Stem Cell Research – A Science Discussion
This discussion will close on Thursday, March 15th, 2012.
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Stem cell research has been a widely controversial topic in the scientific, religious, and activist populations for over a decade. In attempts to advance scientific research on disease, illness, and injury scientists have used a variety of different approaches. Methods include animal research, human trials, virtual representations, synthetic hosts, and now stem cell research. While stem cells have shown great promise in treatment for some of the most detrimental of injuries and disease, many groups and communities have strong feelings toward the ethical standards which they feel are being violated.
Do some research on the “pros” and “cons” of stem cell research, what the most controversial issues are, and what each side is doing to support their claim. Then, express your opinions and ideas using information found in your research to help support your claims. Please be respectful of the opinions of others.
Medical advancements are made every day, it’s a sure thing that you won’t be able to see most of them soon, but they are surely there. Out of these, stem cell research has gotten a lot of attention. Not just because it is amazing and can help many disabled and sick people. It has a reputation for something else.
Stem cells have always been an ethical problem, from being made fun of on South Park, to having broadcasted debates on major news channels. If you have to sacrifice one life, to saves countless lives, would you do it? Yeah, I sure would. But if you think about it, it isn’t your life to take. You may lose sleep, but at least you helped somebody, and their future, and the kids in their future. Many religions and ways of life go against the use of stem cells, some are even against the use of medical attention. It is their choice and it should be respected. But it shouldn’t come in the way of
Stem cells can be changed to be any kind of cell. It can be changed to do a specific function that is lacking in the body. That’s the really good thing about it. The cons about this is that during the process of the umbilical cord extraction for the stem cells, human life is destroyed in the process.
Stem cells are very unique cells. They can turn into any cell you want. This can be very helpful in reasearch with curing diseases like cancer or diabetes. A bad thing about stem cells is that if this cell damages the umbilical cord the baby will die.
Stem cells have the potential to turn themselves into many different cell types in the body. Which is amazing , because if someone is lacking a type of cell , they can just make some of that one, and with the help of research , it could really happen and help with infections , diseases, illnesses and more. Stem cells can really make a change! This is SUCH a huge step in scientific progress, and what they have discovered over the years. But the only con is it can cause abnormal embryos.
I dont know if you’ll still count this….but I’ll reply anyways.
Stems cells are very unique cells that can be adapted to any type of cell. These will be very helpfull when you need to repair any type of lost cells. For example, if you lost a lot of skin cells in a fire, with stem cells, you could insert them into the areas with the burns and the stem cells will grow into regular skin cells. There will be no scars or anything. However, the thing that causes so much controversy is where we take it from. There are multiple ways that we can retreive stem cells from. The most common one is taking it from the embryo. Many people think that that is unethical. Killing a baby just so you could make stem cells. However, stem cells help us with many things and most of the embyros that they use are abortions. So its not like the mother had wanted the baby and they just took it from her. That would be crossing the line.
I agree with kyle. Stem cells can develop in many other different types of cells and can help scientists to find other diseases and cures to them.” Stem cells are important for living organisms for many reasons. In the 3- to 5-day-old embryo, called a blastocyst, the inner cells give rise to the entire body of the organism, including all of the many specialized cell types and organs such as the heart, lung, skin, sperm, eggs and other tissues. In some adult tissues, such as bone marrow, muscle, and brain, discrete populations of adult stem cells generate replacements for cells that are lost through normal wear and tear, injury, or disease.” This is important because stem cells make up for and replace the ones that are gone. I tried posting this late last night and then I lost it so I didn’t have time to do it again until now.
Stem cells can be a great medical tool. These unique cells can transform into any type of cell. If you were in a fire and you lost half the skin on your arm, they could inject the stem cells into you, and your arm would start reproducing skin cells. With stem cells, doctors can grow limbs and organs from scratch. However it seems to good to be true. The problem is how we get these stem cells. Stem cells are found in embryos and fetuses. This violates many people’s social and religious beliefs. Now some doctors are illegally selling these fetuses and embryos.It is a very controversial topic and many people believe we shouldn’t use stem cells. I think we need to keep using stem cells. They are a valuable tool in the medical industry and they can save lives.
