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Originally Posted by IrishofNDMan
Well when it came to voting it was put together as one and it makes me sick that some people would actually vote for this and that our "leader" would support it!!
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Irish - you are right, some people mistakenly lump this as abortion.
Embryonic stem cells do not come from aborted fetuses, they come from eggs fertilized "in vitro" (means out of the body, in a petri dish) in fertilization clinics, but that are not used and are thrown out. These thrown out cells are 2-4 day old blastocytes.
These thrown out cells - with the permission of the donors - can be used instead in stem cell research.
I have used stem cells derived from a patient's own fat and injected it back into the patients hip joints to fight hip dysplasia (dog). We use adipose-based (fat) stem cells in horses (the patients own fat) to help repair tendons (have been doing that for several years). We can also use the pateint's own blood-based cell lines.
I know Chuck has purchased a horse in the past at the F-S sale, that came with the bit of information that it has it's own blood from it's own umbilical cord (from it's birth) saved in a laboratory. That blood can hopefully be used someday to derive it's own stem cells if the horse needs it.
But adult stem cells are not the same as embryonic stem cells - you can't always get the same things from them.
This summer there will start trials for people with certain spinal cord injuries. In the laboratory, mice with certain spinal cord injuries that cause them to be paralyzed have had certain stem cells injected, and the cells grew into the cells the mice needed, and the mice were healed and could walk.
Imagine if Christopher Reeve (remember, he got a paralyzing spinal cord injury in a fall from his horse, that made him a quadriplegic and ultimately ended up causing his death from pneumonia) - imagine if someone like this, with this terrible injury, could have been injected with stem cells that regrew the damaged neural tissue, and that paralyzed patient could walk again. How wondrous and great would that be!