Perry and stem cell

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Because you knew someone was going to go there, didn't you?

Doctors question Perry's stem cell back treatment

He calls it innovative. Others call it a big risk. In any case, the stem cell procedure that Texas Gov. Rick Perry had last month was an unusual experiment to fix a common malady: a bad back. ... The treatment carries potential risks ranging from blood clots to infection to cancer and may even run afoul of federal rules, doctors say. At least one patient died of a clot hours after an infusion of fat-derived stem cells outside the United States. It's not clear how much of this Perry might have known.

Oh, here's one West Texan ultra-conservative Christian fundie beloved Savior governor (on the other hand, some have called him Bush on steroids), who'd probably support stem cell research, eh? I wonder what does God think of stem cell research. Funny, how all your principles suddenly become moot, not to mention what Jesus whispers in your ear, as soon as the shit you're talking about actually starts affecting YOU.

Some more curious stuff related to this story:

(From the same article...)

Perry, the newest GOP presidential candidate, has access to the best possible care and advice. Yet he and his doctor chose a treatment beyond mainstream medicine: He had stem cells taken from fat in his own body, grown in a lab and then injected into his back and his bloodstream during a July 1 operation to fuse part of his spine.

When your back doesn't allow you a single calm night to sleep comfortably in your bed, and when your lower back starts hurting you like hell only after a couple hours standing upright at a meeting, suddenly socialized health care ceases to look that bad of a thing; what's more, now even the most innovative, almost-fringe fields in medicine that are controversial even among the scientists themselves, are OK to be explored and potentially benefited from.

However, there's something more to that story.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2011/08/20/doctors_wary_of_perrys_stem_cell_treatment/

Perry “exercised poor judgment’’  to try it, said Dr. George Q. Daley of Children’s Hospital Boston and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. “As a highly influential person of power, Perry’s actions have the unfortunate potential to push desperate patients into the clinics of quacks’’  who are selling unproven treatments “for everything from Alzheimer’s to autism.’’

Never mind the possible consequences for larger groups of people who follow every word their revered leader utters, and every gesture he makes, and who are ready to follow him anywhere no matter what, because he's their new chosen Messiah. Even if that "somewhere" prematurely turns out to be right into the waiting arms of Our Beloved Boss up there in the sky. Win-win?

Gov. Perry's stem cell 'treatment' sends wrong message

If presidential candidate ignores evidence-based medicine for himself, what could it mean for the country?

But really. What kind of impression does this guy make on you? Is he Bush v.2.0, or is he something completely different?

Comments

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see a citation for that as I understood the Bush Administration to have banned all such research. (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1132157.html?thread=90228861#t90228861)

And I was a bit sloppy with mu words, the question should have been: "where's your evidence that the Bush administration banned all such research?"

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

This is what I originally said:

Yet the ban affects all stem cell research.

This is how that comment was misread:

Not at all. The "ban" merely restricted the use of embryonic stem cells to a few already established lines for Federally funded research. All other research could pursue whatever line they wanted.

It's like that time I strung along Enders'_Shadow for 75 comments because he got a case of misreading what someone else wrote on the Internet.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

So you don't have evidence that the Bush administration "banned all such research".

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I never said they did. Others who read the comment that way said they did.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

The quotes were quoting what you said: http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1132157.html?thread=90228861#t90228861

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And note the statement that followed it.

Says what he was going to do, I'm interested in what he actually did do. Obama made any number of splendid speeches about shutting down Guantanamo and ending the Imperial Presidency which hasn't panned out.

I asked what happened with that council he mentioned in the last part of the order, what it actually did as opposed to what he said it would do, from some experience in how sensible ideas can turn into clusterfucks, after making an original statement that was misinterpreted. I did not realize that asking a simple question was akin to beating the soles of someone's feet.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

You realize he's covering his tracks?

Now that his belief has been shredded it's "clear" that he meant something more subtle.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It was never shredded in the first place as the question I originally asked has never been answered, instead we get the usual semantic game, with me in the role usually played by others of asking something simple and then it turning into something complicated.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Your question was answered, shot in the head and then buried.

He funded existing lines of embryonic stem cells and allowed adult lines.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

No, my question was that he referred to an executive council which made recommendations. I asked what recommendations were thus made and if there is any documentation of them. Thus far I have gotten evasions and non-answers and believe me, I can ask this question for months on end until you either put up or shut up.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

The council happened in late 2007. What does it matter what they recommended.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Curiosity, perhaps? I mean really, you're acting like I asked for the definition of Olber's Paradox.