he claimed. |
| However, the firm's research report, published in the scientific |
| journal Nature, revealed every one of the 16 human embryos the |
| ACT team used in the new technique died. ACT also claimed to have |
| removed just one cell from each human embryo in its press |
| release, but the paper showed 4-7 cells were removed, killing the |
| days-old unborn child. |
| LifeNews.com led the national exposure on ACT's misleading press |
| release and how the favorable, but erroneous, initial news |
| coverage drove ACT's stock price up 358% after a steady decline |
| throughout most of 2006. |
| In his letter, ACT CEO William Caldwell claimed LifeNews.com |
| featured news stories about the biotech firm and its leading |
| researcher, Dr. Robert Lanza, that are "inaccurate and highly |
| inflammatory" and claims the stories have done "unfair damage." |
| Caldwell took issue with LifeNews.com's characterization of ACT's |
| press release as "misleading" and claimed the news service made |
| "egregious false statements" about it. |
| "I am quite confident that any reasonably informed journalist |
| familiar with the Nature paper would easily recognize that ACT |
| and Dr. Lanza misled no one" and that his firms research was |
| "properly described." |
| Caldwell goes on to say that the ACT press release "announced |
| accurately" what the paper contained adding, "Neither the Nature |
| article nor the press release made any claim that the embryos |
| referenced in our research paper were allowed to develop to an |
| advanced stage." |
| LifeNews.com never reported the story with that claim. None of |
| the human embryos in ACT's research could have ever made it to an |
| advanced stage of pregnancy, because they were all killed in the |
| research. |
| Backing up the assertions LifeNews.com made, in late August, |
| Nature, issued two "corrections" regarding the misleading claims |
| concerning ACT's studies. |
| "We feel it necessary to explain that ... the embryos that were |
| used for these experiments did not remain intact," Ruth Francis, |
| Nature's senior press officer, said at the time. |
| In fact, Nature later admitted what LifeNews.com had already |
| exposed in our August 25 story, "Supposed New Embryonic Stem Cell |
| Research Technique Killed All Embryos." |
| "The paper itself, however, shows only proof of principle that a |
| human embryonic stem-cell line can be created from a single cell, |
| or blastomere, from a very early embryo comprising 810 cells. |
| None of the embryos used survived," it wrote on September 8. "The |
| Nature paper's details and Supplementary Information made clear |
| that all the embryos were broken up." |
| Scientists also said the presentation of the ACT Nature paper was |
| not on target. |
| "So many things about the paper and how it was presented are |
| unclear," stem-cell scientist Hans Sch?ler, a director of the Max |
| Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in M?nster, Germany, |
| told Nature. |
| Nature added "many in the field have objected" to how ACT |
| characterized the research. |
| Caldwell claims Nature never issued the corrections saying |
| LifeNews.com's mention of them is "not true." |
| But Nature admitted it issued corrections in its September 8 |
| editorial. |
| "Within minutes of the paper going live, Nature's press office |
| corrected its press release to say that Lanza's experiments had |
| destroyed some of the embryos. Two days later, a second note made |
| clear that all the embryos had been destroyed," Nature wrote. |
| Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief of Nature, even went so far as |
| to apologize for the publication's own press release that |
| erroneously claimed none of the human embryos in ACT's new |
| technique were destroyed. |
| Despite Nature's clear explanation that none of the human embryos |
| survived in the new ACT technique, Caldwell continued to insist |
| the opposite is true. In his letter to LifeNews.com, he claimed |
| "Indeed, the Nature paper documents a technique that can be used |
| to create embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos." |
| Yet, virtually every leading bioethicist and scientist |
| interviewed about the paper says the Nature article proves that |
| it might be possible to someday obtain the embryonic stem cells |
| without destroying the days-old unborn child, but ACT did not |
| successfully do that. |
| Caldwell also cited two news stories, an August 24 Wall Street |
| Journal article and an August 26 story in the Economist, to back |
| up his assertion LifeNews.com has the facts wrong. |
| In both stories Caldwell suggested, mention is made that some or |
| all of the human embryos were destroyed -- including in an |
| admission from Lanza himself. |
| Meanwhile, other media outlets reported that ACT couldn't get its |
| story straight about the research after issuing its initial press |
| release. |
| During an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer before the |
