Genetherapy

Archive for the ‘Gene Cloning’ Category

Yesterday, a panel of three judges from the Western District Court of Appeals heard the oral arguments regarding the Secretary of State’s appeal of the Circuit Court ruling that her ballot summary was “unfair and insufficient”. The oral arguments are the final step presenting both sides of the case to the court. Prior to yesterday’s hearing, several hundred pages of “briefs” have been filed with the court from both sides. At this point, we have no indication of when the court will rule on the case. We will, of course, notify you immediately when a decision is reached.

We believe that no matter how many irrelevant side issues the cloners try to raise, the court cannot deny the basic facts as stated by our lead attorney, Eddie Greim. Eddie argued that Carnahan’s summary improperly includes policy and social claims and more importantly does not include the central purpose of the proposed amendment, which is to ban human embryonic cloning.

“The statement really missed the legal core of this proposal,” Greim said in an interview after the hearing. “Instead it made predictions and policy arguments and various other types of claims that don’t belong in a summary statement.” (“Missouri appeals court looks at stem cell ballot” by Margaret Stafford/AP Columbia Missourian, March 26, 2008)

Sitting in the courtroom for both the circuit court and court of appeals hearings, I cannot help but wonder how many taxpayer dollars have been spent by the Attorney General’s office to defend the malfeasance of the Secretary of State. Clearly, Robin Carnahan’s abuse of power has cost us, as Missouri citizens, in legal fees and time wasted and then we are also paying with our tax dollars for her defense!

What NOW?

Because we have such a large and wide spread volunteer army of circulators, we have opted to wait for the Court of Appeals ruling before circulating petitions. If the appeals court were to change even one word then we would have to reprint and distribute over 150,000 petitions while insuring the original petitions were destroyed. That challenge would be greater than working within a tight timeframe.

There is still a great deal of work to be done as we prepare. We continue to recruit and train volunteer circulators and coordinators across the state. If you have yet to be trained – we need you. Click here to volunteer today!

This statement was released today by Missouri Cures Without Cloning:

COURT OF APPEALS RULES CURES WITHOUT CLONING INITIATIVE IS NOT A REPEAL; CAMPAIGN WILL CONTINUE ON TO 2010

JEFFERSON CITY, MO – The Missouri Cures Without Cloning Initiative Campaign (CWC) won a partial legal victory today when the Missouri Court of Appeals ruled that part of Secretary of State Robin Carnahan’s ballot summary was “insufficient and unfair.” In the opinion, Judge Hardwick stated “Upon review of the Plaintiffs’ initiative proposal, we find no language to suggest that it would repeal the ban on human cloning…. The Secretary’s introductory language does not fairly summarize any goal or effect of the initiative proposal and is inadequate to give clear notice of its purpose.”

While this was a big victory for CWC’s efforts to present Missouri voters with a clean vote to ban human cloning in Missouri, we are disappointed the court upheld the unsubstantiated prediction that this amendment would limit patients’ access to stem cell cures and treatments. There is no basis for this assertion. We are evaluating our options regarding appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court and pursuing relief from the Secretary of State for violation of our constitutional rights.

Following is a statement by Lori Buffa, MD, chairwoman of CWC:

“While there is some satisfaction from today’s decision, the deadline to submit the approximately 150,000 signatures necessary to place the measure on the November 2008 ballot is Sunday. Clearly, it has been the intent of Robin Carnahan and those who support human cloning in our state to abuse the initiative process and prohibit
us from placing a true ban on human cloning on the ballot. However, justice delayed will not be justice denied. CWC will continue our educational efforts throughout this year and resubmit our initiative in November. Hopefully, by this time next year our vast organization of trained volunteer circulators will be collecting signatures for the 2010 election cycle.

“Missouri Cures Without Cloning is committed to banning human cloning and taxpayer funding of human cloning in Missouri. Our broad coalition continues to build support as we have gained thousands of supporters from all areas of the state. Momentum is on the side of our growing movement as Missourians become aware of the human cloning loophole in our constitution. As we continue to share the truth about human cloning in Missouri, more and more of our fellow citizens will join us in supporting a true ban on human cloning in 2010.”

Missouri Cures Without Cloning (CWC) is leading a broad-based, statewide coalition of grassroots organizations committed to prohibiting the cloning of human beings in Missouri. Interested citizens are invited to visit http://www.mocureswithoutcloning.com/ for more information.

There has been more good news on the research front: another hurdle in the development of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) looks to have been cleared. U.S. News and World Report announced the good news last week: “A major concern with using [induced pluripotent] stem cells [iPS] to treat disease has been the possibility that the retrovirus used to implant the cells might cause cancer, but now a group of scientists appears to have solved that problem.” The major breakthrough on iPS stem cells only happened a last November, so the pace of the progress on clearing the hurdles in its path highlights the practicality of this new line of research.

In November, two groups of researchers — one in Japan and one in the United States — showed that adult human and mouse skin cells could be reprogrammed into stem cells similar to embryonic stem cells, which can be made into any type of cell. These cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS), could be the key to using stem cells to cure a variety of diseases.

In this latest study, published in the Feb. 14 issue of Science, the Japanese researchers prove these stem cells are made from normal mature adult cells, and they show that these stem cells can be implanted using a retrovirus without fear of causing cancer.

“This is a real nice follow-up and confirmation of the previous papers that looked at inducing normal cells to become stem cells,” said Dr. Hugh Taylor, an associate professor at Yale University School of Medicine.

“The question that still existed from the previous paper was whether these stem cells were some sort of adult stem cells,” Taylor said. “This paper shows that these
stem cells are fully differentiated adult cells, that they can be reprogrammed into stem cells,” he added. “You can probably take almost any adult cell and turn it into a stem cell.”

