While Bush and company scheme to provide the America-hating Iranian theocracy with nuclear technology, some people are thinking rationally and promoting human life. From the Boston Globe:
Harvard scientists announced yesterday that they are beginning an ambitious attempt to create the world's first cloned human embryonic stem cells, bringing the university into one of science's most ethically charged fields.
The goal of the research, they said, is to create a powerful new tool to explore the biology of, and hopefully find treatments for, a number of devastating diseases: juvenile diabetes, genetic blood disorders, and ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease….
The research is controversial because scientists destroy days-old embryos, which some opponents say is essentially taking human lives, and because the research uses human eggs, which can place donors at a slight risk of side effects.
But at a press conference yesterday, Harvard Provost Dr. Steven E. Hyman said the university had concluded that the research was ethically justified, following extensive reviews by eight committees over two years. Hyman said the scientists will be required to follow strict guidelines governing how eggs are obtained and what experiments can be done—but he said the work is too important to not do.
"We are convinced that work with embryonic stem cells holds enormous promise for developing treatments for a host of presently intractable adult and childhood diseases," Hyman said. "We have approved this work after the most extensive ethical and scientific review in recent memory here at Harvard."
Hallelujah! Kudos to Hyman and the whole team at Harvard (and hellfire to Bush and his fellow religionists who oppose such crucial research in the name of the same fantasy that prevents them from eliminating the Iranian regime).
As to the extreme value of this research: . . .
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