| controversy erupted about the false claims, Lanza, who is also |
| ACT's vice president, told the newspaper that "some of the |
| embryos survived and were returned to frozen storage." |
| Later, in a follow-up interview with the newspaper, he said he |
| was referring to human embryos used in similar experiments, but |
| not the ones touted in the Nature article he wrote. |
| He also refused to talk with the Philadelphia newspaper about the |
| huge upswing ACT's stock received after the false press release |
| touting the supposedly ethical procedure. |
| "To be truthful, I'm so deeply involved in the scientific side,'' |
| Lanza said, "you'd have to talk to the business end.'' |
| Later, Lanza even came under fire from a Senate committee as Sen. |
| Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican who is a leading backer |
| of forcing taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research, |
| scolded him. |
| "You made our job a lot tougher," Specter said, according to a |
| Reuters report. He called the reports of ACT's success "dramatic |
| albeit false." |
| Specter said Lanza's mischaracterization of his team's research |
| hurt the cause of those who back the controversial research and |
| said proponents of embryonic stem cell research funding would |
| have to create a new bill because of the problems with ACT. |
| Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat who co-sponsored a funding bill |
| with Specter, also criticized Lanza during the hearing. |
| Wesley J. Smith, an author and leading bioethics watchdog, made |
| the same ultimate assessment as LifeNews.com's reporting of the |
| situation. |
| "The press release from ACT told a different story [than the |
| paper] and the media stampeded. In other words, they wrote off |
| the press release, not the actual published science," Smith said, |
| calling it "shameful." |
| In his letter to LifeNews.com, Caldwell concludes that ACT will |
| "not stand idly by while we are attacked with false statements |
| about our efforts" and labeled LifeNews.com's reporting of ACT's |
| misleading claims "dishonest and unconscionable." |
| He also said ACT will publish a future article in Nature intended |
| to correct "misleading news reports" such as ones he claims |
| LifeNews.com carried. |
| Caldwell finished his letter by threatening LifeNews.com if it |
| did not pull the supposedly erroneous news reports and promised |
| to monitor the pro-life news service's further coverage of ACT's |
| research. |
| Patricia Heaton, Sports Stars Rebut Michael J. Fox on Missouri Stem Cell Ad |
| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| October 25, 2006 |
| St. Louis, MO (LifeNews.com) -- Pro-life advocates in Missouri have prepared a response ad to one that actor Michael J. Fox has made in numerous states that contains misleading information about pro-life candidates and their views on stem cell research. The new ads feature St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Jeff Suppan and stars Jim Caviezel of "The Passion of Christ." |
| Fox recorded an ad that aired during the first game of the World Series and St. Louis-area voters were falsely told that pro-life Sen. Jim Talent, who is in one of the nation's closest Senate races, does not support stem cell research. |
| "Amendment 2 claims to ban human cloning, but in the 2000 words you won't read, it makes cloning a constitutional right," Suppan says in the ad. |
| Suppan will be pitching for the Cardinals tonight and the ad is slated to be shown during the World Series. |
| The ad also features former St. Louis Rams quarterback Kurt Warner, Patricia Heaton of the hit comedy series Everybody Loves Raymond, and Kansas City Royals star Mike Sweeney. |
| "This is a powerful response to the misleading ads about Amendment 2," Cathy Ruse, a spokeswoman for Missourians Against Human Cloning, tells LifeNews.com. |
| "The truth is, Amendment 2 would create a constitutional right to human cloning and human egg trafficking in Missouri," Ruse says. "We are so pleased to have this kind of star power behind our efforts to expose the deceptions in Amendment 2. |
| In the television commercial, Heaton tells viewers how Amendment 2 will exploit women. |
| "Amendment two actually makes it a constitutional right for fertility clinics to pay women for their eggs. Low income women will be seduced by big checks. And extracting eggs is an extremely complicated, dangerous and painful procedure," Heaton warns. |
| In the Missouri commercial Fox did, he makes inaccurate generalizations about stem cell research. |
| “In Missouri, you can elect Claire McCaskill, who shares my hope for cures,” Fox tells viewers urging them to support the pro-abortion, pro-cloning candidate. |
| "Unfortunately Senator Jim Talent opposes expanding stem cell research," Fox claims. "Senator Talent even wanted to criminalize the science that gives us a chance for hope." |
| Though the ad makes it appear Talent opposes all kinds of stem cell research, he has voted in favor of spending millions in federal funds for adult stem cell research, the only kind of research that has ever cured a single patient. |
