Health & Politics

by Randall Schantin
Lets face it! Politics influences every part of our daily lives, including what we believe to be unbiased information and up to date health research on treatments available to cure, or at least ease the pain of our aliments. Well, there are two problems as I see it! First, if the pharmisutical companies don't have solutions readily available, so most doctors don't and won't even suggest alternative treatments and solutions that are, not only safe, but readily available. And secondly, unless there is a major controversy on the subject our main stream media, and the press don't seem to care, no matter how important the information might be to the public health and welfare.
For instance! On the front page of my local newspaper The Stockton Record, an article titled; Moving Forward, Not Playing Politics, Is More Important, By Susan Estrich Dated January 15, 2007
Immediately, I thought! It must be a slow news day, honestly unless the AP or CNN Reports on a subject our local readers don't have a chance in hell of reading news worthy stories, because I'm pretty sure the only time the reporters actually leave their desks is to go to the bathroom & to lunch of course.
Personally, I don't read what I descibe to be a rage, (the Stockton Record) but my girl friend called me and told me there was a story related to stem cell research, so I looked it up on the internet at http://www.recordnet.com. Not to my surprise! I found a lazy reporter writing a story about our lazy House of Representatives passing what was essentially the same bill it passed in the last Congress, easing funding restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. What seemed ironic and I quote, "Now the bill goes to the Senate, where it will pass." She must have inside information, because if it hasn't been sent to the Senate yet! How is it she knows it will pass? It goes on to say, " Then it will go to the president, who said Thursday that he will veto it."
So, there is our tax dollars at work! Our lazy congressman sending an unchanged bill to the senate, and the lazy senate, sending it to the president who had already said, he would veto. What a waist of time and energy!
However, there are people paying attention to the health concerns of the public. 21st Century Science & Technology Magazine had an article by Wolfgang Lilleg, M.D.
"The question of stem cells is currently the dominant subject in the debate over biotechnology and human genetics: Should we use embryonic stem cells or adult stem cells for future medical therapies? Embryonic stem cells are taken from a developing embryo at the blastocyst stage, destroying the embryo, a developing human life. Adult stem cells, on the other hand, are found in all tissues of the growing human being and, according to latest reports, also have the potential to transform themselves into practically all other cell types, or revert to being stem cells with greater reproductive capacity. Embryonic stem cells have not yet been used for even one therapy, while adult stem cells have already been successfully used in numerous patients, including for cardiac infarction (death of some of the heart tissue).
Stem cells are of wide interest for medicine, because they have the potential, under suitable conditions, to develop into almost all of the different types of cells. They should therefore be able to repair damaged or defective tissues (for example, destroyed insulin-producing cells in the pancreas). Many of the so-called degenerative diseases, for which there are as yet no effective therapies, could then be alleviated or healed.
Whoever Would Cure, Must Use Adult Stem Cells
It has been known for about 30 years that stem cells are present in the tissue of the adult, but it was assumed that they could only form cells of a particular tissue. That is, reprogramming them was considered impossible. In recent years, however, pluripotent stem cells were discovered in various human tissues–in the spinal cord, in the brain, in the mesenchyme (connective tissue) of various organs, and in the blood of the umbilical cord. These pluripotent stem cells are capable of forming several cell types–principally blood, muscle, and nerve cells. It has been possible to recognize, select, and develop them to the point that they form mature cell types with the help of growth factors and regulating proteins.
This shows that in tissues of the body, adult stem cells possess a much greater potential for differentiation than previously assumed. This knowledge must be brought into the public consciousness with all possible emphasis. If stem cell research were really only meant for therapeutic uses, which it most obviously should be, adult stem cells would promise a very productive research field–and beyond that, a possibility, without moral objection, to discover fundamentals of the dynamics of tissue differentiation.
It has become clear from transplantation experiments with animals, that stem cells of a particular tissue can develop into cells of a completely different kind. Thus, bone marrow stem cells have been induced to become brain cells, but also liver cells.
Adult stem cells obviously have a universal program for division that is common to all the kinds of tissue stem cells, and makes them mutually interchangeable. This was discovered by Alexei Terskikh at Stanford University School of Medicine in California. He was able to prove that adult stem cells of blood-forming tissues, and of the brain, activate the same genes, in order to preserve their status as stem cells."
Now, I don't know about you! But I found the information made available by The 21st Century Health & Science Magazine, much more informative and useful then what I shared our local rage had to report! How about you?

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Created on Dec 31st 1969 18:00. Viewed 0 times.

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