Sad to say, Michael J. Fox was a tool
The embryonic stem cell research industry received a second big blow last week when in an ABC interview actor and huge embryonic stem cell research proponent Michael J. Fox admitted escr isn’t panning out to be all he and others touted it to be in the fight against his own Parkinson’s disease and other maladies and injuries.
The first blow came six months ago when escr’s original proponent, Geron Corporation, announced it was cutting its losses and pulling out.
Fox admitted to Diane Sawyer:
There have been some issues with [embryonic] stem cells, some problems along the way….
It’s not so much that [stem cell research has] diminished in its prospects for breakthroughs as much as it’s the other avenues of research have grown and multiplied and become as much or more promising. So, an answer may come from stem cell research, but it’s more than likely to come from another area….
Aside from warning against the immorality of dissecting and killing tiny human beings, the pro-life community also warned against those “problems,” which include uncontrolled cell differentiation that leads to tumors.
Finally, reality has bitten Fox. But his next thoughts to Sawyer really got me going:
Fox: I’m glad that I put the effort into promoting it. My quest in that regard was really about research freedom and not shutting down avenues of research because of ideological reasons that were countered by the majority’s opinion of whether it was worthwhile doing. So, hopefully stem cell will result in something. I’m glad we pursued it, and I’m glad we fought for the right to do it, but there’s other areas, too, that we’re pursuing.
Sawyer: So the whole thing is to be able to ask the questions and not have anything foreclosed from asking questions.
Fox: Really, it’s tough when you respect the other side’s opinion and you want to hear it and you sit down and say, “Tell me, tell me what your issues are,” and then you counter with agreement that’s supported by two-thirds of the country, and so there’s gotta be some weight given to that, too.
Really? The fight over escr was really about ”research freedom”? I’m sorry, I don’t recall hearing that rationale at the time. And if so, does that legitimize the wild overpromises made about the merits of escr, such as this, still on the Fox Foundation’s website?
Embryonic stem cells hold promise because of their ability to develop into any of the over 200 body cells as well as to replace cells and tissue destroyed by disease. This has incredible potential for aiding the understanding and treatment of innumerable diseases and even birth defects. Testing of new medications for safety could be performed in labs using lines of embryonic stem cells. Diabetes, heart disease and spinal-cord injuries are just a few of the conditions that potentially could be treated.
Fox was admitting that in reality the liberal mob that coalesced in the mid 2000s to attack President Bush and conservatives’ opposition to taxpayer-funded embryonic stem cell research had as much to do with attacking our beliefs as anything else.
Fox admitted his own ideological bent by calling us “the other side” and putting his ideology on display by actively campaigning for Democrats like Claire McCaskill. Who can forget this ad?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9WB_PXjTBo[/youtube]
In reality a greedy industry and immoral Left used Michael J. Fox and Christopher Reeve and other sick and injured people for their own agendas, the latter of which is to destroy Judeo-Christian ethics in the United States.
Sad to say, Fox was a tool.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
While the Left spent the last decade fighting for more aborted babies to supply the fetal stem cells, research in adult stem cell and Parkinson’s disease seem much more promising. This article was from way back in 2009.
http://www.lifenews.com/2009/02/16/bio-2751/
Now with the benefit of hindsight he fesses up and spins his way through an explanation that is intellectually dishonest. Maybe it is too much to expect an apology for the way in which he savaged opponents of escr back when. Now with the damage already done in the billions of wasted tax dollars and dashed hopes for those sold a bill of goods about the so-called “promise” that escr offered it would be incumbent upon someone of Fox’es stature in the Hollywood community to say they have made a big mistake in critisizing those who warned us against escr. His failure to do so is condemning others to hang on to the thin thread of false hope.
Sigh, I am a scientist and I saw this spin coming years ago…the very first time I saw Fox promoting escr…I thought what is he going to do when all of this escr hysteria eventually results in nothing but dashed hopes.
What I don’t see coming is an apology to all the dead people that are the result of this unethical research.
Well, we can still hope for that…
Another pawn of the industry. Michael J. Fox should have seen this coming, the only success has been with adult stem cells, and those have been few.
Surprised he even granted the interview, probably trying to clear his name, but I had already written him off as having an agenda years ago.
Does anyone remember when “fetal transplants” were the magic cure that PL people were denying those afflicted with debilitatng disease? Oh yes, even RU486 would treat so many diseases, if not for PL people who want to keep it out of the country.
I’m less inclined to blame people like Fox and Christopher Reeve as I am those who would exploit their personal tragedies and those of others to further their own agenda. When people are desperate they grab at any hope, perfect for exploitation.
Think too of the time, energy, money, and resources wasted on escr that could have been applied to more promising research.
This is like the HIV vaccine. Those who look for cures get paid whether they find anything or not when the government is funding it. They wanted government money. Actual business don’t just want to flush money down the drain, so they are only going to go after stuff that has an actual chance of working. The smart money was never on escr. Just like the smart money is not in animal research.
Mary says:
Think too of the time, energy, money, and resources wasted on escr that could have been applied to more promising research.
How very true! And I would like to add to the list all of the research dollars spent on diseases that people bring upon themselves voluntarily through behavioral excesses and perversions. If only those dollars could be spent on things like dementia research and cancer we might be further along in fighting them. But no, we think we can eat and drink and lust our way to happiness without consequence and so we spend billions in research to try to eliminate these things that could be managed by a simple word: no.
What really steams me is how they so blatantly get away with it and nobody in the mainstream media has even an inkling that their public statements, lobbying and campaigning should be held to a standard, of any kind. In our soundbyte society you can lie to the whole world and have it forgotten the next year, your word still treated as golden and your status still intact.
There was a story on CNN just yesterday about a little boy whose parents are having him injected with embryonic stem cells at a “clinic” in India. The “doctor” has no studies or course of treatment, they just do this to see what happens.
Supposedly, this boy was able to walk without crutches after being treated, but his father admitted that there’s no way to know that wouldn’t have happened even if they had not injected their son with the remains of murdered children.
Story from 2009 where an Israeli boy suffering from Ataxia telangiectasia was injected with fetal stem cells and later developed brain tumors.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/?/news/fetal-stem-cell-injections-create-brain-tumors-in-israeli-boy
Yes, Michael was a tool, but a willing tool who made a calculated decision. He heard our opposition and the grounding of that opposition so eloquently stated by President Bush in his stem cell decision.
Freedom in research is no different than any other freedom: It is not absolute.
That’s why we have ethics review boards, because we have ethics that need to be upheld. The scientific society is no different than any other society; we need clear limits delineated from an authentic understanding of the dignity of the human person.
Consider this quote from former Chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics, Leon Kass, M.D., in Human Cloning and Human Dignity, The Report of the President’s Council on Bioethics. Though dealing specifically with cloning, the principles discussed apply equally to a host of issues.:
“We realize, of course, that many proponents of cloning-for-biomedical-research will recommend regulations designed to prevent just such abuses (that is, the expansion of research to later-stage cloned embryos and fetuses). Refusing to erect a red light to stop research cloning, they will propose various yellow lights intended to assure ourselves that we are proceeding with caution, limits, or tears. Paradoxically, however, the effect might actually be to encourage us to continue proceeding with new (or more hazardous) avenues of research; for, believing that we are being cautious, we have a good conscience about what we do, and we are unable to imagine ourselves as people who could take a morally disastrous next step. We are neither wise enough nor good enough to live without clear limits.”