| What Talent has opposed is forcing taxpayers to pay for studies using embryonic stem cells, which can only be obtained by destroying human life. |
| A new study by Steven Goldman and colleagues at the University of Rochester Medical Center finds embryonic stem cells cause tumors when inserted into rats that have Parkinson's. |
| As a result, patients like Fox would likely be killed or face severe problems if treated with embryonic stem cells. |
| Related web sites: |
| Amendment 2 video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nguJQ_dRPXw |
| Missourians Against Human Cloning - http://www.nocloning.org |
| Michael J. Fox Blasted for Misleading Missouri Stem Cell Research Ad |
| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| October 23, 2006 |
| St. Louis, MO (LifeNews.com) -- Residents of St. Louis are understandably excited as their hometown baseball team is in the World Series. However, Missourians are being shown more than they bargained for when tuning into the television broadcasts as they're also having to watch a stem cell research ad that is getting national attention for its misleading nature. |
| The commercial ran on Sunday evening and features actor Michael J. Fox, who has previously upset pro-life advocates with his embryonic stem cell research advocacy. |
| The ad features Fox, who is clearly increasingly suffering from the effects of Parkinson's disease, but who makes inaccurate generalizations about stem cell research. |
| “In Missouri, you can elect Claire McCaskill, who shares my hope for cures,” Fox tells viewers urging them to support the pro-abortion, pro-cloning candidate. |
| "Unfortunately Senator Jim Talent opposes expanding stem cell research," Fox claims. "Senator Talent even wanted to criminalize the science that gives us a chance for hope." |
| Though the ad makes it appear Talent opposes all kinds of stem cell research, he has voted in favor of spending millions in federal funds for adult stem cell research, the only kind of research that has ever cured a single patient. |
| What Talent has opposed is forcing taxpayers to pay for studies using embryonic stem cells, which can only be obtained by destroying human life. A new study by Steven Goldman and colleagues at the University of Rochester Medical Center finds embryonic stem cells cause tumors when inserted into rats that have Parkinson's. |
| As a result, patients like Fox would likely be killed or face severe problems if treated with embryonic stem cells. |
| Kathryn Jean Lopez, the editor of National Review, criticized Fox's new ad. |
| "In the commercial, which ran during game two of the World Series in St. Louis Sunday night, a clearly suffering Michael J. Fox — the beloved actor, who has Parkinson’s disease, is shaking as he speaks — pulls on voters’ heartstrings and serves up an unfair and disingenuous message," she explained. |
| "In a commercial drowning in false hope and overhype, Michael J. Fox, Claire McCaskill, and their funders don’t mention that stem-cell research — including embryo-destroying research — is already legal and happening not just in Missouri but across the U.S," Lopez adds. |
| "The commercial also doesn't mention that there are some real potential drawbacks to jumping into embryonic-stem-cell research for Parkinson’s patients," Lopez writes. "Embryonic-stem-cell research is not the panacea its advocates would have you believe." |
| Lopez also bashed McCaskill for "running as just another snake-oil salesman" by approving the false ad. |
| Michael J. Fox Blasts More Pro-Life Candidates on Stem Cell Research |
| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| October 25, 2006 |
| Wheaton, IL (LifeNews.com) -- Actor Michael J. Fox is continuing his barrage against pro-life candidates on the issue of stem cell research. A longtime actor who is afflicted with Parkinson's, Fox has come under fire from pro-life groups and candidates over his misleading ads that claim candidates who oppose embryonic stem cell research oppose all research in general. |
| Fox campaign in a Chicago-area congressional district on Tuesday to back pro-abortion candidate Tammy Duckworth. |
| "I'm so excited that we are going to have the kind of leadership that Tammy will provide that will make sure this happens," Fox said about her support for forcing taxpayers to pay for the unproven research. |
| Duckworth faces pro-life candidate Peter Roskam who was joined at a press conference by a man who was treated with adult stem cells, the only kind to have helped any patients. |
| "His life has been transformed," Roskam said. |
| Meanwhile, Fox has continued his line of false ads with another one in Wisconsin that promotes Gov. Jim Doyle, who has been one of the staunchest advocates of making taxpayer pay for research that destroys human life. |
| "What you decide can affect millions of people -- like me, like your family," says Fox. "Please, re-elect Gov. Doyle. For all of us." |
