I saw a headline on The Drudge Report that seemed to indicate that stem cells had been used to cure AIDS. The headline of the article seemed to imply the same thing. It was an interesting article about some medical experiments. Two men were treated with bone marrow from someone resistant to HIV and they have been able to stop their anti-retroviral therapy. So far it looks good. That was the encouraging information. Go team.
What caught my attention was the subtle slant. The news media is playing the issue of stem cell research to advance a position. In doing so they deceive the public and make it less likely we will see some medical breakthroughs. Those of us that are concerned about the ethical issues involved in research have a problem with using the stem cells harvested from tissue produced from abortion. We don’t like the idea of opening a door to killing in order to experiment. It seems ethically wrong to us.
We have no problem with research done with stem cells gathered from adults. That is the procedure in the article but that key fact is totally ignored. If you read carefully and know what you are looking for it is obvious that it was adult stem cells. If all you did was read the headline you would miss that totally. Since all of the hype is in regard to fetal stem cells you would probably assume that lives were being saved by such research and thus the pro-life people are monsters who don’t want to save lives.
This is media manipulation. It is dishonest without telling a lie. My understanding is that there has been significant benefit from adult stem cell research and so far nothing but speculation, hope and hype on fetal cell stem cell research. In reality the avenue of research that we have no problem with has produced valid results. The one we object to has been a dead end.
I know which one makes more sense to me. Why push a political agenda that forces resources in a non-productive direction at the cost of real progress? It seems like a death with to me.
homo unius libri
It is a shame that there is so much of this to agree on.
ReplyDeleteGrace and peace.