As I have written here previously, the arrogantly managed and wildly expensive California Institute For Regenerative Medicine will be up for renewal in 2014. Its leaders want the suckers voters in California–already hopelessly behind the deficit 8-ball and drowning in bond debt–to re-up for another debit card worth $3 billion, which will add up to another $6 or $7 billion when interest is included.
The first round, CIRM’s creators had the hated George W. Bush to kick around. Californians thought that was worth billions, and they were offered lower medical outlays from all the cures that were coming, too. We’re still waiting. But with W happily retired and keeping quiet, his wallet fatter after about 3 million in book sales, the raw hatred f0r him now out of the red zone, and his modest embryonic stem cell research funding restrictions mostly liberated, the CIRM will have a harder time the second go around.
So, how to convince broke people to give up more of the little they retain? The old immortality gambit, with stem cells as the fountain of youth. From the SF Chronicle front page story,“Stems Cells a New Front in Fight Against Aging (Link behind pay wall, will work 6/19):
The first Baby Boomers turn 65 this year, and as their bodies slow down and the setbacks of old age begin to take a toll, they’re expected to put a major strain on the U.S. health care system. Doctors are pushing hard for new treatments, if not outright cures, to everything. from heart failure and Alzheimer’s disease to strokes and broken hips. Stem cells might just be a catchall answer, scientists say.
There’s some of the usual talk about the cures, with a tilt in favor of embryonic stem cells, and the potential for adding perhaps centuries to our longevity. Then, there is this:
Even if stem cells don’t add decades to human life, they might give people many more productive years in their 70s, 80s and beyond, Rando and other scientists say. “With aging, there are a lot of systems that start to become less efficient or break down or be more inclined to diseases. We may work out ways to provide stem cells that would enable people to remain vigorous,” said Alan Trounson, president of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Rando was one of the first to prove that older stem cells may be just as viable as their younger counterparts, as long as they’re in the right environment.
There was no real news here. It was puffery, a sales job on the coming glories of stem cells, a pretty naked attempt to keep the buzz going. Nothing we haven’t heard before, really. Same old promises told from a slightly different angle. That’s all.
But this didn’t just happen to land in the paper. I suspect that the CIRM and its supporters are gearing up for a very expensive–pull out all the stops–PR drive to resell stem cells as the cure all, as the once Golden State turns to pyrite. Since they don’t have any real cures to point to, they plan to seduce with vaguely timed promises that stem cells will allow us to run marathons when we are eighty and make love at 90 like we were 25 and hormonal–the old quest for a fountain of youth updated for the scientific age.
Bah. Let’s hope it doesn’t work.
June 18th, 2011 | 11:56 am
Readers should be aware that there is yet another human clinical trial underway using human embryonic stem cells from Geron. The initial data looks good – time to expand the trial. This time it is for patients with thoracic spinal cord injuries. Geron received $$ from CIRM, go figure.
Soon folks will need to stop caviling over “no cures” as this will be little more than an antiquated, conservative sham (which means reality deniers will still cling to it).
June 18th, 2011 | 10:41 pm
Great, David! So maybe, perhaps, if all goes well, embryonic stem cells will accomplish something adult stem cells have already accomplished. Terrific.
June 19th, 2011 | 3:41 pm
Science has been promising great cures for a long time now.
And yet compare the average lifespan of a poor man living in remote India or China vs. a poor man living in Washington, D.C.
Then compare that American man – who is probably black – against the life of a black man who lived in the same place fifty or seventy years earlier. How much “progress” have we really made, in terms of average life span? Quality of life? Happiness? Have we seen any real progress according to any real measure at all?
There might be a few wealthy people who are living longer, but it’s not at all clear that the lives of the average American is experiencing anything that is really “progress”, if by “progress” we mean our lives are actually better, longer, happier, healthier, or more meaningful.
June 19th, 2011 | 3:48 pm
An ABC news report http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/first-spinal-cord-surgery-stem-cells-13748702?tab=9482930§ion=1206853&playlist=13748925&page=1
told of a case where embryonic stem cells have restored some sense of feeling to a paraplegic.
This is something that has not been done as far as I know with adult stem cells. They have also had success in rats with embryonic stem cells. One of the complaints about embryonic stem cells is that they haven’t cured anyone yet. This research (embryonic) is in its beginnings even in the 10 or so plus years it’s been out. Look at organ transplants. The first 100 or so heart patients died from the beginnings on the table to hours, the days then months following the procedure. It took time for them to get where they were truly successful. Look at the jet engine. The first ones killed more of the Germans pilots than the Allies did. If we had we not worked on jets ourselves we’d been slaughtered by Russian MIGs in Korea a few years later.
[Gratuitous attack on Christian beliefs deleted. Stick to what's relevant. Thank you.]
June 20th, 2011 | 2:54 pm
Austin,
Been there, done that. Check out:
http://www.ascrnetwork.com/ascr-laboratory-membership/575-wayne-state-study-shows-adult-stem-cell-grafts-help-paralyzed.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090312130650.htm
http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=23011
June 20th, 2011 | 3:14 pm
Austin, adult stem cells have been used to treat spinal-cord patients for years now.
HistoryWriter Reply:
June 21st, 2011 at 12:57 pm
@bmmg39,
Yes, and with very little success.
June 21st, 2011 | 9:18 pm
How satisfying it is, HistoryWriter, to see that your claim was refuted on this thread before you even made it.
June 22nd, 2011 | 7:02 pm
A private company called International Stem Cell Corp is reportedly subcontracting its work out on human parthenogenetic stem cells (hpSC’s) to CIRM and several University of California campuses. CIRM will then claim it co-developed this line of stem cell when it is only doing farm-out work.
This raises another question: is CIRM using taxpayer’s money to subsidize a private for profit making business with tax exempt bonds no less? Look into the IRS rules on use of tax exempt bonds for profit.
Send me an email and I will send some links.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 2:06 am
CIRM is permitted to give public money in grants to private companies.
Wayne Lusvardi Reply:
June 24th, 2011 at 12:04 am
OK, I believe you. But how did they get around the State Constitution that forbids gifts of public funds to private persons or entities?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
June 24th, 2011 at 1:08 am
Prop 71 was largely a constitutionl amendment.
June 22nd, 2011 | 11:27 pm
Real progress will be released in early October. One of the biggest unmet medical needs, AMD…first injection of embryo-safe cells about to be injected, http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=MA09-hRPE
June 24th, 2011 | 1:49 pm
So, Mike, it will be “progress” for embryonic research to begin to catch up to adult stem-cell research in the field of treating MD? ‘Kay.
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