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EXPELLED DVD is OUT! Watch the infamous Dawkins quote; Give to a college student!

Posted by vikingmother on Monday, December 08, 2008 1:41:10 PM
Have bought & seen "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" Ben Stein (& co.) DVD.
 
Short take:  Buy it. Watch it. Share it.
 
Long Take:
 
Devout Jew Ben Stein packs lots of stuff in this DVD. I just give hints.
 
 (Think "Galileo meets Saturday Nite Live" to understand Stein's offbeat but well researched presentation style. Lots of interspersed clips mainly showing the whole "Berlin Wall" metaphor...)
 
His main point - Why can't we even "MENTION" the "D" word in science mags, in school...? 
 
His main point - Various science groups in schools, some publications will refuse any people (or their research, writings) no matter what their credentials, education - if they even mention the possibility of "intelligent DESIGN". 
 
Stein's question "Why censor the discussion?"
 
My favorite moments include the wonderful animation of the CELL. How did all these complex processes cometo be, evolve, whatever - without a designer???  Watch all the little biomachines work! 
See/hear the top pop atheist Richard Dawkins be "more frank" than usual - Dawkins & co tell religious friends - a version of --yes, Virginia . .. religion and his version of evolution do not really conflict-- but he says (in mostly LONG takes) that his "no design" views of science actually led him to atheism.
 
My favorite quote is about the aliens in the "seeded life" quote you may have heard about...Dawkins' response to Stein's question (How did we get from mud to life?)  You have to hear Dawkins' design theory for yourself in the lightly edited famous (infamous) Dawkins interview!!!
 
this DVD is useful for older grade school students through college students as well for those adults who want the "Berlin Wall" of censorship to come down in science!
 
See one of the Extras for the "Design"principle  in research...
....how an engineering textbook helped a medical doctor understand the Brain better and
.......how an Aeronautical Engineer had to be called in to describe a turbine engine type of cell device for another scientist researching the cell roots of cancer. (Nanotechnology advances are also cited as helping us understand the cell much better!!!)
 
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Nobel Prize Winners Sir Martin J Evans, Mario R. Capecchi,

Posted by vikingmother on Saturday, October 13, 2007 11:01:48 AM
Al Gore's Nobel Prize is getting all the attention. 

But Sir Martin J. Evans, Mario R. Capecchi, and Oliver Smithies got a Nobel for their work with EMBRYONIC mouse cells...BUT THERE ARE STEM CELL RESEARCHERS WHO HAVE DONE BETTER AND MORE ETHICALLY SOUND STEM RESEARCH WORK.

WHERE'S THEIR AWARD???

And __(SEARCH THE NET FOR THE INDIVIDUALS, ORGANIZATIONS) _______________ WHO are the many many many people who maybe should have gotten a Nobel (or part of one) for their work in cord blod or OTHER NON EMBRYONIC stem cell research. And these ethical researchers do not use cut up aborted fetuses either.

there are OTHER STEM CELL RESEARCHERS WHO DID NOT GET AN AWARD. TODAY...THEIR STEM CELL RESEARCH IS TREATING PEOPLE! I.E. THEY ARE DOING MORE THAN THE THREE MEN ABOVE...THEY ARE SUCCESSFULLY APPLYING THEIR RESEARCH TO TREATMENT OF PATIENTS IN MANY FIELDS

TODAY....THERE ARE MANY SUCCESSFUL TREATMENTS...USING CORD BLOOD AND OTHER ADULT STYLE STEM CELLS. JUST LOOK AT SOME EARLIER POSTS HERE. OR... JUST SEARCH THE NET. THE TEXAS HEART PLACE (EARLIER DISCUSSED ON THIS SITE) ---WHERE'S THEIR AWARD? (NOTE Soon these great researchers  might be able to get usable stem cells to treat ourselves...from our own body. Hair, bone, whatever.) and they don't need to become like the fictional HG Wells "Dr Moreau" or his real life counterpart Auschwitz Dr. Mengele.

  
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Comedian Ben Stein and His EXPELLED Science Academy - Why you should ATTEND!

