Stem cells have cured an HIV+ patient

[TomLikesGuitar]

Everyone who is saying that "the vast majority of naysayers are NOT religious", or that "the vast majority is only religious because the majority of people are religious" doesn't really know what they are talking about... sorry.

Religion is the sole basis as to why this is still an ethically shaky issue. You could be an Atheist and be against stem cell research, but the reason why you are against it is one of religious origin, instilled in our minds by family, friends, or shitty documentaries.

Otherwise, you would feel no compassion for a god damn embryo.

I mean seriously, do you weep for each wasted "potential child" every time you fap as well?

 

[Baldry]

Wait...there are HIV-resistant cells?! I...uh this is amazing.

 

[WolfMage]

Stem cells save lives. fact. yet people area against them?

so theres another reason why religion need to GTFO of modern society.

I highly recommend that you read The God Virus, as the author would agree with you.

OT: About damned time we get some work done.
Another victory for man, and one less for monkey-sex.

 

[HyenaThePirate]

To take the discussion in a different direction...

Has anyone considered perhaps the potential NEGATIVE impact this might have? HIV was dangerous because of it's INCREDIBLE adaptation abilities.

In the most frightening of scenarios, what if HIV mutates again, adapting TO stem cells, or even merging with them in some way, using them to do far worse than they did before?
Genetic HIV mutations...

I'm buying a shotgun and all the ammo I can stockpile right now. Also, does anyone have a shovel so I can start digging my "save myself from the apocalypse bunker?"

 

[TaboriHK]

Yes but collectively they are people, not religious. You don't have to be religious to be against stem cell research. While a vast amount of people who oppose stem cell research are religious, you don't need to be religious. With all due respect, it does make your original statement quite inaccurate.

My pointing out of religion in this context has nothing to do with the quality of human being in question and everything to do with agenda. Some people legitimately feel that it's wrong, religious or otherwise. Some people don't. The reason it's not widespread in this country (this country being the US) is because of influence by religious special interest groups on policy, and for no other reason. It goes without saying that ethics should be relevant to science, but this is a case of one body trying to enforce its own close-ended perception of ethics on the whole. Nonreligious people may be against it, but they don't campaign against it, and that is the important distinction. Not agreeing with something and actively taking steps to limit its legality are two very different things, which apparently some people have had trouble distinguishing.

 

[quiet_samurai]

Doctor: Congradulations team we have cured patient X of the HIV virus!

Team member: Yay! So how does he feel?

Doctor: Actually he's dead from the lukemia. Champagne anyone?


OT: Cool, that is good news. For the past couple years I have been saying that I would rather have either HIV or Aids instead of cancer. With the advances in medicineit is a very treatable illness. Unless you live in Africa of course.

 

[Julianking93]

Right, but one is a large body that can legitimately affect policy in this country, and the other can fit in one high school classroom.

Look, I'm not trying to start anything here with you or anyone for that matter (guess I shouldn't have commented here in the first place but... eh).

People are going to believe what they want. There are plenty of people who aren't religious yet agree with many religious view points like not believing in evolution, thinking the Earth is 6000 years old or whatever and while they are a majority, they do still exist.

The same goes the other way as well. Not all religious people are against stem cell research as there are plenty of religious people who accept evolution and believe the universe to be 4 billion years of age.

It depends on the person and I'm directly speaking of the type of person who would withhold a possible cure for the most awful of ailments due to their own ridiculous fairy tale.

 

[subject_87]

Well, this should send the anti-stem cell crowd into an ethical tailspin...

 

[PhiMed]

I read this last year, and I'm only cautiously optimistic, and here's why:

While the main targets of infection of HIV are immune cells, which would need to be almost completely eradicated by chemotherapy prior to marrow transplantation in order to prevent persistence of leukemia, there are other cell types that can be infected.

Depending on how long the patient had been infected, there could be other tissues which still harbor infection. These tissues have a relatively slow rate of replication and cell turnover, which would result in a low, possibly undetectable, viral load.

While the traditional opportunistic infections (AIDS) would not occur in this situation, due to the donor cells' resistance, some of the AIDS-associated illnesses that are due to direct viral effect may. A few examples include progressive multifocal leucoencephalopathy, HIV nephropathy, and AIDS dementia complex. None of these illnesses have been definitively linked to an opportunistic infection, and they are believed to occur due to the action of cell types which are relatively long-lived and slowly-replicating (read: resistant to chemotherapy).

