Hi Raj, I don't know who this is aimed at. If it is aimed to members of a
legislative body> I think it is over optimistic to think that legislators
will understand what you are saying.These people are not from academia ,
they need  things written at a 6th grade level. I think the piece is well
put together and explains the problem well but i think it will go ovewr the
heads of legislators and people like George W         used some
>of her sentences and phrases in this article.  I thank her profusely for her
>honesty and for letting me use her  catchy phrases generously in this
>article.
>     I hope you enjoy reading this article and find it useful.
>     Raj
>[log in to unmask]
>  PS: I had to split this into two parts to be accepted by the Parkinsons
>list serve.
>**************
>
>                     STEM CELLS AND CLONING: FACT AND FICTION - YOU BE THE
>JUDGE
>
>
>Dr. R. Rajaraman
>
>       "Out there on the political arena," lines have been drawn on the
>battleground, "sides have been taken" for and against research on stem cells
>and cloning, arguments have been put forward, "rounds after rounds have been
>fired, and causalities sustained by both sides."  However, in my view,
>everything is still obscured by a thick veil of smoke that fills the air and
>the public is all but confused as to what is going on.  In this atmosphere
>of confusion and misconception, it is almost impossible for the public to
>think straight and contribute meaningfully to the ongoing dialogue on this
>important issue.  A good appreciation of the concepts and the controversies
>surrounding the issues by well-informed public is necessary for a rational
>and balanced outcome of these deliberations, because it is their future well
>being that will be affected by the decisions that are being hastily made on
>these issues today both by the governments of the United States of America
>and Canada.  The reasons for this confusion, and the resulting condemnation
>of stem cell research outright as an act of crime against humanity are the
>misperception and misinterpretation of the language, thoughtless statements
>by some overzealous publicity-seeking, irresponsible scientists, and the
>media hype and frenzy that has been built around the words "cloning" and
>"stem cells" - words that ignite and incite fierce and fervent  reactions
>from both the pro-life and the pro-stem cell camps.  In this article, I
>attempt to clarify some confusions, and put in perspective the different
>terms, what does them really mean, what can they do for us, what can we do
>with them, why they are important, and how we move forward from this
>stalemate for the betterment of humanity.
>
>  I am a 69-year-old father of two sons, and a grand father if three smart
>kids, and live in Halifax, NS. , Canada.  I am a Hindu hailing from South
>India and living in North America since 1965.  I am a retired professor and
>my field of specialization is cancer cell biology.  The community of
>Parkinson's Disease (PD) knows me to some extent.  I am suffering from two
>kinds of movement disorders, i.e., Essential Tremor (ET) characterized by
>action tremor and PD characterized by resting tremor for the past 40 years
>and of late my symptoms of PD have become more pronounced.  Even though I
>realize now in hindsight that I have been having some symptoms of PD since
>my early thirties, I was diagnosed with PD only about four years ago.  The
>news threw me into a state of shock and I promptly went into a denial phase
>that lasted for almost a year.  I could have simply accepted the verdict and
>take the drugs prescribed for me and disappear in thin air, forgotten by the
>community and the society at large and accept what the fate would throw at
>me.  But, I decided to get a second opinion for my diagnosis, which led me
>to some unpleasant experience.  Therefore, I decided to learn everything
>that I possibly can about this disease that creeps on you slowly but surely.
>I have now learned to "act like a tiger and think like a fox" in order to
>survive the disease and enjoy life at the same time.
>
>WHAT IS PARKINSON'S DISEASE?
>   What I found out about the ravages of the PD and the problems caused by
>current treatments available for PD were not very encouraging at all.  PD is
>a neurodegenerative disease affecting 2% of the people above 60 years old.
>However, this disease also affects people in the very young age, often as
>early as the 20s and thirties, crippling the useful life span of most of
>these patients.  About 10% of PD patients fall in this category.  PD
>patients experience progressively reduced capacity to move, rigidity of the
>hands and legs, tremors, loss of a voice, speech impediment, loss of
>postural instability, inability to swallow, loss of sleep and regularity,
>inability to write, and eventually become a vegetable and a burden to
>themselves, their family and the society.  PD is caused by progressive
>degeneration of neurons that produce a chemical called dopamine, which is
>important for movement and the maintenance of the overall normal affairs of
>our nervous system, which is taking care of important functions like
>movement of muscle involved in smiling, speaking, swallowing, writing,
>walking, maintaining a vertical posture, blood pressure etc.  We still do
>not know what causes the degeneration of these neurons.  It could be a
>repercussion of some post-viral infection phenomenon, environmental toxins,
>in addition to genetic susceptibility.  Most disturbingly, there is
>currently no consensus of opinion if it is one disease with a variation or
>two different diseases, when one develops PD symptoms on top of the chronic
>symptoms of ET.   At present, there is no cure for PD.  Most of the drugs
>for PD have only temporary symptomatic relief (lasting for about 3 hours)
>and have their own unwanted side effects in the long run.  And in some
>unfortunate individuals,  these drugs don't have even that transient
>beneficial effect and they are slowly progressing toward a miserable life
>with no body movement, not being able to swallow or even to talk, especially
>in their old age.   One has the last resort of a radical Deep Brain Surgery
>(DBS) (literally boring holes in the brain to implant electrodes deep in the
>center of the brain), which sounds almost barbaric, nevertheless scientific,
>is risky and highly expensive (around US$ 60,000) and even then, there is no
>guarantee that the problems will be solved.
