BS: Stem cell policy to change

Subject: RE: BS: Stem cell policy to change
From: wysiwyg
Date: 13 Mar 09 - 11:04 AM

I'm very sorry that when one particular post gave me the willies, I posted back equally briefly and from equally valid personal feelings. Altho I too have the "right" to "free speech," the misunderstandings have only cascaded since then, and my friend Adrien has kindly brought that to my attention.

The ad hominem attacks pointed at me speak for themselves. I should not have allowed anyone to troll me into responding to them.


IMO Mudcat is never the place to really explore sensitive topics except from the viewpoint of helpful advice when an individual has a personal problem that touches on the actual issue. Seen it over and over again.

That is when the Cat's best thinking occurs. Not in threads like this.


I may write a post that covers a lot of ground theoretically, and have done so on a number of other topical threads of late, but I usually know that they will not be read and they will certainly not be understood by most of the readers-- because they are professional information that needs a workshop to cover them which allows space for people to react and then think. They are not "positions," and, as information, they are not the sort of thing that can be conveyed in an academic lecture mode. The Racism/Classism worshop I present, for example, uses Spirituals as a window in on some of the things that are covered.

I write about these topics here sometimes to use them at IRL workshops, where the feelings and the thinking can be given space to occur as they surely will. Most of the time, the participants do not even realize they have been at a workshop until afterwards, when the personal reflection begins to occur.

Mudcat has been useful to me in seeing what the range of feelings are likely to be on any given "hot" topic. I quote it and reference it on a regular basis, as I have indicated in the past.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Stem cell policy to change
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Mar 09 - 02:10 PM

Although the change in policy may permit some funding of embryonic stem cell research, the more important effect will be that it will permit privately funded research in the facilities best equipped for it.

As the Federal ban was written, if anyone worked on research of this kind it was necessary to have strict and absolute separation between the entire facility where the research was done and any facility doing any government funded work (research or otherwise). The ban included the requirement for completely separate equipment and personnel, right down to the janitors and the ones who mowed the lawn out front.

This generally meant that anyone wishing to do this research was required to construct a new and separate facility, and to recruit and hire an entirely separate set of personnel. Even consultation with a stem cell expert working on "adult stem cells" under a government supported project was prohibited.

IFF the lifting of the ban is suitably implemented it will once again be possible for the few who actually did continue working on embryonic cells, with private funding, to share findings and methods (in both directions) with others working under the old conditions.

There have been some promising results from both kinds of research, but since the number of researchers able to get private funding for separate and independent labs has been very small, and journals and symposia were forced to exclude them to avoid "contaminating" others working on governemt funded research, little has been heard of the results from the few working with embryonic cells (except that the cells from the "existing lines" permitted are old and tired and mostly contaminated, and don't perform as well as would be expected from fresh ones, or from ones newly cultivated to be specific to the research intended).

John

Subject: Abrazos: Stem cell policy to change
From: wysiwyg
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 07:58 AM

Beer wrote: There has been a lot of direct attacks on Susan, some of which may be warranted but if I may, let me take you to the top of the thread where her opening comment was the following. "Well it's about time. Welcome to the 21st Century folks. This was long overdue".

I didn't write that, but it's close to what I feel about this issue. (Note I said "feel," not "think.") I'm not done thinking about it yet, but it's the same kind of dilemma I have enjoyed having to wrestle with in the past. I welcome upheaval of thought. I welcome the freedom to choose my own point from which to view a matter. A prayer I enjoy praying starts, "Disturb us, Lord...."

The "last" issue like this one has pulled my thoughts to it for, oh, about 5 years now, and I am STILL working on that one.


It's part of the nature of human beans to be able to do that. Sometimes we do not have the luxury of time, when the decisions that must be made come to us directly and personally. Part of my role, in the circles in which I move, is to take all the time I can, to reflect as deeply as I can, before speaking. I cherish that freedom.


Abrazos,

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Stem cell policy to change
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 09:39 AM

...they will certainly not be understood by most of the readers-- because they are professional information that needs a workshop to cover them ...

Unfu$kingbelievable.

Well, thank you, Lady Muck, for deigning to try and school us poor, ignorant amateurs.

May god help the people at your "workshops".

Subject: RE: BS: Stem cell policy to change
From: wysiwyg
Date: 16 Mar 09 - 09:45 AM

:~)

~S~