In addition, there has been a fear that using a retrovirus to implant stem cells results in an increased risk of cancer. This study showed that doesn’t happen, Taylor said. “It proves, without a doubt, that these cells are safe for human use,” he noted.
…
“Using adult cells to create what appeared to be embryonic stem cells solves the ethical dilemma that some people have in creating or destroying embryos to create stem cells,” Taylor said.

Read the full article here.

There are a couple of stories out recently regarding the Governors’ summit and Wesley Smith at Secondhand Smoke responds to the claims of William Neaves of the Stowers Institute. The following is one of the topics touched on in Smith’s blog post.

William Neaves, head of the Stowers Institute, is perhaps the most disingenuous advocate for human cloning that I have ever encountered. To say that I disrespect the man is to say the sky is blue. Well, he’s at it again in this story about human cloning and stem cell research in Missouri.

…

“Those that oppose this research still threaten to overturn the stem cell amendment and the struggle to keep Missouri safe for medical science must continue.” A new bill to ban Stowers research is pending in the General Assembly.”We remain optimistic that most Missourians will oppose misguided efforts by some politicians to outlaw legitimate biomedical research,” Neaves said.

I don’t know about any bill in the Assembly and a search did not turn up any. There is a planned initiative to outlaw human cloning. But many believe human cloning is not legitimate medical research, which is why Neaves pitches so much junk biology to pretend that the new planned initiative would outlaw ESCR, which it would not.

Be sure to check out the full post over at Secondhand Smoke.

This statement was released by Cures Without Cloning in response to today’s court ruling.

Cures Without Cloning Statement on Court Ruling Upholding Challenge to Carnahan Ballot Summary

ST. LOUS, MO – Lori Buffa, MD, chairwoman of Cures Without Cloning, released the following statement regarding the ruling of Circuit Judge Patricia S. Joyce upholding the coalition’s challenge to the Secretary of State’s misleading and inaccurate ballot summary:

“This ruling proves what we’ve said along: that our clear, concise initiative would prohibit human cloning and the taxpayer funding of human cloning in Missouri.

“We are pleased that the courts have upheld our challenge to Secretary of State Carnahan’s blatant attempt to mislead the Missouri voters with her inaccurate ballot summary.

“It is unfortunate that Ms. Carnahan’s actions have needlessly delayed the democratic process, but we are now prepared to move forward with our efforts to prohibit the cloning of human beings here in Missouri.”

Cures without Cloning (CWC) is leading a broad-based, statewide coalition of grassroots organizations committed to prohibiting the cloning of human beings in Missouri. Interested citizens are invited to visit www.MOcureswithoutcloning.com for more information.

The following is the language that the judge handed down and is now certified to the Secretary of State:

Should the Missouri Constitution be amended to change the definition of cloning and ban some of the research as approved by voters in November, 2006 by:
• prohibiting human cloning that is conducted by creating a human embryo at any stage from the one-cell stage forward;
• prohibiting expenditure of taxpayer dollars on research or experimentation on human cloning; and
• allowing stem cell research for therapies and cures that complies with these prohibitions and the prohibitions of Section 38(d) of theConstitution?

The Baptist Press , in a story by Michael Foust, has reported on our recent court victory.

Pro-lifers in Missouri won a major court victory Feb. 20 when a state judge rewrote the ballot language of a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban all types of human cloning.

Read the full story.

By Dr. Michael Acuff, Columbia, MO

As a spinal-cord injury specialist, I have dedicated my career to improving the lives of my patients. Over the years, as medical research has progressed, one of the biggest challenges for physicians like me has been to bridge the gap between providing hope and providing false hope.

The new Cures Without Cloning initiative, which would amend the Missouri Constitution to prohibit human cloning and taxpayer funding of human cloning, is about hope.

It is about allowing us to focus our medical research on promising, safe methods to find lifesaving cures and treatments, but doing it without human cloning, which is dangerous, unproven and outside the mainstream of society.

Those who allege human cloning is necessary in the pursuit of these cures and treatments are providing false hope.

The Cures Without Cloning initiative would only prohibit research involving human cloning – nothing more, nothing less. There are plenty of promising research methods, including many forms of stem-cell research, that do not involve human cloning.

Perhaps this is why so many doctors across the state are supporting this common-sense initiative.

Why do we need a prohibition on human cloning? Simple: Because the Missouri Constitution currently only prohibits some cloning. It does, though, permit the same form of human cloning that created Dolly the sheep.

This isn’t a religious issue; this isn’t an economic-development issue. It’s an issue of doing what’s right for our patients; it’s about allowing medical researchers to focus on safe, proven research techniques, rather than throwing away our tax dollars.

But it seems to me that turning our backs to safe, proven research techniques, while continuing to throw endless tax dollars toward dangerous, unproven human cloning experiments, is wrong.

The Cures Without Cloning initiative does not prohibit stem-cell research. Actually, by prohibiting human cloning, the researchers of our state will be able to focus on the exciting areas of stem-cell research that show real promise and real hope.

The cloning prohibition simply prohibits human-cloning experiments.

We should embrace the exciting promise of cures and treatments that stem-cell research can bring, but we should do so by resoundingly rejecting the practice of human cloning.

My patients deserve hope, and they deserve the best efforts from medical researchers.

By supporting the Cures Without Cloning initiative, we can provide hope, we can provide an honest search for lifesaving cures and treatments, and we can do so without the dangerous, unnecessary practice of cloning human beings.

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Originally published by The Maneater