Posted by vikingmother on Monday, September 24, 2007 7:34:48 AM
Ben Stein - the guy who does comedy routines and won Emmys as "Win Ben Stein's Money" also does political and economic commentary. His resume' shows he's written books, worked for politicians, done comedy work...and NOW

Ben Stein puts lots of his learning together with his comedy and media skills to...set up his Science Academy in the movie coming out Feb 12, 2008 

http://www.expelledthemovie.com/video.php.

Who is Ben taking on? 

In his Science School Satire & Commentary Movie? 
He's taking on the major scientific "elite" who do NOT want to even ALLOW public discussions between those scientists who see the world as evolved with NO "gods" involved...and those scientists who even want to ask the question "Is there any intelligent design behind the structure of my moonflowers, behind the delicate workings of a tear ducts, behind the organized cycles of the earth....behind the elaborate spiral stair case known as Deoxyribonucleic Acid?"

He promises interviews, clips with some of the top science "gods" who ridicule the idea of design but who do NOT want to be bothered to even dialogue with those researching "intelligent design".

Anyone (regardless of your views) who thinks that science benefits from lots of debate and diverse research...would gain insights from the scientists interviewed who found their careers DAMAGED (or terminated) soon after they dared raise the "d" word!

HOW DOES THIS POSSIBLY RELATE TO 'LOVING THE HUMAN RACE"?

We ALL benefit from the free discussion of competing ideas...Yes, some scientific starting points die a deserved death (No there is no real Man in the Moon).

But other strange sounding starting points are later proven (Yes, there are invisible things on your hands that can kill if they are not washed off before you do surgery).
 
Today, you can even search the Net for how a strand of your hair may (someday, perhaps soon) CURE you! 

Let the discussions and the crazy ideas flow out! 
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HG WELLS and Britain's proposed HUMAN ANIMAL Embryo Farms!!!

Posted by vikingmother on Thursday, September 20, 2007 9:14:22 PM
Remember H.G. Wells? You might have seen the recent Tom Cruise remake of his sci fi story "War of the Worlds".

Wells also wrote another techno nightmare..."The Island of Dr. Moreau" (available online to read for free...a Dr. Moreau on his tropical island has successfully bred human & animal together...and the horrors abound).

Today, I saw stories about Britain's new proposal to allow some limited human/animal DNA cell intermingling.

If you do an Internet Search, and type in   Britain embryo animal   
you will get LOTS of sites - discussing Britain's NEW proposal to get lots of human style eggs by somehow using the animal egg as a carrying vessel. And note that some say the animal part is only a small percentage. But it's still a human animal mix...and of course the ethical discussions are left in the dust or otherwise ignored. 

Britain does not have the laws against human embryonic research the US does...So Britain wants to use animal eggs merged with mainly Human DNA. And they blithely sail down the path of possible horrors...

While back in the US  (where current stem cell research MUST focus on mostly ADULT STYLE stem cells due to Bush's veto)... ADULT STYLE STEM CELL RESEARCH IS PRODUCING LOTS OF PROMISING TREATMENTS...WHICH ARE IMPROVING... and SOME TREATMENTS ARE AVAILABLE TODAY!!!
http://www.stemcellresearch.org/  Lots of great links including a list of stem cell treatments and promising research and CURRENT news about adult style stem cell advances...

I need to go and reread that great techno horror story "The Island of Dr. Moreau".  It's been redone in mid 20th century as "The Concentration Camp Experiments of Dr. Mengele". Will we do Act 3 in Well's native land?
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STEM CELL ADVANCES- Deep in the HEART of TEXAS!!!

Posted by vikingmother on Friday, August 31, 2007 9:53:09 AM
Every few weeks, I do a search for new adult stem cell advances...Almost always, I discover word of a new study...even a new TREATMENT (i.e. adult stem cells used TODAY to treat someone's disease)>
Below is a SPONSORED LINK which I found.
 (I receive no pay of any kind...no money for any clicks...on this site.  They paid someone to advertise their treatments. You can search the news about this Texas institute.)