3/14/12
class: 4-b
Stem cells are very unique. They have the ability to become any type of cell. This is an advantage to human life because it could help us treat serious injuries. Unfortunaltly, stem cells are only found in human fetuses.
When it comes down to this, we must ask ourselves one question: Is it ethical?
We must understand that in order to retreive these presouse cells we must take another life. BUT,(pauses for effect) these lives were not wanted in the first place. Researchers only get aborted babies. Everyday 3,322 babies are aborted. Then once they are out, they are tossed into the trash can. Now some people might think that this is inhumane, and that abortion should just be abolished altogether. But if you think about it, those lives were not wanted. Why would you make a child go into a world were they won’t get the proper childhood experience that evey child deserves?
BOTTOM LINE:
I belive that everything happens for a reason. Maybe the poupous of those mistakenly conseived babies were to improve human life.
-Chuck Norris approves this message-
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I agree with Lauren S. , I believe that curing cancer is a good thing. I definately would want my family member to be cured from cancer , so i’m all for curing cancer. The thing that i’m not all for is that scientist want to use stem cells from embryos. I don’t even thing that scientist have the right to do so or shouldn’t have that right. Basically, what I am saying is that we may want to cure cancer, and what not but I think we shouldn’t have the right to take another being that will possibly be coming into this world one day.
I agree with Kyle, because stem cell research can be helpful to find cures to diseases, illnesses, and more. There is always going to be more to learn about with stem cells, but if the risk of the stem cell turns out to actually hurt you, this can be very serious and bad. Is the risk small enough to take for stem cells?
Stem cells have been a controversial subject for a while now with its’ pros and cons. A pro about stem cells is that they can replace virtually any cell in the body. For example, if you lose too many cell in a particular area, you can take stem cells from 1 of 3 sources, put it in that area, and the stem cells would adapt to that particular area. However, there are some cons to these stem cells. There are 3 main sources to get these stem cells- adult cells, cord cells, and embryonic cells. The last source is the largest con. To obtain the embryonic cells, you have to pretty much destroy the embryo which is basically killing a life. I feel that we should just focus on getting the stem cells from the other sources because I am stronglly against killing.
I found that stem cells are tested upon alot since 1998. It sometimes hurts or kills animals and people in the process. But it is also saving peoples lives. They test on stem cells to try to find a way to cure something by adjusting the DNA or the chromosomes. I am proud of the fact that we can do things like this and save people’s lives. But im dissapointed that we have taken this so far into doing things like making a cat glow (from Mr. Thomas’s lecture) for no reason really. If its not going to help anyone, don’t do it, its as simple as that. Why can’t people understand that? I’ll never know. I think that cell stem testing is a good thing if it is done for the correct reasons. You never know maybe one day we will get even closer to finding cures for things like cancer.
Stem cell research will benefit us in the long run with all the things it could possibly treat. It’s range of uses seem never ending. I think if we don’t make enough progress in a few years then we should stop. Although some people don’t like it, i think animal testing is neccessary sometimes. In the end it’s going to come down to us or them, and I wouldn’t trade my life for a rat’s. And tests are not always guaranteed to kill the specimen. I just don’t think it should be tested on intelligent organisms, like dogs or monkeys. Or should they be used for getting a good laugh, or something that somehow doesn’t help our world.
The pros for stem cell research is that it leads us closer to better treatment for many diseases, like Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, birth defects, and more. Better treatment for these diseases could give social benefits for people and economic gains for society. The cons for stem cell research is that the use of embryonic stem cells for research includes destroying blastocysts. Blastocyst, like Kyle R. said, is human life, and a lot of people would consider that to be wrong and unacceptable.
I have to say that I’m against stem cell research. Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not fair and not worth it.
I believe that stem cell research is important to scientific progress. I think this because it helps with scientific discoveries in the medical field. It helps us figure out how we could respond to diseases or illnesses that happen to people.
Even though many people believe it is unethical for us to do test on animals, lets say that someone who thinks it is unethical and protest against what scientist are doing to the animals, has a family member or close friend that has a disease. What if the person could only be cured if they tested on animals? I bet that if they had the choice to save their friend or save the animal, they would save their friend.
