Podcast: June 1st 2005 (Download MP3)

Topics:

Issue #1. Kansas Evolution Update

Issue #2. Science education failing in the US.

Issue #3. Stem Cell Research

Issue #4. Crop Circle Season

Issue #1. Kansas Evolution Update:
Discovery Institute to show Intelligent Design film at Smithsonian Institution

Letter to Mr. Randall Kremer, Public Affairs for the Smithsonian Institution, at: giving@si.edu

Mr. Kremer,

As a scientist and educator, I was very dismayed to hear that the prestigious Smithsonian Institution was co-sponsoring the screening of a film promoting the pseudoscience of Intelligent Design ("The Privileged Planet: The Search for Purpose in the Universe."). I strongly urge you to reconsider. The Discovery Institute is a pseudoscientific organization dedicated to promoting religious belief as science. Intelligent Design is a thinly veiled religious belief system - designed deliberately to remove any overt religious references from what is otherwise classic creationism. Its purpose is to infiltrate institutions like SI in order to convince the public that it has scientific credentials. Do not be so naive, as unfortunately others before you have, in thinking that screening this film at SI will not be used by the Discovery Institute and other promoters of ID as scientific authoritative endorsement of ID. In fact, they are already doing so.

Early in his career, Alain would hold séances in the basement of a friend's home. He and his friends would gather around, light candles, hold hands, and break out a Ouija board. On one occasion, he says, the board summoned a ghost that was keenly interested in an old glass of whiskey: "We realized that the person was probably an alcoholic or something, because the Ouija board kept going toward the glass with the remains of alcohol in it. It was at moments like that that I felt I could have actually experienced real magic."

"You have stated that SI policy is such that "events of a religious or partisan political nature" are not permitted. I would add to that list "egregious pseudoscience." Even if you accept the propaganda that ID is not a religious belief, you must acknowledge the consensus opinion of the scientific community that it is simply NOT science. Do not let SI be exploited to promote an anti-scientific agenda.

Thank you,

Steven Novella, MD
Assistant Professor of Neurology
Yale University School of Medicine
President, The New England Skeptical Society

Issue #2. Science education failing in the US

We Americans have become quite comfortable with our relatively recent designation as the world's only superpower. That's a mistake, since we won't hold the top spot long. In a generation or so, the Chinese will probably be ranked as a superpower, too. Indeed, if the United States doesn't get a grip on science and math education, the Chinese will be standing alone astride the globe, while we have fallen to a second-tier standing.

It's easy enough to see how that could happen. Chinese officials (and parents) take science and math seriously. High-school and college students work hard to master chemistry, physics, biology and engineering. For that matter, so do Indian students. American students, with precious few exceptions, don't.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that China is graduating four times as many engineers as the United States. (Japan, with less than half our population, graduates twice as many.) Yes, China has a far larger population, but the U.S. supposedly has a far superior educational system.

Perhaps we did once, but we're busy destroying it now. Indeed, the extremist edge of America's religious right has instituted a war on science. The teaching of evolution, which most scientists accept as the foundation of modern biology, is under assault in classrooms from Kansas to Georgia to Pennsylvania.

President Bush has insisted on a policy that severely limits stem-cell research, which not only has the potential for treating several serious diseases but which also could eventually create thousands of new, high-paying jobs. Though the state of California is starting its own stem-cell research initiative, much of that cutting-edge science will be developed in other countries.

The Bush administration routinely intimidates or silences its own scientists if their findings contradict administration policy or would anger Christian conservatives. A Web page of the National Cancer Institute used to state, correctly, that the best research shows "no association between abortion and breast cancer." Now, the Web site says the research is inconclusive. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been similarly hampered in efforts to disseminate factual information about condom use.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government is using the money pouring into its coffers from Americans' purchases of everything from cheap TVs to toys to bath towels to modernize their military and to increase funding for research and development. Writing this month in The Wall Street Journal, Norman Augustine, a former CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp., and Burton Richter, a Nobel laureate in physics, said:

"As a percentage of GDP, federal investment in physical science research is half of what it was in 1970. (By contrast), in China, R&D expenditures rose 350 percent between 1991 and 2001, and the number of science and engineering Ph.D.s soared 535 percent."