>
>  One of the major hopes for people like us relies on the future discoveries
>based on stem cell research.  If the current trend of blindly condemning all
>types of stem cell research continues, you will be condemning all of us to a
>slow and miserable death.   "PD slowly robs its victims of the ability to
>move properly and eventually we won't be able to move at all.  About 30% of
>us develop dementia, we are three times more likely to develop Alzheimer's
>and we cannot speak well or swallow our food.  We have to take about 25
>pills / day costing about $12,000 or more / year, yet have increasing
>difficulty controlling the problems.  These medications do nothing to slow
>down the progression of the disease."  Some that do, have extreme side
>effects and one would wonder which is worse: to suffer through the ravages
>of the disease or the side effects of the drug.  "In time these drugs fail
>us and will leave us totally disabled.  We will leave this (active) world
>and enter into a twilight world of immobility, encased in our bodies as in
>tombs, able to think but not speak, understand but not able to communicate.
>Death will inevitably follow, and by then it may not be unwelcome."
>
>           I cannot overemphasize the importance of looking at the issues and
>facts on stem cells and cloning with a clear understanding of the
>consequences of our actions we take today.  It would become apparent that
>medical research has finally given us a ray of hope in stem cell research,
>which has the potential to ultimately give us a unique opportunity, without
>compromising our religious beliefs, and moral and ethical responsibilities,
>to be able give reassurance to several thousands of our fellow PWPs (People
>With Parkinson's).  We have gotten to know them in person or through the
>internet, looking at them as if living in a parallel universe, watching our
>slow downward progression, sharing our emotions and fears, and seeking
>strength, consolation, and companionship in our daily efforts to find the
>meaning of life.  It is thought that PD is one of the first diseases to be
>amenable for stem cell-mediated regenerative therapy.  We know the specific
>neuronal cell type whose loss causes this disease.  Several laboratories
>have successfully produced dopamine-synthesizing neuronal cells fro
>embryonic stem cells.  After introducing a gene Nurr1 into mouse embryo stem
>cells, and transplanting these cells into the rat brain, they differentiated
>into dopamine producing neuronal cells, that resulted in the alleviation of
>PD symptoms.  A number of strategies are in development to convert human
>stem cells into dopamine producing neurons.  Stem cell research, if allowed
>to continue without impediments and supported by ample funding, has the
>potential to bring into reality the field of regenerative medicine within
>the next decade or two.   In addition to PD, the concept of regenerative
>medicine has the promise and potential to cure to various defects and
>ailments including aging, cancer, diabetes, stroke, heart attack, spinal
>cord injuries, autoimmune diseases, developmental defects, and several
>degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, and other pathological conditions
>as well for being useful in screening new drugs, toxins, and in
>understanding and correcting birth defects, just to mention a few.  Thus the
>impressive and highly promising potential of therapeutic stem cell research
>is likely to benefit not only the PD patients, but more than 75% of humanity
>at large.
>
>   Without understanding the difference between what these words really mean
>and what they are perceived to mean, the policy makers and the public run
>the risk of curtailing research that looks highly promising to lead to
>effective treatments and even cures for various debilitating diseases, for
>which there is no cure available currently.  Let us look at the so called
>scary words, why are they scary and what do they really mean.
>
>
>CLONING:
>  Cloning is the process of making several copies of a molecule, a cell or an
>organism.  The process of cloning is very common, when you culture cells for
>studying different aspects of a population of cells.  It would make sense to
>study, for example, the biochemical properties of a normal and a tumor cell.
>One may want to have identical cells in each cell population for comparative
>studies.  Thus, cloning is a procedure very useful for 'manufacturing' large
>population of identical cells.
>
>  These principles and procedures have attained high economic importance in
>the field of plant propagation.  One can clone a plant with any desired
>property, e.g., beautiful flowers, fragrance, a new mutant variety that
>cannot be sexually reproduced, high yields of a given crop, disease
>resistance  etc.,  by culturing individual cells and raising the whole plant
>from a single cell in a test tube and potting the individual plants
>separately after it reaches a healthy stage in a culture flask.
>
>  When molecular biology bloomed as a separate science in the past two
>decades,  people made several copies of a piece of DNA containing a gene,
>and thus molecular cloning became a very powerful tool in the study of the
>function of gene products.   All types of genes that are responsible for the
>growth of cancer and genes that inhibit growth of cancer have been cloned
>for various diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic purposes.  Similarly,
>studies of genes that have undergone changes (mutations) causing various
>diseases are being cloned in order to understand their modes of action by
>themselves or their interaction with other gene products.  These studies
>form the basic tenet of modern molecular medicine.