This patient is certainly a breakthrough in the study of the virus and associated illnesses, but until he's been followed for years (possibly decades) after this treatment, we won't know whether he'll eventually develop complications of infection. Even if he lives a long, HIV-associated disease-free life after this, marrow eradication/transplantation will probably never really be an economically viable alternative to traditional HAART therapy. It's not even a reasonable alternative in a "money is no object" scenario unless we just happen upon a way to procure large amounts of CCR-5 negative marrow of various HLA types.

tl;dr Encouraging, but potentially merely anecdotal, story. It may guide future research, but this particular case is unlikely to lead to a widely available cure during the lifetime of anyone reading this.

 

[Julianking93]

I'm pretty sure most religious groups are against the kind of stem cell research that you have to kill fetuses for. Bone marrow contains blood stem cells. These stem cells are more specialized than the embryonic stem cells. Blood stem cells have the ability to differentiate to leukocytes, erythrocytes, or thrombocytes, is all. The kind of stem cell research you mean is way different. For this kind, no fetuses are aborted.

Yes, but the problem is that they mostly will see it as all the same. Kinda like how people who are extremely religious will refuse to take medicine and will instead pray to get better. They don't want to use anything like that due to their beliefs.

And also there's the problem that most people against stem cell research seem to think that fetuses are aborted for the research :/

 

[TaboriHK]

Look, I'm not trying to start anything here with you or anyone for that matter (guess I shouldn't have commented here in the first place but... eh).

People are going to believe what they want. There are plenty of people who aren't religious yet agree with many religious view points like not believing in evolution, thinking the Earth is 6000 years old or whatever and while they are a majority, they do still exist.

The same goes the other way as well. Not all religious people are against stem cell research as there are plenty of religious people who accept evolution and believe the universe to be 4 billion years of age.

It depends on the person and I'm directly speaking of the type of person who would withhold a possible cure for the most awful of ailments due to their own ridiculous fairy tale.

Nor am I. What makes this problem (the stem cell not being legal problem, not the "we're apparently arguing about this" problem) is that it seems to have very little to do with real morality. Believing in God is not stupid, and neither is feeling like a baby has a soul. It is what it is. But boiled down, religious institutions are against medicine as a concept, because it "subverts God's will." Many people are a member of this institution in their own personal lives. They aren't the problem. The problem is the people in the institution who decide what they feel and believe needs to be in OUR lives as well. And those people are, by and large, religious. I'm sure there's a venn diagram just aching to be made here to visually illustrate my point, but I think I've explained it clearly enough. I'm not a religious person, myself. I don't exclude the possibility of God, but I don't think the structure of religion is particularly relevant to him or her or it. That's my own personal view. My problem has NEVER been with religious people. My problem has ALWAYS been with religious institutions and the people behind their machinations.

 

[PureChaos]

In the words of Peter Griffin - "Why are we not funding this?"

whenever stem cells are mentioned, this is what i think of. granted there is the whole ethical issue about using the foetus' for it but if it can cure stuff like that and give affected people a better life, not just those directly affected by something like a stroke but their family will be affected by it too, then it's worth it

 

[The Keeper]

This is just another reason why I can't understand why people get all pissy over stem cell research.

I'd like to see those anti stem cell research groups refute this now.

Mostly people get angry at embryonic stem cell research. People find it immoral and they believe that it isn't successful enough to bother pursuing. I don't think stem cells in general are as big of a problem. Everyone knows they can do a lot of good. That's good, because stem cells can be taken from different sources. Honestly I thought it stopped being an issue. From what I understand the stem cells used in this case were not embryonic, so the critics aren't likely to change their minds.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

My pointing out of religion in this context has nothing to do with the quality of human being in question and everything to do with agenda. Some people legitimately feel that it's wrong, religious or otherwise. Some people don't. The reason it's not widespread in this country (this country being the US) is because of influence by religious special interest groups on policy, and for no other reason. It goes without saying that ethics should be relevant to science, but this is a case of one body trying to enforce its own close-ended perception of ethics on the whole. Nonreligious people may be against it, but they don't campaign against it, and that is the important distinction. Not agreeing with something and actively taking steps to limit its legality are two very different things, which apparently some people have had trouble distinguishing.