Speaking last month to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich cited significant challenges facing the country, including China's rise and the decline in science and math education here.

"If we don't really take seriously the rise of China and India ... and what it is going to take for us to be competitive, you should assume that by the middle of the century your children and grandchildren will live in a country which is no longer the leading country in the world," Gingrich said.

What a difference a couple of decades makes. Back in 1957, the United States was startled when the Soviet Union beat us into space with the successful launch of Sputnik. Washington responded with a massive investment in math and science education. (Some problems can be solved by throwing money at them.) The result came just over a decade later: Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969 and established a U.S. hegemony in science that has lasted until now.

But it probably won't last much longer. Just as the Chinese are learning the enormous benefit of pouring money into science education and research, our science infrastructure is under attack from religious extremists. And the rest of us are letting them get away with it.

Issue #3. Stem Cell Research:
Why Embryo Stem Cell Research is NOT the Answer

Washington, D.C. , Dec 1, 2004 - Full Text of Weldon House Floor Speech: Mr. Speaker, I rose a short while ago, spoke for 1 minute about a brave young lady. She was in my office just yesterday, along with another brave young lady. This is Susan Fajt, and she was accompanied by Laura Dominguez. Both had suffered spinal cord injuries. Both ladies were injured in a car wreck. Laura's injury was in the neck, and this young lady's injury was in what we call T-6. It is the thoracic spine which is sort of the upper part of the chest, middle of the chest area.

I practiced medicine for 15 years before I was elected to the House. I still see patients once a month. I used to take care of a lot of spinal cord injuries, and in the past it has been very hard and very difficult because there really was not very much that you could do.

What both of these ladies had done, this is a new treatment, a new intervention; and it is not approved to be done in the United States. The place where it is currently being done is in Portugal by a Dr. Carlos Lima. One of the doctors working with Carlos Lima is an American doctor from Alabama, and what they do is stem cell transplant. They harvest the stem cells from the nose, what we call the olfactory mucosa, and place them in strips along the injured section of the spinal cord.

This lady previously was confined to a wheelchair. She had no sensation from about the middle of her chest down, no muscle control in her lower body and in her legs. So she was confined to a wheelchair, unable to walk; and with this intervention, she is now able to walk with braces on her legs, and we can see the braces down there, and with the assistance of a walker. Still obviously very handicapped, but she is actually continuing to show improvement.

She and I talked at some length. She feels the same way that I do, that embryonic stem cell research should not be illegal, and it is not illegal in the United States.

We hear around this town that we need to lift the restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. There are no restrictions. The real debate in this town is because we destroy an embryo in the process of doing embryonic stem cell research, a lot of people feel that that is morally and ethically wrong and that it should not be funded by taxpayer dollars; and this is really what the debate is about in Washington. It is really about funding the destruction of more embryos because in reality the NIH today is funding some embryonic stem cell research. They are just not funding the further destruction of more embryos.

What we will also hear over and over and over again is that embryonic stem cells have all the potential and the adult stem cells do not, and I have risen on this floor multiple times over the past 4 years pointing out to my colleagues that in the medical literature today we can read research articles reporting that diseases like multiple sclerosis and lupus and rheumatoid arthritis and even Parkinson's disease are being cured or significantly improved with adult stem cells. You cannot show me one article that embryonic stem cells have ever been used for anything like that. Indeed, you cannot even show me a good animal model where embryonic stem cells are successful in treating an animal with a disease.

There is one study in rats showing that they may have some application in this arena here, but the embryonic stem cells are genetically unstable. They form tumors called teratomas.

