Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Well, O.K. But, Still...

(I have some bigger things to post, but it seems that Blogger is moving omniously slow. I don't want to launch into something big just to see it lost. Expect those things tomorrow, Friday or whenever Blogger gets their act together...)

All right. It seems as if I was a bit hasty in condeming the U.S. evacuation efforts. Seems that today the removal of Americans from Lebanon began in earnest.

While this individual situation may blow over, my essential question remains: if a government cannot protect those it governs, what good is it?

How might this issue inform this question for us today?

Considering that, how far does the government's responsibility to protect (or to allow free research and inquiry to better people's lives) go? Do the two overlap? Should they?

1 comment:

MJenks said...

A couple of things.

1) Stem cells (including the forbidden strains) can be cloned from regular somatic cells.

2) This is public funding, not private. Private research companies (i.e. big pharma) aren't affected.

3) There's no proof that stem cells can cure anything. It's only postulated. In fact, the toxic soup you have to keep them soaking in just to avoid them turning oncogenic in the flask is an amazing cocktail of growth factors, cell-receptor blockers and tubulin-binders which, in itself, could shut down several major biochemical pathways if absorbed through the skin.

4) If you can figure out how to turn on and turn off stem cells and make them do what you want, then you can pretty much do that in regular cells, including mutated monster tumor cells.

5) I did a kickass iron-coupling reaction. Has nothing to do with stem cells and such, but I had to brag somewhere!