Embryonic Stem Cell Therapy and its Enemies

 

Dr. Irv Weissman of Stanford University provides a detailed history of stem cell research from the early 1950’s through Duyba’s ban on the use of new human stem cell lines. Dr. Weissman speaks with knowledge and a refreshing optimism on the promise of human stem cell therapy in the treatment of various cancers, auto-immune, and genetically inherited diseases.

This important research should not fall victim to those like Senator Brownback who would have Americans suffer an untimely death as God’s will. If Brownback and his supporters have moral objections to human stem cell research, let them stand aside and vow to take no benefits from its rewards. Were a child or grandchild of Sen. Brownback suffering a fatal disease for which stem cell therapy held promise, the hypocrisy of Brownback’s moral stand against this research would stand in sharp contrast to his demagoguery.

He [Brownback] received more money funneled through Jack Abramoff, the GOP lobbyist under investigation for bilking Indian tribes of more than $80 million, than all but four other senators -- and he blocked a casino that Abramoff's clients viewed as a competitor.

[Brownback] believes that secularists and Muslims are fighting a worldwide war against Christians -- sometimes in concert. "Religious freedom" is one of his top priorities, and securing it may require force.

Brownback seeks something far more radical: not faith-based politics but faith in place of politics. In his dream America, the one he believes both the Bible and the Constitution promise, the state will simply wither away. In its place will be a country so suffused with God and the free market that the social fabric of the last hundred years -- schools, Social Security, welfare -- will be privatized or simply done away with. There will be no abortions; sex will be confined to heterosexual marriage. Men will lead families, mothers will tend children, and big business and the church will take care of all.

Jeff Sharlet, God’s Senator. Rolling Stone Magazine