Ohio battle over biology continues -

[DanCa]

Subject: Biology battle in Ohio continues-Associated Press

Biology battle in Ohio continues

By Carrie Spencer Ghose
Associated Press

COLUMBUS - Ohio lawmakers are trying to absorb college-level biology
and wrestle with the definition of when life begins as they delay a
bill that legislative leaders say they want passed soon.
A bill that bans spending state money on human cloning and most
embryonic stem cell research passed the Senate last week but stalled
in the House.One sticking point has been whether to allow a process called therapeutic cloning, using a person's DNA to create not a baby but tissues such as skin for a burn victim or insulin-producing cells
for a diabetic. The debate is stuck between the promise of cures to
help millions and the fear of letting scientists create life to
destroy it.Lawmakers hadn't heard from actual stem cell researchers since they tried to put the limits in the state budget back in June. Committees heard the first testimony from researchers last week, and leaders now want extensive meetings with both scientists and the religious conservatives backing the ban.

"When I have people on both sides of the issue telling me the same
words mean something different, then I need to get them both in the
same room," said House Speaker Jon Husted, a Dayton-area
Republican. "When we get to that point where we have understanding,
then I think we can make some progress." Gov. Bob Taft said he's uncomfortable with a bill that goes beyond his August executive order and a 2001 order by President Bush allowing research on embryonic cells made before then. "We're trying to understand what the Senate bill does, exactly," Taft said. Ohio is not alone - the federal government and even the United Nations are enmeshed in debates over stem cells and cloning. Six states ban therapeutic cloning. Recently the Massachusetts legislature passed a bill specifically allowing the practice over GOP Gov. Mitt Romney's veto, while Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle vetoed a cloning ban because it included therapeutic cloning.Lawmakers are treading in unfamiliar territory. Other stalled bills in Ohio include regulating striptease and toughening anti-terrorism rules, but it's easier to slog through legal loopholes and civil liberties concerns than a bill that contains the phrase "somatic cell nuclear transfer." The Legislature has many attorneys but no one who lists a medical degree or occupation as a physician. There is one veterinarian, two nurses, a clinical psychologist and a mortician. With so little science background, lawmakers trip up on a phrase saying therapeutic cloning is allowed so long as it is not used to create an embryo. The question is whether the technique requires that step.

Cloning involves putting DNA from a person into an unfertilized egg
from which genetic material has been removed. The egg is zapped with
electricity and starts dividing. After a few days it's a ball of
about 150 cells, and stem cells can be extracted and instructed to
make the desired tissue. No U.S. researchers are known to be doing
so with human cells.In a break in a committee meeting last week, lawmakers surrounded researchers in the Statehouse hallways, pressing them on whether that ball of cells is human.Dr. David Williams, who does research on adult stem cells at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, answered that he believes it is not. There is no intention to implant it in a womb and make a baby. For the Roman Catholic church, it clearly is two ethical missteps in a row: creating a life in a lab and destroying it, said the Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, staff ethicist for the National Catholic Bioethics Center.

It's not surprising that lawmakers struggle with the complex
science, he said."There's a good deal of simple educational catch-up that is required," Pacholczyk said. "We end up with lawmakers voting with only partial knowledge."Senate President Bill Harris, an Ashland Republican, said he's comfortable with the bill and wants the House to act during the two days it meets before the end of the year. Husted said his caucus disagrees on the timetable, and he wants a bill that's clear.New language can always be added in another bill, Harris said."That's the good thing about the (Ohio) Revised Code: we can change it," he said.



Publication date: 11-21-2005
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[Selteri]

1. Why is it more and more I begin to believe that my government is

run by babbling drooling morons who can't get it through their head to fricking pick up a few Scientific American magazines and read up on the subject. THey're not hard to get a hold of.

PS In my humble opinion, when it's still smaller than a piece of snot blown in a tissue, I'm not concerned about if it's really a life, it sounds cold but at the size of a few hundred cells I've removed more when I've bitten off cuticles or pulled a few hairs from my head.

[DanCa]

2. I think any church who interferes in this should lose thier tax exempt

status personally.

[we can do it]

6. Me too

God - can it get any dumber here?

[depakid]

3. Go ahead Ohio Reubs- chase more technology and jobs away

and look like fools in the process.

With the multitude of problems facing that state, it's hard to believe that anyone would be wasting their time with this.

I just don't get what goes on there....:shrug:

[darkmaestro019]

4. I'm right here in the middle of it, and I don't get it either

I feel like Ralph in Lord of the Flies, only thus far, no grownups have come to save us from the savages.

And it's making me insane, the sudden lack-of-concern over the babies once they're BORN, and the even more befuddling lack of even fake-and-invasive concern once humans are over eighteen. A few cells are too precious to make/use to save a long, connected, experienced life? We can get new cells anytime. Or we could, if it was legal. Nobody's talking about children in tanks like some kind of Dune movie. Scrape in a petri dish. We can't get new adults without decades passing; the lost potential, the shockwave of every person connected to the adult that will die (or suffer needlessly) without treatment. And don't get me started on the JOBS.

edit: clarity, not that it seems to have helped much.

[Maraya1969]

5. I don't get it. They say they don't want cloning because it does not

make a real person with a "soul" but they also don't want cells made from cloning because.....?:shrug:

You don't see people complaining about growing ears on mouses. And they use human cartilage cells.


How the 'ear' works has to do with what it's made out of and the mouse. The mold is made from special fibers that are biodegradable. Before the mold is implanted into the back of a hairless mouse, it is covered with human cartilage cells - the same cells our ears are made from. Blood from the mouse help the cartilage cells grow and eventually replace the fibers. What you end up with is a piece of cartilage in the shape of an ear. Researchers say, after the child's new ear is removed from the mouse, the hairless rodent remains alive and





http://www.kidzworld.com/site/p1219.htm

[DanCa]

7. As a stem cell research lobbyist I can assure you human clonning is a

scare tactic to keep thier votting base inline. We introduce legislation to make sure that human clonning wont happen. Allthough I am highly skeptical that we have the technology to see a fully human cloned formed in a petri dish even if we didn't include safe gaurds in our bills.

[Selteri]

8. I don't see the technology advancing enough for human cloning

Not got at least 10 years at the very very earliest. No, you are right, it's a scare tactic and I would not be surprised if the pharmaceutical companies are some of the biggest attackers of stem cell research.