The real reason why so many people are excited about embryonic stem cell is because you cannot patent this procedure. You do this procedure, you cannot get rich; but if you can develop an embryonic stem cell that can do that, you can become perhaps one of the richest people in the world.

I just rise to point out to my colleagues that adult stem cells are being used for incredible things, and Susan and Laura were both tremendously helped by adult stem cells. Nobody on the other side of this argument can get up on the floor of the House today with a picture like this using embryonic stem cells, and Susan and Laura both felt the same way, Laura did not have her braces with her so I could not get a shot of her standing up, that they do not want to make embryonic stem cells illegal, but they feel the same way that I do. They are insulted when people say adult stem cells have no potential.

Why Kerry is Wrong

Weldon Released the following statement when during the Presidential race, Senator Kerry wrongly told Americans that treatments with embryo stem cells “are right at our fingertips.”

"During the Presidential race, Senator Kerry decided to put reasonable debate aside and put political dogma into full swing. Dogma regarding stell cell research that is full of errors, misleading hype, and reduces important ethical choices to mere sound bites."

“At the heart of this debate is not whether 'ideology' stands in the way of medical progress, but whether medical progress should be informed by any ethical norms at all. Senator Kerry and others like him have absorbed the idea that science is truth, that science is the final arbiter. It is not. Should we let that happen, we will have turned an ugly corner in our humanity."

“This debate is over whether science will continue to serve humanity or whether humanity will be become guinea pigs for science. Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should. Most people instinctively know that there is a link between material order and moral order. Sever that connection, and we seer our conscience. Perhaps Senator Kerry is comfortable doing that, but I am not prepared to foist that same disregard on the nation."

“The American public has been told that there is 'a ban on stem cell research.' There is none. Embryo stem cell research in this country is legal and unrestricted. The current debate is over whether taxpayers should be forced to pay for research that many view as unethical."

“Americans have also been told that treatments with embryo stem cells 'are right at our fingertips.' They are not. These are deliberate falsehoods used merely for political gain. This kind of rhetoric can create false hopes for many sick and suffering people. Doing this to get votes is despicable."

“Despite what Senator Kerry would have us believe, research on embryo stem cells has revealed that they have inherent biological problems that make treatments for human disease unlikely in the next decade or beyond. Indeed, James Thomson, who discovered human embryo stem cells in 1998, claims “that transplantation of differentiated human ES cell derivatives into human recipients may result in the formation of ES cell-derived tumors.”

“It’s time for politicians to stop cruelly raising the hopes of millions of Americans with the unsubstantiated promise of embryonic stem cell research. Instead, we should focus on using sound, ethical research on adult stem cells and umbilical cord blood cells to get real cures to patients as quickly as possible,” said Rep. Dave Weldon.


Baltimore Sun article


Showdown looms on stem cell research
Support rises in Congress for loosening limits; Bush says he'd veto such a bill

By Julie Hirschfeld Davis and David Kohn
Sun National Staff
May 21, 2005

WASHINGTON - President Bush, facing congressional efforts to loosen his administration's strict limits on embryonic stem cell research, vowed yesterday to veto legislation that would allow federal funds to be spent experimenting with cells from donated frozen embryos.

Bush said he wouldn't condone "the use of federal money, taxpayers' money, to promote science which destroys life in order to save life." Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Bush added, "If the bill does that, I will veto it."

His comments set up a confrontation with the Republican-led Congress. Bipartisan efforts to relax Bush's stem-cell policy have attracted enough support, including among conservatives who oppose abortion rights, to force a vote on the matter in the House next week.

A coalition of Republicans and Democrats is likely to push through a measure Tuesday that would allow federal money to be spent for research on stem cells derived from frozen embryos created for fertility treatments, and donated by couples who no longer plan to use them.

Similar legislation has a good chance of passing the Senate, but it's not clear whether proponents in either chamber would have enough backing to override a presidential veto. Bush's carefully calibrated stem cell policy - announced during his first televised address - blocks federal funding for research on new embryonic stem cells, allowing taxpayer money to go only to experiments with stem cell lines existing before the Aug. 9, 2001, statement.