There are some pros and cons to stem cells. A pro is that they can be used to regenerate skin and cure diseases. A con is that some embryonic stem cells involve the destruction of fertilized human eggs. Resulting in babies dying before birth and misscarries. I also agree with what Little Bill {Damean Layne} said.
The Pros of stem cell research are that it has the ability to cure or find treatments for cancer, diabetes and many more. There are many ways for stem cell research to become very good for living things.
Cons for this are that people believe that it can make abnormal embryos.
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Pros, for stem cell research are that it provides a huge potential for finding treatments and cures to a vast array of diseases including different cancers, diabetes, spinal cord injuries, alzheimers, MS, and more. Stem cells can basically reproduce nearly any type of cell. There is endless potential for scientist to learn about human growth and cell development from studying stem cells
Cons, for stem cell research involve the destruction of blastocysts formed from laboratory-fertilized eggs. For those who believe life begins at conception, the blastocysts is a human life and to destroy it is unacceptable and immoral.
I agree with Mickey, even though stem cell research can be good and exciting, and may find solutions to something, you have to use ethics and decide what is right and wrong. The pro to stem cell research is that you may be able to find a cure to a disease, but the con is that you are going to be hurting something/someone in the process.
There are both pros and cons to stem cell research. The biggest pro is that it can assist in curing many types of heart, organ and brain diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. Not only that but it can also save many lives. The con is that there are alot people who believe that embryonic stem cell research is unstable and can cause abnormal embryos to form because the cells are taken from embryos. If the cells are taken from adults the process to get to the cells is very painful.
Stem cell research is actually a great thing. It goes along with the biotechnology lecture, it is fine but you must have morals. It is’nt okay to make dogs have 2 heads just because it would be cool, or make mice have bigger ears because it would be funny. You have to do these things in moderation and for the right reason. This is okay because your are curing things that otherwise would still be hurting people.
I have my opinion on animals being used for experimentation, but I’ll let you form your own opinion. Here are the simple google search results – https://www.google.com/search?q=alternatives+to+animal+experimentation&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1
Stem cells are specialized cells that can create and reproduce nearly any type of cell. This is beneficial because it allows us to cure many diseases such as diabetes, heart diseases, lung diseases, brain diseases, and even spinal cord injuries. Curing these diseases could save many lives. The downside is to obtain the stem cell it must be taken out of a human embryo, a fetus. In doing so the fetus could be damaged and develop things such as birth defects. Many people are against stem cell research because they believe that by extracting the stem cell from the embryo you are basically killing human life. I personally believe that stem cell research is a great idea. While that embryo may suffer from defects I believe you’re doing it for the greater good by saving a plethora of people and sacrificing that single person.
Stem cells are cells that have the ability to change and form any type of cell that we need. If we are allowed to use stem cells we could cure things like alzheimers permanently by curing brain damage using stem cells that would naturally rebuild the brain.
Now time for a con. Stem cells are found in the umbilical cord. Now lets say that while trying to harvest these special cells something goes wrong and the umbilical cord is damaged? What will happen to the baby. Will it die? we don’t know.
I agree with Dessie as usual. Stems cell can make a huge differnce in people’s life. They can make people do the things they’ve never done before. The problem with that is that there is a risk. Some pwople may die because of procedures even though they maky be able to do great things after. I belive stem cell research isn’t worth one person dying.
Lauren S.
Period B-1
3/13/12
I agree
I believe that some of the ways scientists extract stem cells make it so that it isn’t really the right thing to do. I think it’s wrong when scientists use embryos to gather stem cells, and when I think about it, it’s almost like they’re taking away someone’s life, even though they haven’t fully developed (embryo), it doesn’t matter. The major con is that collecting stem cells this way sounds like murder.
However, there are different ways to get stem cells. They do not SPECIFICALLY have to be from an embryo. I think scientists should only use different methods instead of ending a life that has barely started yet. Stem cells can be phenomenal and help millions of people. They may be able to cure or prevent diseases. Curing diseases it so important, but using new life to do so is wrong.
I feel there are many pros and cons for stem cells but I do not believe that it should be taken for granted. For example with the biotechnology lesson where scientist mutated kitttens and mice for no particular reasons. I see why people would be offended.