The distinction is only there because non-religious people get lumped in with the religious people who are fighting for the same thing. There may be different reasoning and different scales but that doesn't change the fact they are both against the same thing. If a person feels strongly about something they will campaign against it with whoever they can get. The only differences between the two parties is that non-religious people are a minority compared to the religious.

I'm pretty sure those campaigning against it that aren't religious and are against it because they feel it is wrong to abort a child, because it is already alive, rather than it tampering with God's work, wouldn't want to be called religious campaigners. Just because they are in the minority of people campaigning doesn't mean they aren't there.

 

[teh_Canape]

This is just another reason why I can't understand why people get all pissy over stem cell research

because of this:

 

[Hallow'sEve]

You know....if we keep curing all natural diseases Mother Nature's gonna just throw up her arms, yell "FUCK IT!" and start using natural disasters to thin out humanity.

 

[PhiMed]

Everyone who is saying that "the vast majority of naysayers are NOT religious", or that "the vast majority is only religious because the majority of people are religious" doesn't really know what they are talking about... sorry.

Religion is the sole basis as to why this is still an ethically shaky issue. You could be an Atheist and be against stem cell research, but the reason why you are against it is one of religious origin, instilled in our minds by family, friends, or shitty documentaries.

Otherwise, you would feel no compassion for a god damn embryo.

I mean seriously, do you weep for each wasted "potential child" every time you fap as well?

I might if I ejaculated fertilized embryos capable of cellular proliferation and differentiation into a fully-formed human. Alas, I only squirt haploid spermatozoa. My wife also only ovulates haploid eggs. I guess your testes operate differently than mine.

I'm not opposed to stem cell research. In fact, I think that we should be funding it... heavily. But you do realize that you're basically suggesting that people shouldn't be sad when a woman miscarries, right? Go tell a woman who miscarried that her grief is over the death of a "god damn embryo" that she shouldn't feel compassion for. Let me know how that turns out. I'll foot the hospital bill.

 

[Diligent]

This is just another reason why I can't understand why people get all pissy over stem cell research.

I'd like to see those anti stem cell research groups refute this now.

Well that's easy: It was gods will that he have HIV, because he was probably a sinner afflicted with "the gay".
Basically any argument from somebody like that comes down to "BECAUSE GOD."

Sad thing is, you just know that's somebodies opinion out there.

Anyway, hooray for this guy, hopefully it can lead to some breakthroughs.

 

[PhiMed]

This is just another reason why I can't understand why people get all pissy over stem cell research.

I'd like to see those anti stem cell research groups refute this now.

Mostly people get angry at embryonic stem cell research. People find it immoral and they believe that it isn't successful enough to bother pursuing. I don't think stem cells in general are as big of a problem. Everyone knows they can do a lot of good. That's good, because stem cells can be taken from different sources. Honestly I thought it stopped being an issue. From what I understand the stem cells used in this case were not embryonic, so the critics aren't likely to change their minds.

This.

 

[Julianking93]

Nor am I. What makes this problem (the stem cell not being legal problem, not the "we're apparently arguing about this" problem) is that it seems to have very little to do with real morality. Believing in God is not stupid, and neither is feeling like a baby has a soul. It is what it is. But boiled down, religious institutions are against medicine as a concept, because it "subverts God's will." Many people are a member of this institution in their own personal lives. They aren't the problem. The problem is the people in the institution who decide what they feel and believe needs to be in OUR lives as well. And those people are, by and large, religious. I'm sure there's a venn diagram just aching to be made here to visually illustrate my point, but I think I've explained it clearly enough. I'm not a religious person, myself. I don't exclude the possibility of God, but I don't think the structure of religion is particularly relevant to him or her or it. That's my own personal view. My problem has NEVER been with religious people. My problem has ALWAYS been with religious institutions and the people behind their machinations.

That's what I mean. The religious people who believe the use of stem cells are wrong are typically the ones who will try to force their opinion on everyone else. That's the main issue here. Not believing in a God, but believing in it to such an extent that it obscures your view of the world and leads you to be a total prick to everyone who doesn't agree with you 100% of the time.

If you couldn't tell already, I'm an atheist and in all honesty, I don't really see the good religion can do for people, but my lack of religious beliefs don't have anything to do with my opinion on this matter... well, they kinda do, but you know what I mean.

I don't try to force an opinion on anyone and I take issue with anyone that does, religious or not and I will especially take issue with it if it harms another in the process.