| Calling himself a "one issue guy," Fox said he was "honored" to help Doyle. |
| The ad blasts Mark Green for opposing embryonic stem cell research even though he has a $25 million dollar plan to have the state promote adult stem cells. |
| "His latest ad, which is part of a national smear campaign by Democrats, flat out lies about my record on stem cell research," Green said in a statement. "However, using a celebrity to further Jim Doyle's false attacks does not make them any more true." |
| Barbara Lyons, director of Wisconsin Right to Life, said the ads were misleading and preying on voters' emotions. |
| "Everyone deeply sympathizes with Fox who has Parkinson's disease. What we don't respect is the 'hype' and false hope he conveys about embryonic stem cell research," she said. |
| "There is no cure or even help for humans from this controversial research," said Lyons. "No human being has ever received an embryonic stem cell because they are too dangerous and tend to produce tumors." |
| Fox has recorded ads in Maryland and Missouri as well. |
| Related web sites: |
| Wisconsin Right to Life - http://www.wrtl.org |
| Deceptive Initiative Would Mislead Missouri Into Supporting Cloning |
| by Yuval Levin |
| October 19, 2006 |
| LifeNews.com Note: Yuval Levin is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and senior editor of the The New Atlantis magazine. |
| This November, voters in Missouri will be asked to consider a ballot initiative on human cloning and embryonic-stem-cell research. The initiative has been the focus of an intense (if lopsided) campaign in the state for months, with millions of dollars in ads calling for passage. But many of the most basic facts about just what the proposal says and aims to do have not fully emerged. |
| The Kansas City Star this week reports that the initiative's sponsor, the Coalition for Lifesaving Cures, has spent more than $28 million on the effort. More than 97 percent of the money has come from James and Virginia Stowers, the billionaire founders of American Century mutual funds, who have also founded a research institute in Kansas City that wants to take a leading role in the stem-cell game. $28 million is a lot of money, and would have paid for a lot of stem-cell research. Why spend it on this initiative campaign instead? What exactly is it buying? |
| The official summary that will appear on the ballot tells voters the initiative's first purpose is to “ensure Missouri patients have access to any therapies and cures, and allow Missouri researchers to conduct any research, permitted under federal law.” In other words, to take away from state legislators the authority to govern the practices of stem-cell scientists in the state, and to hand that authority to the federal government alone instead. Missouri could not regulate any practice that Congress has not seen fit to regulate. |
| The initiative's advocates have not done much to explain to voters why they should cede this bit of sovereignty, or why even those who support embryo-destructive stem-cell research should think that state legislators would restrict it more than Congress would. Indeed, while the U.S. House of Representatives has voted to ban all human cloning, and the Congress each year passes restrictions on federal funding of research in which human embryos are harmed, no such bills have ever even come up for a vote in the Missouri legislature. |
| More peculiar still, the actual text of the initiative does not quite match the summary's assertion that all research permitted nationally would be protected in Missouri. In fact, the initiative bans the creation of human embryos through in vitro fertilization if it is undertaken solely for research purposes, and bans the extraction of cells from embryos older than 14 days. |
| Neither is prohibited under federal law, and the former is a fairly regular practice. Stem-cell researchers, especially in the private sector, produce and destroy embryos solely for research purposes all the time. (Here, on page 22, for instance, is an ad from the Washington Post’s Express commuter paper asking women to provide their eggs for such endeavors.) |
| Activist Group Under Fire for Misleading Stem Cell Research Attack Ads |
| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| October 13, 2006 |
| Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A Democratic-oriented political organization is under fire for running misleading attack ads against pro-life Congressional lawmakers seeking re-election. The ads seek to paint the pro-life candidates as against helping patients because they voted against forcing taxpayer to pay for unproven embryonic stem cell research. |
| The Washington-based Majority Action has run the ads in at least two Congressional districts. |
| The ads claim at least two pro-life members of Congress, Indian's Chris Chocola's and Thelma Drake in Virginia, oppose stem cell research. The ads say the lawmakers oppose the research in general even though they have supported the use of adult stem cells. |