I say that the scientist can do whatever they want but they can’t experiment on animals or any living thing because that’s against nature’s power, and they have to think it through first before experimenting on animals and IF they want to experiment they have to have a document that the COUNTRY signed.
There are pros and cons of stem cell research like one “pro” is it finds cures & prevents issues such as cancer of various types , parkinsons’s disease , alzhemimer’s , heart disease, stroke,diabetes , various birth defects , spinal cord injuries, organ damage and evn transplant rejection . some “cons” are that some say its an attempt to play god , arguments have been made it devalues human life , & people who fear of human cloning & crating unnatural long life spans , theres also alot of religous stigma thats is in involved. My opininon is that i think its good because to me its not really hurtin anybody but its actually helping so i think we should use it.
Stem cell is very helpful. To me this is a good research to help with illnesses and diseases. Many people think when scientist take cells from an embryo they think it is destroying human life. How is this killing someone when an embryo is not a developed human being? Also how does deal wit religion? What if one of your family members were dying. Maybe it was God who help the scientist discover the stem cell research to help your family members survive.
Stem cells have been a controversial subject in the world of science for a long time. There are both pros and cons to it. The pros for stems cells is all the great things they can help heal. They can be used to replace cells in different parts of the body and may be able to help us find cures for different diseases. Although it could help us in many ways, there is a very big con to this whole subject. In order to obtain these stem cells we would have to kill an unborn baby. Many believe that this is destroying a human life, even if the baby has not been born. Others believe this is fine. The main issue is for what this is going to be doing. Some scientists have admitted that they would like to experiment with these stem cells to see what they can do in different animals and such. It’s wrong to just go and experiment on something just to see if they can make something cool, especially when you involve something like death in the situation.
Stem cells could replace where damage cells are, so they are a very good thing. They help with any kind of disease and also any type of cell. “Pros” help to treat a lot of medical problems, this could lead to more cures for diseases. And all this benefits could help the economy and a lot of things. “Cons” could help us to lead to know very good how to clone humans. But this would have a lot of consequences. I think that “pros” are better, because they would help us with medical things like cures for diseases and the “cons” would have a lot of consequences and they could be bad so it isn’t something for sure.
Diabetes is something now common in the United States, and with stem cell research they are hoping to cure it. They have gotten far and this could be the first step to curing other incurable diseases such as cancer. But of course there is some bad in it. As other people said they extract the stem cells from an embryo which is killing human life before it could even see the world. This goes against many religions and many morals but if they succeed this will be a huge step in fighting the incurable diseases.
When discussing stem cell research, you have the “good “and the “bad”. Are you improving a life or are you stealing a life? In most cases, both. Stem cells can be extracted from three places, including a common one:bone marrow. This method can be very painful, but what is it for? That’s the real question when discussing stem cell research. Are you taking that marrow from a father to save his son, or are you taking that marrow in an attempt to make an elephant fly? One of those is not going to happen. If scientists NEED to make the life of an embryo a little more difficult in order to find a way to save embryos in the future, then by all means go ahead. If those scientists cause damage to helpless embryo to make something that they think is “cool”, that’s when they’re crossing the line. The problem is, where is the line?
Stem cells have alot of flexibility. They are able to replace any bad or destroyed cells and make you better. But their are two sides to stem cell research.
Some view stem cell research as a good thing. They say it is very helpful and could have the possibility to give many people a second chance in life. People all across the world have cancer and some are fortunate enough to be able to pay for chemotherapy. But sometimes the chemotherapy can destroy too many cells. Here is a “pro” for stem cells. People who have cancer and have had to go through chemotherapy can get stem cell surgery and have the bad or dead cell replaced with the good stem cells.
Now a “con” for stem cells. Stem cells are extracted directly from an embryo. When the cells are taken from this type of an embryo it is sometimes killed. Some view this as a human life being killed. In other words murder. Also they are testing stem cells on mice and other different animals and people who love aminals are not to happy about this. In some cases the animals are being killed due to brain tumors .
Stem cells are cells that can divide into diverse specialized cells. these cells are found in multicellular organisms such as humans.
A pro for these stem cells are that they can be used to treat diseases such as blindness.
