Stupid Evil Bastard: Pentagon funds Swedish stem-cell research that can’t be done in the U.S.

Pentagon funds Swedish stem-cell research that can’t be done in the U.S.

Posted by Les on Friday, March 19, 2004 at 09:08 AM. Read 399 times. Tags: politics

How’s this for ironic? The Pentagon has given a $240,000 grant to a team of Swedish scientists who are working with stem-cells in an attempt to develop an effective treatment for Parkinson’s disease. The very sort of research that President Bush banned here in the United States back on August 9th, 2001.

Pentagon Bankrolls Swedish Stem Cell Study (washingtonpost.com*)

In a statement, Lund University in southern Sweden said the U.S. Department of Defense was supporting the Swedish Parkinson’s study because the findings could be used to treat similar neurological illnesses caused by battlefield toxins.

The Swedish research, using human embryonic stem cells, will focus on ways to prompt the cells to develop into the type of nerve cells deficient in the brains of patients with Parkinson’s. The disease causes tremors, muscle rigidity and slow movement in its sufferers and is currently incurable.

“The goal is to develop a line of human embryonic stem cells which can be transplanted to test animals with a disease resembling Parkinson’s,” said Patrik Brundin, the research team leader.
...
President Bush has forbidden the use of federal funds to manipulate or create human embryos for research and limited scientific research to a few existing batches of cells taken from fertility clinic leftovers.

Opponents, including Bush, say any use of a human embryo amounts to murder and is unethical. Critics are pushing for legislation in the United States that would outlaw the practice completely.

Words fail me. All I can do is sit here and shake my head and laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

^{*Free registration required.}

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Comments:

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Brooks

Posted on 03/19/2004 at 11:29 AM

Not much to say except, I LOVE this stuff! It’s like a race between hypocrisy and irony...and hypocrisy wins by a mile.

Eric Paulsen

Posted on 03/20/2004 at 12:07 AM

This way we can get the science information we need and keep our halos all shiny bright all at the same time. What a bunch of crap. Goodbye scientific breakthroughs, hello dark ages part 2.

Pop Tarts

Posted on 03/20/2004 at 11:30 AM

Actually, I do not think that such research is banned in the US. Merely that federal funds are not permitted to support such research in the US. Hence private funding for the research is still possible and ongoing.

Furthermore, unless the entire globe bans such research, any ban by a single or even a group of nation might not have that great an impact. Think of it as the “outsourcing” of research. Already you see research funds moving out of the US to Asia where there the debate on stem cell is not as great as most opposition (but not all) to stem cell research comes from Christian religion. Other religion especially those in Asia are not too affected by it.

Check out these articles which I found on the web:

The law preventing federal funding is I believe merely to placate the electorate since private funding still drives the bulk of the research.

Pop Tarts

Posted on 03/20/2004 at 11:33 AM

Hmm the link button does not seem to work or that I must have worked it wrongly. Anyway here are the articles:
http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1290990
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/02/13/us_researchers_losing_edge_in_stem_cell_work/

Les

Posted on 03/20/2004 at 11:45 AM

I should probably explain how to use the link button. First, type some text. Then highlight that text with your mouse cursor. Then click the LINK button and enter your URLs.

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Gods dont kill people. People with Gods kill people. - David Viaene

Pop Tarts

Posted on 03/20/2004 at 11:52 AM

Ok, let Poppy Tarty test with this piece of news from Canada about gay marriage.

elwedriddsche

Posted on 03/20/2004 at 11:57 AM

How about that one?

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Science is answers that must always be questioned.
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered.
Religion is answers that must never be questioned.
Politics is answers that lobbyists pay for.

Eric Paulsen

Posted on 03/22/2004 at 01:33 PM

Actually none of the buttons (Bold, Italic, or Link) work for me now that I moved to Mozilla FireFox. Still works in IE though but I will just continue to put the tags in manually before I go back to that.

elwedriddsche

Posted on 03/22/2004 at 01:38 PM

A small price to pay.

Signature

Science is answers that must always be questioned.
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered.
Religion is answers that must never be questioned.
Politics is answers that lobbyists pay for.

Les

Posted on 03/22/2004 at 01:56 PM

Yeah, they dunna work in Mozilla/Firefox. Yet another thing I mean to fix someday. That along with the fact that my preview pages don’t use the current site template.

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Gods dont kill people. People with Gods kill people. - David Viaene

Nora Vindeln

Posted on 03/29/2004 at 08:33 AM

A SAGA ON THE BIO&CHEMICAL WEAPONS which tested on Iraqi people; its not belong to Saddam, but the Zionist power controlled multi-military coalitional Mafia...(Int. English language version)

[Whole bunch of piss-poorly translated and possibly anti-Semitic bullshit deleted]

GeekMom

Posted on 03/29/2004 at 08:50 AM

Wow. See, this right here makes me actually wanna USE my Super-Duper Zionist Weapons of Fucking Idiot Destruction [tm]. And make it a margarita party too.

Poltroon.

Les

Posted on 03/29/2004 at 12:11 PM

I don’t know WTF that was all about, but I hacked it down to nearly nothing.

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Gods dont kill people. People with Gods kill people. - David Viaene

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