With his veto threat yesterday, Bush made it clear he does not intend to back down, even though that stance is creating bitter fissures among Republicans and is at odds with a sweep of public opinion in favor of expanded research.

Bush also expressed concern about reports this week that scientists in South Korea, through government-funded research, have cloned human embryos and extracted stem cells. "I worry about a world in which cloning becomes acceptable," Bush said in answer to a question about that report.

Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, said the South Korean developments on cloning, which he said the president is "dead-set against," highlight the need to tread carefully in the pursuit of scientific discovery.

Opposition to Bush's policy has picked up momentum with the help of prominent advocates, including Nancy Reagan, whose support for expanded embryonic stem cell research was rooted in her husband's battle with Alzheimer's disease.

And abortion opponents increasingly argue that backing some stem cell experimentation is a pro-life position. "I do believe very strongly that it is possible to be both anti-abortion and pro-embryonic stem cell research," Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, a Utah Republican who is sponsoring a measure to relax Bush's restrictions, said earlier this month. "I believe being pro-life means caring for the living as well."

Republicans and Democrats who are pushing to revise Bush's stem cell policy - backed by a large group of patient groups, scientists, medical organizations and research universities such as Johns Hopkins - contend that using stem cells from embryos that would otherwise be discarded is in keeping with Bush's principle of refraining from creating life for the specific purpose of ending it.

The measure slated for House action next week "draws a strict ethical line," said Rep. Michael N. Castle, the Delaware Republican who is sponsoring it along with Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado. "The bottom line is, when a couple has decided to discard their excess embryos, they are either going to be discarded as medical waste or they can be donated for research. Let's uncover the promise of stem cell research in the hope of helping the millions of Americans who are suffering."

Advocates regard stem cells from embryos as an exceptionally promising area of research that might ultimately help treat or cure a wide variety of crippling illnesses, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and juvenile diabetes, as well as spinal cord injuries. Embryonic stem cells are particularly prized by researchers for their potential to develop into all sorts of cells and tissues.

But because an embryo must be destroyed for the cells to be extracted, the research sparks ardent opposition from religious conservatives, who say it requires the taking of life. The embryos could be adopted rather than discarded, they argue.

"This is a logic that a society would never adopt with other people who are facing short life-spans: 'They're going to die anyway, so it doesn't matter what we do with them,' " said Douglas Johnson, the legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee.

Rep. Christopher H. Smith, a New Jersey Republican who is a chair of the Pro-Life Caucus, is working to sap support from Castle's measure. He is pushing his own bill - also expected to win House approval next week - that would create a national umbilical cord blood bank and encourage research on stem cells taken from cord blood.

"Our cord blood effort, and adult stem cells as well, remain the best-kept secret in America," Smith said yesterday, saying that such material has led to breakthroughs on treating sickle cell anemia and certain forms of cancer. He argued that it has just as much potential as embryonic stem cells.

Bush reiterated yesterday that he's a "strong supporter of adult stem cell research," which is unrestricted under his policy. Many scientists believe adult stem cells have far less potential than those drawn from embryos, because they have less capacity to develop into different types of cells, although recent research has shown they might have the ability to do so.

Ole Isacson, a stem cell researcher at Harvard University, said Bush's restrictions on embryonic stem cell work had slowed the pace of research in the United States. "It has not been irreversibly harmed yet. But the restrictions are not allowing us to accelerate the search for new therapies," said Isacson, who is trying to use stem cells to find new treatments for Parkinson's.

"The policy has set us back," said Leonard Zon, another Harvard researcher. "South Korea is now doing work that many people thought the U.S. should do." Other scientists expressed disappointment over Bush's criticism of South Korea.

"It is frustrating ...," said Dr. John Gearhart, a pioneering stem cell researcher at the Johns Hopkins University. "Every time you see progress in the field, the comments are always the same: negative." Gearhart said that the South Korean results showed the enormous potential of stem cell research and that it is so promising that it will inevitably move forward.

