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

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/08/20010809-2.html

The common left wing trope was that Bush banned all federal funding for stem cell research. Like so many left wing tropes about Bush, this wasn't true.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

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.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

This was his speech where he outlined exactly what he did do.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Were there bills passed? Did this committee ever actually come up with real policies? Again, Obama's had plenty of lovely speeches that translated into bupkiss, so it would not be surprising were this an instance of that for Shrub.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

It was an executive order.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I'll repeat myself since it seems you did not understand what I said. Did this: I will also name a President's council to monitor stem cell research, to recommend appropriate guidelines and regulations, and to consider all of the medical and ethical ramifications of biomedical innovation. This council will consist of leading scientists, doctors, ethicists, lawyers, theologians and others, and will be chaired by Dr. Leon Kass, a leading biomedical ethicist from the University of Chicago.

This council will keep us apprised of new developments and give our nation a forum to continue to discuss and evaluate these important issues. As we go forward, I hope we will always be guided by both intellect and heart, by both our capabilities and our conscience.

Actually do or not do anything? Did it leave a paper trail? Yes, or no.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

The EO banned funding on new embryonic stem cell research.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Do you have documents to show what they did and when they did it?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

You don't seem to like the speeches on the matter or the EOs or the actual reporting.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

I want to see receipts from the expense report of the committees that handled this. How else can I believe the truth?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

If speeches and executive orders were everything GITMO would not be open right now, nor would there ever be homophobia or racism in the US Armed Forces. Nor for that matter would there be any issue with certain banal rules and practices going into effect. Obama's given plenty of speeches about closing Gitmo and it ain't closed. He's talked about civil liberties and given the government the ability to put hits on people it doesn't like. As I'm using the POTUS I voted for as an example I'm hardly acting like a partisan hack here. So did it exit or didn't it?

[prog-expat.livejournal.com]

How dare you demand proof that a politician followed through on a promise?!

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Not a promise. A public order to the NIH.
I suppose it's possible he later told them to do the exact opposite and followed it up with a "Seriously you guys. Don't tell anyone about this."

But I suppose it's also possible that Obama was born in Kenya if we're going to get that silly.

[prog-expat.livejournal.com]

How is it that I got what underlankers meant even before he spelled it out in minute detail, yet the people from the side of the aisle most likely to use the phrase "unintended consequences" refuse to see it?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Er, I'm not talking a conspiracy theory here. I'm noting two things: 1) issuing executive orders, even one that narrowly defines things doesn't always do everything that should be the case, and 2) that the executive order itself clouded the entirety of research based on some parts of it. This is not differential equations here. Nor is this a problem limited to Bush, as I've noted by pointing out the difference between what Obama has said he'd do and what he's actually done.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I know, right? I mean my analogies are using the current POTUS to refer to his precursor. Even bashing Obama hardly seems to break through.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13435

Before that he issued a statement ordering as such. In Obama's actual EO regarding it he cites this one and the statment Bush made in 2001 directing the gov't. At no point in either's statement does it assert that all stem cells were defunded.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The executive order spoke of this:
I will also name a President's council to monitor stem cell research, to recommend appropriate guidelines and regulations, and to consider all of the medical and ethical ramifications of biomedical innovation. This council will consist of leading scientists, doctors, ethicists, lawyers, theologians and others, and will be chaired by Dr. Leon Kass, a leading biomedical ethicist from the University of Chicago.

This council will keep us apprised of new developments and give our nation a forum to continue to discuss and evaluate these important issues. As we go forward, I hope we will always be guided by both intellect and heart, by both our capabilities and our conscience.

________

Did this council exist, did it leave a paper trail or web trail and is there any evidence this order did or did not do something in the real world?

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

How do we know the secretary of defense exists? Have you ever spoke with him? Have you ever been to his house?

You're taking incredulity to a new high.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Actually I'm pretty much aware that what a politician says or issues an order to do may result in the order not being enforced or carried out, or alternately simply bureaucratically nullified. This happens all the time in Washington, Bush was simply exceptional in bypassing it. I am not aware that asking for what seems straightforward was such an onerous request.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

Well gee, where's your evidence that the Bush administration banned all stem cell research?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The idea that I said so in the first case is a classic example of reading comprehension fail. I said that the ban affects all such research, I never said all research was banned. That some chose to interpret it thus implies they're the "get a brain MORAN!!" type.

[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.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

No, he merely depleted the funding for it.