Articles of Interest-MNFL

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
May 5 , 2008

Lansing, MI (LifeNews.com) -- The Michigan state group for doctors ended five years of supporting taxpayer funding for embryonic stem cell research and will take a neutral position on an upcoming ballot proposal to make taxpayers pay for it. The Michigan State Medical Society changed its position Sunday at a state meeting.

Backers of making taxpayers fund the destructive research are collecting signatures to get a proposal on the November ballot, but the physicians attending the annual delegates meeting of the medical society say they won't support the idea.

The Detroit News indicates the doctors engaged in a heated discussion about the proposal. The Medical Society has supported funding the unproven research since 2003 but decided to take a neutral stance on the potential ballot battle. Instead of weighing in on the vote, the group will educate doctors with research studies and information on the ethical considerations involved.

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BY LETICIA VELASQUEZ
July 6-12, 2008 Issue | Posted 7/1/08 at 9:12 AM

There's a battle going on over Down syndrome babies. But these special children also have a patron saint.

Let's look at the battle first. As if expectant mothers did not have enough to worry about, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recently recommended that all pregnant women, regardless of age, be screened for Down syndrome. The college's ethics committee announced in April that it is reconsidering its position. But screening for Down puts more babies at risk.

Last May, The New York Times reported that more than 90% of babies are aborted after a diagnosis of Down syndrome. There are efforts to reverse this trend. In 2005, while still a student at Harvard, Dr. Brian Skotko, a doctor at Children's Hospital in Boston, released an influential study which exposed the negative attitude of doctors when they inform patients that their baby has Down syndrome.

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It looks like the argument over embryonic stem cells is finally over. It will be if the secular press and a great number of politicians are willing to look and listen, even briefly, to the scientific happenings of the last six months. To read most of the secular press, one gets the impression that human embryonic stem cells contain within themselves the secrets of an amazing number of cures for human injuries and diseases. Just give them enough time and money and they will present to us a cornucopia of a new world of medical miracles. Based on these rosy predictions, huge amounts of money have been appropriated to fund this needed investigation, i.e. three billion dollars in California and other major sums elsewhere. Some time has now passed, and to date almost no curative discoveries in animals have materialized and a sum total of zero cures have been achieved for humans.

Needless to say, any attentive person has certainly been aware of a continuing chain of reports on the benefits available through adult stem cells and those obtained from the umbilical cord and placenta. Hardly a week goes by without hearing of another advance of using adult stem cells in humans. However, a majority of those in the US Congress and many other legislative bodies seem to have turned a deaf ear to the adult stem cell progress, or at least have continued to place their absolute trust in the much ballyhooed potential for embryonic stem cells.

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