Sun staff writer Susan Baer contributed to this article.


Washington Times article


Scientists clone cells from human patients
By Steve Mitchell
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL


Washington, DC, May. 19 (UPI) -- Korean scientists have used cloning techniques to generate for the first time human embryonic stem cell lines that are an identical genetic match to patients. This breakthrough moves researchers tantalizingly close to being able to use the cells to replace tissues damaged by disease or injury.

"If (these cells) can be safely used in transplant, the promise for effective treatment -- perhaps even cure -- of devastating diseases and injuries comes within reach," Gerald Schatten, a co-author on the paper and a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, said in a statement. He acted as a translator and adviser to the Korean research team.

"What the study shows is that stem cells can be made that are specific to patients regardless of age or sex, and that these cells are identical genetic matches to the donor," said Schatten. The Korean team, led by Woo Suk Hwang, a professor at Seoul National University, is the same group that cloned a human embryonic stem cell for the first time last year.

In a media briefing Wednesday, Hwang called the research a "giant step forward" and said it "proves there are highly efficient methods of deriving these cells."

All of the experiments, which involved a technique known as therapeutic cloning, were performed in Korea and no U.S. funds were used. President George W. Bush's stem cell policy prohibits federal funds from being used to generate new lines of human embryonic stem cells.

The finding, which appears in Scienceexpress, the online version of of the journal Science, is certain to intensify the stem cell debate in the United States. Although the scientific consensus is that embryonic stem cells hold great promise for treating and yielding insights about disease, some object to it because it requires the destruction of a human embryo.

Bush has urged Congress to pass legislation banning all forms of cloning, and his administration helped get a similar resolution --although it is non-binding -- passed by the United Nations in March. Congressional opposition to Bush's stem cell policy has gained steam in recent months. Some Republicans have broken with the White House and have called for the restrictions on stem cell research to be relaxed. Legislation in the House -- the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005 -- could be voted on next week and would allow federal funding to be used for research using surplus embryos from fertilization clinics. It has the backing of some conservative congressmen.

The potential passage of the legislation prompted Cardinal William Keeler of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to write a letter to the House Tuesday urging lawmakers not to approve the bill. "Government has no business forcing taxpayers to become complicit in the direct destruction of human life at any stage," Keeler wrote in the letter.

Patient groups, on the other hand, endorsed the House bill and lauded the Korean research as a demonstration of the potential benefit the cells could have for treating a variety of diseases. "This work is powerful evidence that stem cell research can unlock the keys to understanding and eventually treating conditions from spinal cord injuries to diabetes," said Daniel Perry, president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, an association of patient groups that support embryonic stem cell research.

Embryonic stem cells can give rise to every cell type in the body, and thus have the potential to replace tissues and organs damaged by disease. The body's immune system is likely to reject the cells, however, unless they are a genetic match with the patient.

Therapeutic cloning offers a way around this potential problem. This technique involves generating stem cells by cloning a cell from a patient to create an embryo.

Hwang's team did just that in their experiment, generating human embryonic stem cell lines from 11 patients. They transferred the DNA from a skin cell, from both male and female patients, into an egg cell obtained from unpaid female volunteers. The nucleus of the egg cells had been removed.

The patients ranged in age from 2 to 56 and suffered from spinal cord injuries, juvenile diabetes and a genetic disease called congenital hypogamma-globulinemia. The resultant embryos were grown to the blastocyst stage -- or about five days -- and the stem cells were obtained at this point.

The stem cells were not transplanted back into the patients, but the researchers said laboratory tests indicated the cells matched the patients' DNA exactly and were immunologically compatible with the patients' cells, which suggests they would likely survive transplantation into the body.

The research also shows several factors thought to pose barriers to the medical use of embryonic stem cells can be overcome.