>  Cloning organisms is also not new.  In the late 1800's, Hans Dreish created
>the first cloned sea urchins, by taking the developing embryo and splitting
>it into two halves, forming two identical sea urchins.  This is what happens
>accidentally in humans that results in what we call identical maternal
>twins.  In 1914, Hans Spemann showed that the nucleus from a 16 cell newt
>embryo, when placed into a fresh enucleated egg, developed into an adult
>newt.  This probably was the first nuclear transplantation experiment that
>resulted in a cloned organism.  However, the nucleus in this case  also
>comes from an embryonic cell, much different from the current technology of
>adult somatic cell nuclear transplantation or SCNT (see below).  In the
>early 1950s, Dr. F.C. Steward of Cornell University cloned thousands of
>carrot plants.  Since then, carrots, tomatoes, fruit flies, and numerous
>other plants and  animals have been cloned.   However, in the year 1963, Dr.
>J.B.S. Haldane introduced the word 'clone' for the processes of making
>identical copies of organisms. In 1993, Dr. Jerry Hall and Dr. Robert
>Stillman starting with seventeen 2- 8- cell stage human embryos produced 48
>different human embryos.  This saw the beginning of ethical challenge to
>such studies.  In 1996, Dr. Ian Wilmut in Scotland produced the first closed
>mammal, Dolly, by adult nucleus transplantation into an egg from which the
>nucleus has been previously removed (SCNT).  One would think that nobody in
>the right mind would even attempt at cloning humans, let alone claiming they
>have done it.  Think again!  On Aug 7, 2001 came the irresponsible
>announcements of Dr. Panos Zavos of Kentucky and Dr. Severino Antinori of
>Italy that they plan to impregnate 200 women volunteers with cloned human
>embryos by November, 2001.  Dr. Richard Seed, a physicist, wanted to
>establish a laboratory solely for the purpose of cloning humans.  Time
>magazine (Feb 19, 2001) sensationalized the issue by stating,  "Human
>cloning is closer than you think!"  To make things worse, we are all aware
>of the recent claims by the Bahamas-based company called Clonaid that they
>have successfully cloned human babies, without producing any evidence.  I
>agree, "Human lives, souls and dignity are at stake!" if we do not do
>anything about this issue.
>
>  Apart from the ethical and moral aspects of the issue, technologically it
>is not feasible as yet to safely clone human beings.  It was recently
>reported that for every successful animal clone, there have been about 300
>fetal deaths.  Fetal casualties of this order will be almost certain to
>happen when anybody attempts at cloning humans with the current technology
>and, for sure, these deaths would be equivalent to cold-blooded murder.  In
>addition, other issues including genetic (e.g., telomere erosion - the lost
>of a small piece of DNA from the end of chromosomes when we age) and
>epigenetic modifications (e.g. imprinting, changes in the gene expression
>pattern (not gene mutation) that are induced permanently during development)
>occur in the embryos by  handling procedures and other unknown factors, have
>not yet been understood.  Irrespective of the technical feasibility, simply
>based on the moral and ethical reasons, human reproductive cloning should be
>permanently banned forthwith.
>
>STEM CELLS:
>  Stem cells have the unique potential to maintain themselves without
>undergoing any genetic change and they also can differentiate into different
>cell types that are found in our body.  They can be classified into two
>different types based on their origin from the embryo or from adult tissues.
>(Please see www.nih.gov/new/stemcell/primer.htm for additional info.)
>
>        The Embryonic Stem cells or ES cells are obtained from the inner mass
>cells at the 4-5 day old developing embryonic stage called the "blastocyst"
>(a spherical early embryonic stage with  central mass of 30 embryonic cells
>enclosed within spherical envelope of a single layer of cells; for a nice
>picture of blastocyst check at
>www.advancedfertility.com/blastocystimages.htm ). ES cells are the
>undifferentiated, embryonic cells, which have the potential to multiply into
>two cells, of which one daughter cell will be destined to maintain
>population of stem cells by further division without undergoing any changes,
>while the other daughter cell can multiply with the potential to
>differentiate into different type of cells in our body, e.g., skin cells,
>brain cells, heart cells, pancreatic cell, blood cell etc., if given the
>right kind of stimulus from the microenvironment.  For this reason, these
>are called pluripotent stem cells, meaning they can differentiate into any
>type of cells given the right stimulus.  For example, the human body has at
>least about 200 different types of cells, just as many different kinds of
>cancers, we know, the humans can suffer from.  All these different types of
>mature or fully differentiated cells in the adult human body, have been
>derived from these stem cells.  Therefore, they provide a potential source
>of different tissue and cell types for replacement in diseases caused by
>non-functional or destroyed native cell types.  Simplest procedure to
>culture pluripotent stem cells is to extract them from the early embryo
>before these cells start their journey towards differentiation into
>different cell types.  Thus, the early embryo possesses truly pluripotent
>cells that can give rise to all cell types present in the embryo and the
>adult.
>         (CONTINUED IN PART II)
>
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