SILENT RUNNING - The Bothersome Aspect of the Stem Cell Debate
For me, there's one bothersome aspect to the entire 'debate' about stem cell research swirling around currently.
It isn't discomfort that the proponents of the research are making pie in the sky claims of potential cures for people that cling to any possibility of relief from devastating conditions. The claims may be much more science fiction than science probability - but their point about 'who knows what research may turn up' seems a valid point of debate.
What bothers me is the way that the issue is framed in the misleading fashion of intimating that no federal funding means a ban on the research altogether.
Which is not the case. There is no ban on a private firm that wishes to invest the money to conduct embryonic stem cell research. The research can take place.
The proponents of federally funded embryonic stem cell research just want the government to pay for it.
Not that the proponents of the research (and this method of funding) want that (the issue that it's a money trick) to be the forefront and central point of discussion.
Which to me indicates a massive campaign of basic deception on the part of people supposedly seeking truth and knowledge. The may be seeking it, but is it such a great idea to start this entire 'quest for truth' on a disingenuous basis? Also, with indications beginning to appear that embryonic stem cells may not be the all curing panacea golden miracle solutions their advocates claim them to be raises this question - to me at least - if this avenue in fact holds as much promise as they claim, why haven't the major pharmaceutical research outfits plowed tons of money into something that would be a tremendous profit generating vehicle? Where is the free market interest in it? It's extremely crass, but ultimately the bottom line - how much would someone pay to get up out of a wheelchair? Or how much could their insurance be made to pay? Quite a lot, I would think.
No, the argument isn't really about conducting the research at all, it's about having the taxpayers foot the bill for it. And a lot of those taxpayers do, in fact, have fundamental moral objections to this type of research. But federal funding, particularly in the forms such as Prop 71, are a whole lot easier to get cash out of in the short term than from a corporation or investors looking for results.
To the researchers, it's merely a question of ease of funding, and job security. Proposition 71 - 300 billion over 10 years. A 10 year revenue stream? You don't have to explain anything other than 'we're working on it!, and there's no requirement to offer a guarantee of a useful end product? What a deal! Little wonder the scientists are clamoring in favor of the idea.
But it doesn't make it any more fundamentally noble or moral than somehow convincing a host of desperate people to vigorously campaign that I should be given huge sums of taxpayer money to go to Vegas and work a craps table.
Heck of a proposition if you can swing it, but it doesn't make it right, and it doesn't make you noble, either.
This isn't a struggle over morality, or an effort to rob the sick of hope. It's a money trick. Using Quadriplegics, Paraplegics, Diabetes patients, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's patients as the poster images of the argument.
Being against using federal dollars for this goose chase isn't the heinous part - using those patients to pull on the public slot machine of government is. |