| The commercials each feature the same actress holding a picture of the lawmakers in question saying that her member of Congress voted against federal funding of stem cell research -- without any further elaboration or qualification. |
| The 60-second ads feature the woman's fictional testimony who says she will be afflicted with conditions that embryonic stem cell research could treat if not for the pro-life lawmaker's opposition. |
| The controversial research has yet to cure a single patient and is not anywhere close to being ready to do so, James Sherley, a stem cell researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said last week. |
| "How come she gets to decide who lives and who dies? Who is she?" the ads against Drake ask. |
| Chocola's campaign criticized the ad, which Majority Action has pulled from the airwaves. |
| "Chris Chocola is not her congressman and any statement to the contrary is absolutely and undeniably false," Brooks Kochvar, a spokesman for the pro-life lawmaker, said. |
| Kochvar said the "patently false" ad was pulled from WNDU-TV because it is false, but Bill Buck, a Majority Action representative, told the South Bend Tribune that the group took it down because of changing election priorities. |
| "We decided to spend the money elsewhere," Buck claimed in a comments to the newspaper. "We used some of that money to up our buy elsewhere." |
| Buck conceded the woman in the ad is not a constituent in either congressional district. |
| Matt Jaquint, general manager at WNDU-TV, told the Tribune newspaper that the group "didn't source anything in the ad" and said its removal was "more of a legal issue" than whether the ad was true or false. |
| Drake's campaign manager, Tim Murtaugh, also blasted the ads in comments to the Hampton Roads Daily Press. He has sent letters to stations demanding that the ads be removed immediately. |
| "The very suggestion that Thelma Drake is able to pick and choose who dies is beyond the pale in political discourse," he said. "The ad is extremely offensive and distasteful." |
| The newspaper indicated the same ad is also running against pro-life lawmakers in Pennsylvania and Ohio. |
| Buck said the anti-Drake ad, which premiered on Tuesday, was only slated to run through tonight and will be off the air after that. But their goal to make pro-life lawmakers appear anti-patient and against cures has probably already been achieved. |
| Senator Plans to Pursue Stem Cell Research Funding Compromise |
| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| October 23, 2006 |
| Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A Republican senator from Georgia plans to pursue a compromise on federal taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research that he says should overcome the objections of President Bush and pro-life advocates. |
| Sen. Johnny Isakson and a University of Georgia professor are hoping to promote a compromise measure that would have the federal government fund embryonic stem cells research without destroying human life. |
| They say there is no ethical problem with obtaining embryonic stem cells from the thousands of malformed human embryos that are destroyed by fertility clinics every year because they are incapable of surviving in the womb. |
| "You're not dealing with a gray area. You're not dealing with something that could become a fetus. You're dealing with something that otherwise would be considered waste. It is waste. It's a byproduct of in vitro fertilization," Isakson told the Cox News Service. |
| Isakson, who backed Bush's veto of a measure forcing taxpayers to finance embryonic stem cell research, says he plans to promote his new bill during the next session of Congress. |
| But it may still run into opposition from pro-life groups. |
| Mary Boyert, director of the pro-life office of Atlanta's Roman Catholic archdiocese, told the news service that the Isakson proposal still has problems because the embryos fall "within the definition of a human being." |
| The Southern Baptist Convention also indicated it would oppose the proposal. |
| Isakson told Cox that he first proposed the idea during closed-door negotiations this year on the embryonic stem cell research funding bill but he indicated that backers of federal funding moved ahead with their bill instead. |
| University of Georgia researcher Steve Stice, who works with embryonic stem cells, turned Isakson on to the idea and said that more than half of all fertilized eggs used in fertility clinics will not be successful in a pregnancy and could be used to get stem cells without killing human beings. |
| "You show pictures of the embryos to the people in the fertility clinic, and ask them what they'd have done with those embryos, and they say they would have disposed of them," he told Cox. |
| Despite the pursuit of a compromise, pro-life groups will undoubtedly point to the success of adult stem cell research to show that embryonic stem cells are not needed and that they have problems of their own. |