Why do I share this link gratis??? IT'S GOOD NEWS!!!

I come from a FAMILY with heart disease...and maybe these TEXANS can help your family and friends...and mine!!!) 
http://www.texasheart.org/Research/StemCellCenter/index.cfm?gclid=CIKTi8vwn44CFQGnIwod41hmfA

And yes...they are dedicated to using ADULT STYLE STEM CELLS!!!!!!!!!!  

Maybe they can help your dad, mom, friend...!
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EUGENICS - Dawkins may make OLD NAZIS laugh!!!

Posted by vikingmother on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 11:00:02 PM
Richard Dawkins, noted scientist and semi-theologian of the evolution without a designer ideology, wants us "60 years after Hitler's death" to rescuscitate EUGENICS.

What IS Eugenics?  It was a concept created by another brilliant scientist, the 19th century Sir Francis Galton. (Search the NET under his name....Lots of stuff there!)  Eugenics is, (in my words) the BREEDCOW way to "improve" the human race.  Breed smart, strong people together to get a "better stock of humans".
 
Dawkins says concerning eugenics.....
"...I wonder whether, some 60 years after Hitler's death, we might at least venture to ask what the moral difference is between breeding for musical ability and forcing a child to take music lessons."  

http://www.sundayherald.com/life/people/display.var.1031440.0.eugenics_may_not_be_bad.php  Today, eugenics could be applied to emerging genetic technology. Soon, we may be able to cherry pick what traits our unborn child will form and bring into the world. 

So what's the harm in that concept?  Why not design a stronger race?

Genetics can do wonderful things for us.  But if we focus on genetics as a way to breed a "superkid" ---here might the old Nazis laugh. The Nazis carried eugenics from British and American practitioners to the next logical level....(in eugenics practice only, not in a fully ethical world) .


The Nazis worked to breed "superkids" in various ways.  Look up "lebensborn" (children bred by the Nazis), as just one of many examples.  Look up an early "geneticist"  Dr Josef Mengele.


So I imagine a maybe 80 year old aged Nazi reading Dawkins' comment about reviving engenics..in the news. So might the aged Nazi think Hitler vindicated, as he reads that the so called "free world" is picking up the idea of genetically improving the race.---a concept forcibly practiced by the Nazis and, after WWII, rejected by the rest of the world, but now...maybe eugenics is being sneaked back into the ideological "fold". 

.  People think Hitler & his nasty racial ideology--of extreme eugenics  (which took genetics to an amoral excess) is defeated   But the old Nazi laughs. Eugenics never stays small.  It grows.
Eugenics will expand outwards
  (i.e. get rid of the "unfit")   We are not only going for the great clarinet, oboe, piano playing kid here, we are going for the "superkid". And those preborn (or maybe newborn??? who don't make the "cut" will be ...cut.

The ideology of "eugenics" i.e. preaching & teaching the concept of race "purification" will make it a pseudo moral imperative to "kill off" the weak, or so called unfit.

(Would a kid with no musical sense and a tin ear qualify as unfit?)

...Just search the Net to see Galton's theory (eugenics) in its more ethically dubious aspects being...slowly resuscitated and revived. 

So...we are all merely biology?  Are we just a herd of cows where our intrinsic value is how pretty & how smart & how strong we are? 

Racist David Duke (if not a Nazi, surely a "fellow traveler" on the white supremacy path) on his website (which I refuse to link to....you can find it) also lauds eugenics and laments the race equality or eglatarian concepts many of us hold to.


Those old Nazis laugh on.
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Research the stem cell controversy (embryonic versus non-embryonic stem cells) for YOURSELF!!!

Posted by vikingmother on Thursday, June 21, 2007 9:03:56 AM
 If you are an experienced blogger, you understand what I say below.  You will write a blog---carefully research and insert potent, quality links to reputable journals, sources, and then...you will read responses from people who OBVIOUSLY have either NOT read your links OR who choose to blindly believe what their favorite talk show, politician, college prof has stated. 