A con for the stem cell would be that the embryonic stem cells come from embryos and to get the cells would most likely mean killing the baby and that is unethical.
i have researched and have found some pros and cons about stem cell research. what i have found about the pros of a stem cell research is that they repair or regrow parts of our bodies. and i have also found out that it is a fact that stem cell research has the potential to help over 100 million americans who suffer from diseases and injuries. now the cons of a stem cell research is that there are still some things that are needed to be established before it is used as a treatment. because stem cell research may cause problems and may not work on some people. but may work on others.
Stem cells are used for several things, but there are only three ways to get them. One is by taking them from the bone which is plentiful of stem cells, but it destroys that section of the bone which I think is a necessary sacrifice to save yourself from a major illness like cancer. Two, the umbilical cord. That is the long tube that feeds an unborn baby. This is probably the best way because it is risk free. The last way is embryoniclly. This is the worst way and it takes too much time, and time is precious. So all in all the best way is the quickest way using the bone marrow.
Stem cells can be used for replacing other cells that are dead, damaged, or destroyed. They can grow in almost any kind of cell. This is why we are so interested in them. For example, stem cells can replace the damaged neural cells of the brain and spinal cord. They can be used to replace dead cells of almost any kind, regardless of the disease or injury. One place stem cells can be found in are in you bone marrow. There are plenty of these cells in there, but in order to get them out, it can be very painful and it can be destructive to your bone marrow. You can have it be taken out without any damage, but that takes lots of time. Another way to get stem cells is from embryonic cells. Embryonic cells also have many stem cells inside. They take out the stem cells from an embryo before it starts to differentiate. The down side to this method is if you want to take out the stem cells this way from the embryo, then it will have to be destroyed. So in other words, you will have to take a human life. And some people consider that murder. So that is the big reason why stem cell research can be bad.
http://www.allaboutpopularissues.org/pros-and-cons-of-stem-cell-research.htm
There are many opinions on whether stem cells are a good or bad thing. On one hand, they can be really helpful in new life changing discoveries. But on the other hand, it is dangerous, harmful, and sometimes fatal.
The best pro about stem cell research is the fact that it can lead to cures for diseases, and save lives while in the process. Little by little with the help of stem cells, diseases that couldn’t be cured before like cancer, can be cured.
The most important con of the stem cell research is what gets most people upset;death. Experiments go wrong, but in this case the results are a lot worse. A lot of the animals that are tested on are defenseless, and are forced to be tested on. They die, often for unneeded experiments like the ability to glow in the dark. It’s one thing to die for a good cause, but another to die for a useless cause.
All in all, stem cells are very helpful and good for research in science. But only when they are used for important reasons.
There are many things that could happen if we did stem cell research, and they could be good or bad. Good things that could happen would be the cure for all types of illnesses or diseases. Many lives would be saved. This could make pharmaceutical companies very rich, and this could make the stock market go up. Less people would go bankrupt due to high funeral costs too.
But very bad things could also happen due to this. A previously thought cured person could catch a new disease, go rabid, and start infecting other people around the world with their disease. Then we would have to think of a way to destroy (or cure) those people with the disease. Lawsuits would be files against companies if this happened. But this is only worst case scenario.
What might happen is somebody might get many other people sick and we would have to find a cure. This type of research would be hard to do because of all these protesters going around, coming up with new reasons to stop the research. This is what could happen with stem cell research.
On March 9, 2009, President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13505, which was entitled “Removing Barriers to Responsible Scientific Research Involving Human Stem Cells”. This, as the title suggests, removed many barriers on stem cell research. In particular, it revoked former President Bush’s presidential statement on August 9, 2001.
Many people are against stem cell research because of a specific kind of stem cell, the human embryonic stem cell. In order to acquire human embryonic stem cells, you have to ‘kill’ a 3-5 day old embryo, known as a blastocyst.
However, stem cells are very valuable and not easy to come by. I personally believe we should utilize every chance we get to acquire them. If you had to kill a 2-year-old to do it, I would say no without a doubt. But it is different to kill and unborn baby. In fact, not even a baby, but an embryo that has been in existence for less than a week. If it saves someone’s life later on, then it may be worthwhile to acquire stem cells in this method. It would be absolutely amazing to do this without having to kill and embryo, but it’s not possible. Yet.
