After Rick Perry's Stem Cell Treatment, Misplaced Enthusiasm?

oxide7 writes "Presidential candidate Rick Perry underwent a controversial stem-cell treatment this past month, prompting some doctors to fear the high-profile event would send the wrong signal to desperate patients. 'As a highly influential person of power, Perry's actions have the unfortunate potential to push desperate patients into the clinics of quacks,' Dr. George Q. Daley said."

He is not being a hypocrite

[JoshuaZ]

Well, he isn't being too much of a hypocrite. Rick Perry earlier said he was against embryonic stem cell research http://www.chron.com/news/article/Perry-speaks-out-against-abortion-stem-cell-1498123.php [chron.com] So instead he's using his own stem cells in a poorly studied and as yet not very well understood process. He could have been a real hypocrite and done something with embryonic stem cells. But nope, he's pushed for the screwing over of science and medicine and he's going to stick with it. Of course, there's the secondary problem that even reliable, well-studied adult stem cell research is based to a large extent on information we got from studying embryonic stem cells. So even if this does work he will be benefiting from the research he despises. So I guess there is a small bit of hypocrisy but it isn't nearly as bad as it could have been.

Before anyone points this out...

[ArcherB]

Yes, Rick Perry is against embryonic stem cell research. Yes, this treatment did NOT use embryonic stem cells.

Please do not say that Republicans or conservatives are against stem cell research. Conservatives are against the destruction of an embryo for the purposes of scientific research. Embryonic stem cell research is still government funded provided that it uses old stem cell lines or adult derived stem cells.

With that said, let's leave the straw-men in the field.

Re:God fearing men...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tea Partiers like myself are all for the use of adult stem cell and umbilical cord stem cell therapy.

Scientists like myself support methods that work, which again is adult / umbilical cord stem cells.

Embryonic Stem Cells don't work. It's bad science. Adult / umbilical cord stem cells, on the other hand, show a remarkable success rate.

That is good science.

Re:God fearing men...

[SuricouRaven]

It would be rather pointless - the big benefit of embryonic cells was supposed to be that they could be made via nuclear transfer, and so would be a perfect match to the patient. The idea was rendered obsolete once someone figured out you could induce pluripotence in adult cells, which is easier than screwing around with cloning.