They (the one who IGNORES your reference links)  may be a total post modernist as far as how they treat other humans...no rules...but they will hold to some bit of propaganda as if it were a secular "apostle's creed"" THAT CANNOT EVEN BE QUESTIONED.

I BLOGGED ELSEWHERE CONCERNING THE BUSH VETO OF YET ANOTHER EMBRYONIC STEM CELL BILL FROM THE "WE LOVE TO KILL THE  UNBORN" NEW CONGRESS.

I put in links to quality articles, sites, listings in some of these blogs.  I challenged people to search the Net themselves...THE NON EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS ARE THE WINNERS SCIENTIFICALLY (AS WELL AS ETHICALLY). 

The evidence that they (NON EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS) are both the better stem cells (treatments going on TODAY with them and much promising research) and that they do not require an embryo to be destroyed ...is OVERWHELMING.

But the leaders of this DEATH DEALING Congress...rest confident in the laziness (or indoctrination???) of many votors...They somehow KNOW many people will NOT research the stem cell issue for themselves.
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WHICH IS THE BETTER INVESTMENT? ADULT OR EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS? AND WHY IS CALIFORNIA PUTTING $3 Billion ON THE LOSER???

Posted by vikingmother on Friday, June 08, 2007 12:34:35 AM
 http://money.cnn.com/2007/06/05/news/companies/stemcells_outlook/  If you CAREFULLY read this article, the ACTUAL and SIGNIFICANT advances are in adult style / cord blood stem cells. 
EMBRYONIC STEM CELL USAGE IS ETHICALLY DUBIOUS. BUT THE TOP OF THIS ARTICLE SORTA BLURS THE LINE BETWEEN THE TWO DIFFERENT STEM CELLS!!!!

Deep in the article (past maybe the first few paragraphs many skim) they ADMIT embryonic stem cell treatments are WAY WAY behind the TREATMENTS and soon-to-come treatments of ADULT STYLE STEM CELLS/CORD BLOOD CELLS!

California, apparently with $3 billion dollars to spend on the inferior and ethically dubious embryonic cells, does not let logic and scientifice evidence stand in its way.   And no, I don't know WHY California would put so much cash on the ethically dubious and INFERIOR embryonic stem cell technology. 

But those of you who INVEST your own money, and do not have billions to waste---search the Web to find various companies offering treatments TODAY on MANY diseases, conditions. 

And some of these companies state "We use NO EMBRYONIC stem cells!"
Those companies are "backing the winning horse". 
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Why does media mostly IGNORE GREAT advances in Stem Cell research????

Posted by vikingmother on Thursday, June 07, 2007 5:56:23 PM
 This short post is to - once again - post this link with a LIST of very RECENT adult style stem cell treatments, research, further prognosis, etc.
http://stemcellresearch.org/alternatives/111newreasons.html

S.B. 5 just passed in I think the House of Reps this week. Will the main media (major TV, CNN, NY Times, etc) mention that...Pres. Bush will likely veto this bill?  Probably loud & long.  The bill asks for research done on embryos - regardless of the embryo's age. Possibly??? a back door way of getting ahold of fresh embryos???

(It also mandates adult style stem cell research, but what's the point. Adult stem cell research is already going on---with many successes.)

Here might be the Machiavellian moment.  Maybe.  iS THE IDEA TO PORTRAY Pres. Bush, others wary about chopping up embryos for research as anti-progress?  Will we have tragic news stories of persons who could have been cured by stem cell research?  So that those voting against S.B. 5 look like backwood fanatics who could care less about medical progress?

But what if news outlets want to be fair and scientifically accurate?.  If so...will they also mention that...embryonic stem cell research is both ethically dubious to many AND is WAY BEHIND ADULT STYLE STEM CELL RESEARCH, ONGOING TREATMENTS, AND FUTURE PROGNOSIS??? If you peruse the list above (and check out some of the original stories at their original sites) you will find AMAZING work being done in the non-embryonic stem cell research work.

ps If you have a loved one with heart disease, kidney problems, serious spinal injuries (to name a few POSSIBLE candidates for treatment by adult style stem cells) well, maybe check the list ABOVE..  There might be current or soon-available treatments!!!

