I recommend:

Brave New Bioethics

My podcast in which I discuss issues relating to human exceptionalsism, bioethics, and everything else we consder here at Secondhand Smoke.

The Discovery Institute

My controversial think tank. See what the fuss is all about.

The International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

The best single source for information on euthanasia and assisted suicide, with an opposing perspective.

The Center for Bioethics and the Culture (CBC)

Equipping people of traditional Judeo/Christian faith to understand the importance of bioethics and biotechnology.

The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity (CBHD)

The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity exists to help individuals and organizations address the pressing bioethical challenges of our day, including managed care, end-of-life treatment, genetic intervention, euthanasia, and reproductive technologies (from a distinctly Christian perspective).

Bioethics.com

Your global information source on bioethics news and issues.

Choosing Tomorrow

Nigel Cameron's blog on "emerging technologies," in which the bioethicist strives to help forge "consensus and stability as we move into the Techno Century."

Bioethics Defense Fund

A bioethics law and policy organization whose mission is address the human rights violations involved in contemporary bioethical issues.

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (Canada) prepares a broadly based network of groups and individuals as an effective social barrier against euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Euthanasia.com

A very thorough, well organized, and easily accessed on-line research library stocked with articles and primary source materials about euthanasia, assisted suicide, and related issues, from an opposing perspective.

The Human Future

Jennifer Lahl's blog about the Brave New World

Hands Off Our Ovaries

Pro choice and pro life feminists protecting women in biotechnological research.

Human Life Matters

The blog of Mark Pickup. Disability rights and pro life advocacy from a committed Christian whose "views stand in stark contrast with a world of utility, autonomy and cost-benefit-analysis."

Compassionate Healthcare Network (CHN)

CHN provides educational services through all forms of media to all persons regarding the inherent absolute value of all human life.

The Center for Genetics and Society

Left leaning think tank supports benign medical applications of the new human genetic and reproductive technologies, while opposing the commidification of human life.

The Altered Nuclear Transfer (ANT) Website

A Website dedicated to answering questions about this potential alternative to embryonic stem cell resesearch.

The Terri Schindler-Sciavo Foundation

Run by Terri Schiavo's parents and siblings, "a non-profit group dedicated to ensuring the rights of disabled, elderly and vulnerable citizens against care rationing, euthanasia and medical killing."

Not Dead Yet

Disability Rights activism, raw and to the point.

Physicians for Compassionate Care

PCC promotes compassionate care for severely-ill patients without sanctioning or assisting their suicide. Members affirm an ethic based on the principle that all human life is inherently valuable.

Center for Consumer Freedom

The Center for Consumer Freedom is PETA's worst nightmare. This scrappy, industry funded, non profit, tells the terrible truth about the animal liberation movement.

Americans for Medical Progress

A non-profit organizatoin whose mission is to promote public understanding of and support for the appropriate role of animals in biomedical research.

blog.bioethics.net

Mainstream bioethics thinking: enter at your own risk!

National Catholic Bioethics Center

Bioethics research and advocacy from the Catholic side of the street.

BioEdge

A good, objective source of information about bioethics and biotech.

Links to my latest books:

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Lead Into Gold: Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Cure Disease in Mice

Research into the new iPS cells is moving forward at a seemingly breathtaking pace. Mouse studies carried out at Harvard demonstrate that they have the capacity to treat sickle-cell anemia. From the story:
Mice with a human sickle-cell anemia disease trait have been treated successfully in a process that begins by directly reprogramming their own cells to an embryonic-stem-cell-like state, without the use of eggs.

This is the first proof-of-principle of therapeutic application in mice of directly reprogrammed "induced pluripotent stem" (IPS) cells, which recently have been derived in mice as well as humans.
The research, reported in Science Express online on December 6, was carried out in the laboratory of Whitehead Member Rudolf Jaenisch. The IPS cells were derived using modifications of the approach originally discovered in 2006 by the Shinya Yamanaka laboratory at Kyoto University.
And get this quote from Jaenisch:
"This demonstrates that IPS cells have the same potential for therapy as embryonic stem cells, without the ethical and practical issues raised in creating embryonic stem cells."
Jaenisch also states that ESCR needs to continue to further understand issues involving pluripotency. If so, why not just use the Bush-approved lines so that full federal funding can apply?

The stem cell wars are not yet over. But science may have found a way around the ethical contentiousness. Let's hope so. It would be nice to all row in the same direction for a change.

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