Biotechnology Activists: ias in activism and forum

First the media started leaning in favor of stem cell research. Now the biologists are starting to promote it themselves. It turns out that such information has had a real impact on public opinion -- reportedly, 6 out of 10 Americans now support embryonic stem cell research.

Scientists are increasingly banding together in lobbying groups and now forums (check out http://bioeducenter.org/forum/) to push their ideas on the public and on legislators. What's worse, these forums are populated by pro-biotech individuals. Why don't anti-biotech people enter these scientists' debates and forums? What we are getting is a skewed, biased view of the isues where opposing views are marginalized.

Most people just don't know enough about it to see the inherient dangers involved. As with most research in science the leading people are seking funding so they promote advances they may make, not the disasters that will evidently become a reality. So we go along with things untill we suddenly become overwhelmingly drawn into aerious consequences of our own stupidity (ignorance).

Biotech is gaining support? W00t!

Now perhaps (finally) research on how to cure alzeihmer's and regrow nerves can occur. Maybe now, healing my senile grandpa will be more important then saving the meaningless blobs of flesh which anti-biotech people cherish so much.

Watched a scifi the other night the plot was based on the government (military cover up) actions relating to police investiagating a young woman's murder, because she had taken moives of patients in army ward. The long & the short of it was these soldiers were the gennie piigs lead to slaughter to study the effects of atomic bomb blast on humans.
The next movie was a real old classic, Andromeda Strain?
Is that right, does that sound familiar?
Well I think it was something like that anyway.

UCSF has a stem cell research lab which among other things developes pancreatic eyelets for liver implants. Initially this has been shown to be an effective procedure against Type 1 diabetes. In mid-2001 Bush cut off funding for this research, which effectively shut down the UCSF lab.

My son was diagnosed with Type 1 (juvenile) diabetes in Nov. 2001. I guess you can tell who I'm not voting for!!!!!!

For those who worry about the "inherient dangers" of stem cell research via the bio-tech industry, go to any juvenile diabetes camp for a day and watch these brave kids give themselves 3 shots of insulin a day. Go to any juvenile cancer ward and tell those kids that you don't believe finding a cure for their disease is worth the risk.

Not to say that research is bad so I understand that many things developed are useful & haelthy.
But to point out that as I was reviewing chemistry text to refresh my memory and understand modern presentation, I noted an article in reguard to stereochemistry.
The government (legal) protected a pharmaceutical company from negative exposure when the drug they were manufacturing was found to contain optical diameters, one which was benefitual , the other deadly. Evidently at the time they were ignorant of such distinctions which lead to the death of some users.
We need to thread carefully, least we do erro(r)vocable harm to ourselves & our existence.

[Evidently at the time they were ignorant of such distinctions]

Why were they? Did they rush the drug through the research phase, or was this something they just didn't count on happening?
Either way people with cancer, luekemia, diabetes, you name it, can only hope for research to help cure the disease or at the very least make it tolerable.
Yes we do need to be careful, but not to a fault.

Chemistry
The Molecular Nature of Matter & Change
Silberberg

quote:

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Optical isomerism is a type of stereoisomerism that arises when an object & its mirror image cannot be superimposed on each other. (Pg. 595)
Unlike structural isomers, optical isomers areidentical in all but 2 respects:
1) In their physical properties, optical isomers differ only in the direction that each isomer rotates the planes of polarized light.
2) In their chemical properties, optical isomers differ only in a chiral (asymetric) chemical environment, one that distinguishes "right handed" & " left handed" molecules.
( + or - spin factor)
Optical isomerism plays a vital role in living cells. Nearly all carbohydrates and amino acids are optically active, but only the one isomer is biologically usable.

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Well, remember how when we were young the cry went out about organic food & drugs were healthier coming from natural product (normal biological processes)?
Then science said 'oh we can make organic products from inorganic sources
(chemical manufacture) which are the same as organically produced!'
So the FAD die out. kinf of mekes you wonder about the obestity & hypertension, etc. which seem to be arising at an alarming rate in today's society?

"Then science said 'oh we can make organic products from inorganic sources
(chemical manufacture) which are the same as organically produced!'
So the FAD die out."
Its not a fad, its the perfect way of making food cheaper. Cheaper food, means more of it. Science is making the end of world hunger possible by increasing food production.

Creating the political will to put this food to good use (carting it to Africa) is not something science can do.

"kinf of mekes you wonder about the obestity & hypertension, etc. which seem to be arising at an alarming rate in today's society?"
Those things come from overeating and lack of exercise. That is a problem of a change in our societies from outdoor and with little food (living on the African plains) to indoor with excessive food.

Again, no relation with the way we make food.

Science and its wonders are not inherently good or bad. Is a nuke good or a bad? A genetically modified tomato? Soap? In the same way, nature isn't good or bad it just is. What we can say, is that science can, with time, equal and then control what nature makes.

What we do with this control, determines if it is good or bad. Making loads of artificial sugar and food so American kids can stuff their faces and become lazy obese bitches is not caused by science's discoveries. It is caused by the lack of political and social will to use what science offers us in a good way.

quote:

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Science and its wonders are not inherently good or bad. Is a nuke good or a bad? A genetically modified tomato? Soap? In the same way, nature isn't good or bad it just is.

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Go on believing that it is the people who are abusing the advances made by science, you may be right?

quote:

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What we can say, is that science can, with time, equal and then control what nature makes.

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My father told me that even the grass was sparse, the horses were actually healthier in 'the mountains of Montana then the greater quantity of grass in Florida.
Greater mineral concentrations of the soil.
So it is not that tomatoes are cheaper but the quantity of the crops produced that is at issue?
Quantity or Quality?
So if hormones used in animals to fatten them for market then is it not expected these same hormones introduced into humans will not cause the same effect?

"Strange, but I have known at least 2 young girls who had problems (obestity) which didn't seem to be reduce her weight even though she was under a doctors care for the diet. Seems she had some other disorder which caused it. But then there is no proof that her diet (food) was at fault so we are to assume that it wasn't, right?"
Your genes can indeed make it easier to become obese and harder to lose wait. But nonetheless, eat less and exercise, and you will be thin. I'm not sure what food the doctor was giving her. Its certain that the foods we eat today can be fattier and full of sugar, but that doesn't mean all biotech is like that.

If you want to eat healthy biotech, don't buy cereal boxes with "sugar coated honey loops" and try to buy free-range beef. There's plenty of biotech food which is healthy. Whether it be strands of corn that are genetically resistant to disease or cherry tomatoes (unless somehow, cherry tomatoes are causing your friends' obesity).

Teen, ya missed the point about the friend . . . it was a matter how much of what she ate or somuch exercise she did.
It was more like being diabetic, it just is in the nature of her being.
Don't eat sugar or honey coated cereal, in fact I usually have oatmeal but when I do have cereal & I don't add sugar, Cheerio's & Shredded Wheat don't need added sugar.
Never heard of free range beef? I like to buy free roaming chicken eggs (brown) though. Not so much because of my health as much as their's (take enough from them so might as well let them have somewhat normal life)

Blacks tend to be the ones who have diabetes.

I don't see any obese somalis. Your genes can make it harder for you to be healthy, but it certainly doesn't make it impossible.

not my health problem to begin with so I eat more locally grown veggies than most & I hunt so some of the meat I eat is low in fat & additives than urban dwellers.

If stem cells are so important, why isn't any other country in the world using them for R&D. It's because they have more useful cells to work with.