Pentagon Bankrolls Swedish Stem Cell Study

[KnifeMissile]

Many people consider this article a good example of government hypocrisy. Is it hypocritical for a government to pay foreigners to do research that they made illegal in their own country?

March 17 — STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - The Pentagon has granted $240,000 to a Swedish team for embryonic stem-cell research linked to Parkinson's disease, the researchers said on Wednesday, despite U.S. government limits on stem-cell research.

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.

Stem cells are a type of master cell. Embryonic stem cells, or blastocysts, can be directed to develop into any type of cell or tissue when grown correctly.

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.

Brundin's team sought research funding from the Michael J. Fox Foundation, founded by the American actor who suffers from Parkinson's disease. The foundation forwarded the application to the Pentagon, Lund University said.

[iccky]

It would be interesting to see what the Bush administration says about this. Its quite likley that this got approved by some low-level pentagon staffer and might get quashed now that its a major story. If it doesn't, I'd say its hypocritical.

[stevie667]

thats another prime example of religion coming in the way of science from our lovely friend mr.bush.
nehoos, after that threadjack, onto the proper response.

i do feel this is a good step forward into stem cell research, it has a huge range of medicinal applications once scientists can properly nail down the techniques. yes, the sources of the cells may be questionable to some people, but considering that the embryos used for this research would be flushed anyway, i think that it is a good use of something that would otherwise go to waste.

[Superbelt]

It's too bad we have handicapped ourselves by stopping all research here in the states. Europe is going full bore stem cell research. And one day soon they are going to break out something amazing with it, and most all the profits realized will be Europes, not Americas.

[Tophat665]

Personally, I think Shrub's ban on new stem cell lines is pretty moronic. It fails to draw a distinction between a blastocyst and a baby. I mean, I'm not a big fan of abortion either (not my choice to make, though), but the stage at which an embryo is harvested for stem cells precludes any argument for conciousness that wouldn't apply equally to bacteria. I can swallow a certain amount of religious pap in public discourse, but this amounts to "save the germs!" and that's just silly.

Now it could be argued that this technology benefits no one as yet, and I would stipulate that, but so what? UNIVAC didn't do the home user much good either, but here we are, forty some years later, using it's great-x-5-grandchildren to have the argument. This technology has the potential to make Chris Reeve walk again, to provide unrejectable organs, to replace teeth with teeth instead of plastic, perhaps even to replace a woman's damaged womb and allow her to have healthy children.

Further, the coutries that kicked our forfathers out for being so stubbornly and stiff-necked-ly retro-religious are not going to be held up by this argument and are going to develop this. I undertand offshoring manufacturing, I understand offshoring call centers, and I even understand shipping some nuts and bolts module programming to Mexico, India, and China, but do we really want to outsource the next breakthrough in technology?

In short, there is no perpective but a relgious one that makes the Bush policy on this anything other than asinine, and the religious perspective that validates it is just a shade this side of David Koresh.

As for the hypocrisy inherent in the military's funding study abroad, well, It doesn't get much more clear cut than that. On the other hand, this is the kind of issue that might be used to overturn this ill conceived brainfart of a policy.

ABBA '04