StemCell Therapy

Reprinted with permission from Shareblue.

The Trump administration is considering cutting $100 million worth of crucial medical research into developing new vaccines and treating diseases like Parkinsons and Alzheimers.

It will slow some projects down that are vital for sick Americans, Larry Goldstein, the director of UC San Diegos stem cell program, toldPolitico, blasting the proposal by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to discontinue National Institutes of Health (NIH) research that uses fetal tissue.

Research on stem cells derived from fetal tissue isabsolutely essentialto medical progress. It brought us the vaccines for polio and measles, and its currently being used to develop potential vaccines for HIV/AIDS and influenza, as well as treatments for neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinsons, Alzheimers, ALS, and more.

There are strict ethical guidelines on how to obtain the fetal tissue, which comes from miscarriages and legal abortions, and which hasunique propertiesthat give researchers insights they often cant find elsewhere.

This fetal tissue would just get thrown away if it werent being donated to research and that research could save future babies by finding treatments for the Zika virus and other prenatal problems.

But Trump is willing to throw all of that progress out the window just to pander to the same religious extremists whowant to banbirth control and fertility treatments.

An HHS spokesperson told Politico that the department is holding multiple listening sessions with various stakeholders [like] scientists, pro-life groups, ethicists on whether to ban this medical research.

Among those pro-life groups is the Susan B. Anthony List, an extremist lobbying group thats basically like theNRAof the movement against reproductive health and rights.

But groups like SBA List do even worse things to science and medicine than the NRA, which hasblockedgovernment research on gun violence.

The anti-choice extremist movement in Americaoperatesa lot like the climate change denial movement: Making up garbage lies and peddling garbage experts in order to confuse people about the validity of well-established science.

Thanks to the lobbying of these extremists, doctors are often forced tolie to womenabout basic health issues or useoutdatedmedical practices. They risk losing their license or even jail time if they cant figure out how to follow badly written laws thatmake no medical sense. And women are evenarrested for miscarriagewhen prosecutors abuse laws that were intended to protect pregnant women.

So when the Trump administration says its consulting scientists, ethicists, and pro-life groups about medical research, its a lot like saying NASA is consulting engineers, astrophysicists, and used car salesmen before launching the next space probe.

The real scientists arent happy about this at all and some worry that theyre being listened to just so that the Trump administration can cover its ass and do what its been planning to all along.

I dont know how much time anyone has to give a compelling case, one anonymous representative of a scientific organization on the listening tour told Politico. Is this just a fait accompli and window dressing to say that you listened to people?

Trump, probably taking the advice of the virulently anti-choice Vice President Mike Pence, has already stuffed HHS full ofanti-science hackswho push abstinence-only sex education for teenagers and who want to defund basic family planning and health programs.

When Pence was governor of Indiana, he signed a law that would have forced women who had miscarriages to seekfunerary services for their fetuses.

And of course, the Trump administration and the GOP have tried to ruin health care across the board by systematicallysabotagingObamacare.

Once again, Trump and his lackeys are working hard to sacrifice human health at the altar of right-wing extremism.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

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Trump Calls Halt To Medical Progress Over Stem Cell Research

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