UPDATE TO THIS POST  -  THE NY TIMES TODAY JUNE 7, 2007 POSTED A STEM CELL STORY...THE COMING TREND IS TO GET THE PATIENT'S OWN CELLS TO REGENERATE....ETC. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/science/07cell.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
Good for the NY Times in putting this article out.  No embryos had to be destroyed in this promising research!
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HEART Stem Cell Hope!!!

Posted by vikingmother on Monday, June 04, 2007 8:43:00 PM
 In one of my regular searches for new stem cell advances, I came upon this ABC news article dated May 22, 2007. This article offers hope if this new line of research pans out as expected!!!

My AOL web mail page did NOT include this story
...one would think heart disease a rare thing.
(Heart disease is either the number one or number two killer...I forget.)


And note - they say in the article that they've found stem cells in the heart. So possibly they could use hormones to cultivate a bit of tissue from the patient to grow his/her OWN perfectly matched replacement parts
...Probably no donor rejection issues with one's own tissue
...And no embryo need die.


http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200705/s1929343.htm
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Polish man SLEPT thru Solidarity!

Posted by vikingmother on Monday, June 04, 2007 12:03:49 PM
 Today (Monday June 4) AOL and other outlets like the BBC picked up this story of a Polish man, cared for mostly at home by his wife, who came out of a 19 year coma.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6715313.stm

He is excited to see that Poland is brighter and more prosperous after Communism's fall.

Yes the doctors thot he'd die soon....after his accident.

Whether or not he woke up, his wife is to be commended.  She took her wedding vows to the ultimate limit.  She cared for him, including turning him every hour to avoid bedsores. 

What we FORGET is that we are TRANSFORMED by our daily choices. Her daily choice to lovingly care for her then severely disabled husband has made her a great example of a strong, good woman.

SHE DESERVES MUCH COMMENDATION--whether or not her husband had awakened.
--------------------
(i only wish the parents of Terri Schiavo could have been allowed to care for their daughter till---her natural end, whatever that would have been.  We know LITTLE about the comatose state. Possibly the person in that state senses some things, including love and
(in the case of Schiavo's philandering husband) eventually CONTEMPT.)

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Indiana Apologizes for 100 year old EUGENICS style forced sterilizations!

Posted by vikingmother on Wednesday, May 30, 2007 8:34:47 PM
 It started in 1907.

Indiana became the nation's leader in forced sterilizations of those it considered "inferior" morally or physically. 

And Indiana's state health commissioner apologized recently---as Indiana marked the 100th year anniversary of this "first in the nation" sterilization law.

"In 1907, then-Gov. J. Frank Hanly signed a state law widely regarded as the first in the world to permit sterilization in a misguided effort to improve the quality of the human race.The practice was not ended until 1974."
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3036919

A creepy footnote - A woman sterilized (as a teen---and without her knowledge) joined in a ceremony where the State of Indiana dedicated a marker to remind people of this bad law
...only overturned in the 1970's. (Her mom had told the state she was slightly retarded. She thinks Mom was scared she'd get pregnant.)
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Eugenics in China post Y2k

Posted by vikingmother on Wednesday, May 30, 2007 6:55:30 PM
 Here's a link to a 2001 Congressional report on China's forced abortion policy.  It also lists other coercive measures they use to conform their population to the government's population agenda

http://hdl.handle.net/1805/726

Eugenics lives on.  Only here, a non-scientific societal value "boys are more wanted than girls" means more parents abandoned or aborted girls.

THE LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES  -  Thus, China has emerging young adult populations (at least in outlying areas) that are said to be LACKING YOUNG women.

Where will the young men go to find women...wives?  We will see!
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Eugenics - Galton - Nazis - Just crazy ideas???

Posted by vikingmother on Monday, May 07, 2007 4:58:19 PM
Enter any one of the three terms in my title
EUGENICS,
 GALTON  (actually Sir Francis Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin), or NAZIS 
            to get lots of sites and lots of blogs & debates.