First off stem cell research is a good idea because it can cure alot of very hurtfull disease’s sutch as Parkinson’s Disease
1.)Alzheimer’s Disease
2.)Heart Diseases, Stroke and Diabetes (Type 1)
3.)Birth Defects
4.)Spinal Cord Injuries
5.)Replace or Repair Damaged Organs
6.)Reduced Risk of Transplantation (You could possibly get a copy of your own heart in a heart-transplantation in the future
7.)Stem cells may play a major role in cancer
all of these items can be cured or helped by using the stem cell theory. It has a major role in curing cancer that is awesome because cancer is very deadly and kills alot of people per year.But the Bad part of the stem cells are: Some argue that stem cell research in the far future can lead to knowledge on how to clone humans. It is hard to say whether this is true, but we have seen devastating consequences of other research-programs, even with good intentions, such as nuclear research
no one or nothing should be cloned then we might have another mass extinction and the human life or plant life or animal live or any thing that is living here today will be forever forgotten and die out! my opinion is that we should use the stem cell research but only for common Disease’s Such as Cancer and Diabetes and
Alzheimer’s Disease!!!
Very thorough work here. I just want you to proof your work for capitalization next time. Again, really nice work, Brandon. Remember, the world is reading these posts.
The good things about stem cells are that they can be used to treat injuries or damages. For example, we can use it to treat brain damage. Stem cells are self-renewal and have an unlimited potency. Scientists want it can actually change the treatments of diseases. The bad things about stem cells are that they can cause mutations or disorders while doing the process of stem cells. Stem cells might not work on some people because of individual susceptibility. This means that people react differently to the same things. For example, a new type of disease is found and two people are affected. The scientists found a cure and vaccine. They inject it into both of them but one gets irritations and the other gets better. They both turned out different but had the same disease. They are testing stem cells on animals too. This is not cool for animal lovers. They will protest! These are the “pros” and “cons” of stem cells.
Stem cells are good and bad things. A pro about stem cells is that they have the ability to treat diseases. When scientists do more research they could come up with cures for many diseases. But a con about stem cells is because of the embryonic stem cells. To do work with these cells, they damage embryos. I’m pretty sure this means unborn babies. This is why people think it is unethical to use embryonic stem cells for treatment. But other people think this research is good because it could lead to a cure for cancer.
Stem cell research can be so amazing and so extremely helpful and life changing but at the same time, it can do some damage and possibly result in death.
A “pro” for stem cell research is that during a procedure, they could take someone who can’t walk and thought they would never walk again, have the ability to actually walk again and finally get to live their life again. Also, cells destroyed from radiation or chemotherapy can be replaced with stem cell surgery so a person who has had cancer and has lost too many cells because of those treatments can be healthier and be able to live longer. I find these stem cell research very amazing and life changing.
Unfortunately, some things can be too good to be true, a “con” from stem cell research I found is that you have to have bone marrow extracted and that is a very painful procedure with a very large needle involve. Also, some procedures can be dangerous and sometimes lead to death.
Some people are against stem cell research because in some cases, they must kill and embryo in order to get the bone marrow and some consider this murder.
Others say stem cell research is very good because it is searching for a new medical treatment.
Maybe one day, because of stem cell research, there could be a cure to something once called incurable, maybe save millions of lives all over the world. I believe that because of stem cell research now, it will do so much good in the future.
Stem cells have the ability to grow almost any kind of cell, thus our interest in them. Many people hope that they can further help medical advancement. A good a example would be brain cells, they unlike most other cells, cannot do mitosis and create another cell if one dies. So since stem cells can become any kind of cell we could use them to replace dead brain cells or simply add more to the human brain. This is pretty much true for all parts of the body where there are dead or damaged cells these stem cells could replace them with new healthy ones. They are basically the raw materials to make life or things essential to life.
There are 3 ways to acquire stem cells adult cells, cord cells, and embryonic cells, each have different methods to do so. Adult cells from the bone marrow, cord cells from the umbilical cord, and embryonic cells from… well, the embryo. Here is where the controversy comes in, extracting stem cells from the embryo causes a little damage and some people think in doing this you are killing human life. Another controversial reason is that embryonic cells over time have a risk of developing into cancer cells.