In the study last year, Hwang's team needed more than 200 eggs to derive one stem cell line -- which would make the technique unfeasible for routine use with patients. In the current research, efficiency improved to the point where only 12 eggs were needed -- an amount that can be obtained from one woman.

Last year's research consisted of women's cells going back into their own egg cells, but this study showed that it is possible for a person's cells to be cloned using egg cells from an unrelated individual. "That's very impressive," said Dr. Robert Lanza, vice president of medical and scientific affairs at Advanced Cell Technology, a company in Worcester, Mass., focused on developing medical therapies from stem cells.

"In fact, it's unbelievably good news for patients," Lanza told United Press International. "It makes the technology accessible and practical to implement on a clinical scale."

The Korean research also may help alleviate concerns about another problem: contamination with animal pathogens. Stem cell lines available for federal funding in the United States initially were grown on mouse and calf cells and could be contaminated with animal materials or diseases. Hwang's team, however, derived the 11 new stem cell lines on cells from the patients, indicating the use of animal materials can be reduced or eliminated.

Lanza said the research, which he called "a major medical milestone," could have been done in the United States years ago if Bush's stem cell restrictions were not in place.

"We've had hurdle after hurdle thrown at us in this country, both politically and financially," he said. "Unfortunately, you're going to see more and more of the major stem cell breakthroughs occurring overseas."

Lanza, who gave a two-hour lecture at the U.S. Patent and Trade Office Wednesday to update staff on stem cell technology, said this could set the United States back economically. "It's not good for the U.S. economy to see more and more of the future of science and medicine occurring overseas," he said.

David Magnus and Mildred Cho, of the Stanford University Center for Biomedical Ethics, wrote in an accompanying editorial that the research raises ethical and policy questions for human embryonic stem cell researchers.

Magnus and Cho cautioned the research must have appropriate oversight and encouraged scientists to ensure their research meets the highest ethical standards, including obtaining informed consent from women who donate their eggs for research -- which Hwang's team did.

The National Academy of Sciences put out voluntary guidelines last month that could help address these issues.

Magnus and Cho also called on scientific journals to play a role in enforcing ethical criteria. They advised journals not to publish research in this field "that crosses the boundary into the illegal or clearly ethically unacceptable."

Issue #4. Crop Circle Season

Crop circles have shown up in Connecticut and Wisconsin. Local resident Adam Prince was driving past Francis Swoboda's field in the town of Tilden, Wisconsin when "I just looked at it I could see something up in the field." It turned out to be a crop circle.

Candice Novitzke writes in the Chippewa (Wisconsin) Falls Herald that the formation consists of three circles linked together by an 5-foot wide path. (To see a photo of the crop circle, Click Here. The middle circle is 65 feet in diameter, while the two smaller ones are each about 54 feet in diameter. No footprints can be seen nearby.

Investigators Chad Lewis and Terry Fisk have discovered that before the circles were made, a straight, eight-inch wide path was made through the center of the area, which might have been the way the circle makers maneuvered around without leaving footprints. Lewis says, "It would be difficult to get in and out of here without being seen, but not impossible."

In New Milford, Connecticut, Martha Bailey woke up to find most of her corn field flattened. Her granddaughter Shannon says, "Maybe aliens touched down."

Kamilla Gary writes in the (Connecticut) News-Times that Bailey's garden is enclosed by a 7-foot-tall chicken wire and wood fence. She grows yellow and white corn, as well as squash and tomatoes. In the middle of the corn patch, a perfect square of corn stalks lay perfectly flat, all bent down in one direction. She says, "Everything was secure, the gates were locked, it had to be something that touched down and flattened it."

Her son Eric says, "Who in their right mind would do that and not take credit for it?"

One of the biggest mysteries is what really happened on 911. You think you've heard everything? Wait until you hear Jim Marrs on this week's Dreamland! For subscribers, Jim talks about remote viewing AND aliens. It all has to do with the Secret of Redgate. And Anne Strieber discovers a new way to live on Mysterious Powers—she learns to Trust Your Vibes.