Briefly, here's how those three terms connect up:

In the mid 19th Century, Victorian "supergenius" Sir Francis Galton read his cousin Charles Darwin's then-new writings on evolution. He then developed his own offshoot from Darwin's ideas.  Essentially, he wanted to hypercharge the human race's "natural selection" process to bring about the survival of the fittest humans---faster. 

Galton wanted the "superior" people to have more kids---the "inferior" to be discouraged from having kids...This is an oversimplification, but not by much. (Search under his name to find online libraries with his writings on marriage, eugenics available to read).

He, formerly with Quaker influenced Christian beliefs, transferred his faith to his semi science - semi philosophy of eugenics. He spent much of the rest of his life  preaching & teaching eugenics.  Eugenics was his word for the philosophy of being "well born".

Maybe some of you found an old award for a "Fitter Family" in some great grandparent's artifacts. Some of our ancestors might have gone to the local 1920's county fair, and gotten an award not only for their prize cow, but for their prize "litter" of strong, healthy kids. 

Early 20th century Eugenics was a popular pseudoscience (more a semi religion). In its early mild version, even some popular persons such as Teddy Roosevelt, the young pre World War II Winston Churchill, and Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes subscribed to its main ideas.

Sound familiar? 

Eugenics - marrying the "right" person who can breed smart, healthy kids,  was a "moral imperative" taught in some US & English textbooks Some societies and high born persons worked to propagate a "better bred human race".

And this "moral imperative" to breed a better human race was picked up by an Austrian in the 1920's - Adolf Hitler, who quickly pushed Eugenics to its logical conclusion.

Thus, the Nazis thought it a "moral imperative" to do their Nuremburg laws, their forced sterilization of German disabled, their mass murders of "undesirables" like Jews, gypsies, etc. etc. and their breedcow "Lebensborn" programs where young "racially pure" girls, women were bred to have kids out of wedlock in both Germany & other countries. They also siezed Nordic looking kids from Poland, elsewhere for German adoption. (See an AOL story on one such child today May 7.)

So...some Nazis felt no remorse after their mass murders & other actions most of us call crimes.  They thought they were fulfilling their eugenic "moral" obligation to help  their race evolve quickly to a higher level. (I was little when Nazi murderer Adolf Eichmann was caught.  He seemed quite pleased with his part in murdering millions.)

Some of us watch the genetics and embryonic stem cell versus adult style stem cell debates closely...We don't want any versions of the "eugenics" ideology to return.
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Can "Snot" "save" us?

Posted by vikingmother on Monday, May 07, 2007 4:18:52 PM

My initial title is not a joke without substance.

It is slightly incorrect, as I actually refer to the "olfactory mucosa" inside the nose---
 
the cells which might produce mucus  (i.e. "snot" to the lay person or to the teacher or mom who has to clean it off a child) ---That is, if I, a non-scientist, understand this study correctly.

Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine  Vol 29 Number 3 - 2006 
Olfactory Mucosa Autografts in Human Spinal Cord Injuries - A Clinical Pilot Study You can find them online.

This small study basically was done with seven adult patients - all who had some kind of major spinal injury.  They found some moderate gains in movement (and for some, even some return of bladder function). The patient's own inner nose cells were grafted into the spinal injury....the seven patients were carefully monitored over a length of time, and the study details the range of motion, etc. that returned to each patient.

They are optimistic that this procedure could be further refined to bring possibly significant improvement to other spinal injury patients. However, I quote the last paragraph of the article below with an added comment.
...I insert the implied comment in brackets because the article elsewhere specifically warns against using embryonic stem cells for this kind of treatment.

"...Although using one's own stem cells may be safer, easier, and more effective [than other techniques such as using embryonic stem cells or any stem cells not from the patient] support for such a clinical trial is difficult due to the lack of commercial product or patentable procedures that would engender biotech company support."

Is money part of what's driving the rush to use embryonic stem cells??? How sad! 

How many promising small studies like this will NOT be pursued...because there isn't something to patent???
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