More Reasons For Missouri To Vote No On Amendment 2

Posted on November 4, 2006

Gateway Pundit reports on Missouri scientists under fire for fudging Stem cell research.

An investigation is looking into the reliability of life science research conducted by a team led by the University of Missouri-Columbia’s recognized expert in reproductive biology, the Columbia Tribune reported.

The team was led by R. Michael Roberts. Rob Hall, research integrity officer for the university, confirmed the inquiry into findings reported in Science magazine in February. The magazine issued an alert last week advising scientists that the research “may not be reliable.”

The only other alert issued in Science was related to the work of South Korean scientist Woo Suk Hwang, (Woo claimed to have cloned the first human embryos and to have extracted stem cells from them)who later admitted he fabricated research into embryonic stem cell research and cloning.

Katrina Kelner, the magazines deputy editor for life sciences, told the Tribune the warning was published after members of the scientific community questioned the findings and university officials confirmed that a preliminary inquiry indicated there might be a problem.

“They found enough evidence that they thought a full investigation was warranted,” Kelner said. “On the basis of what they told us, we felt it important to inform the scientific community. We want to prevent people from building on this work when they should not or citing it in papers they write or basing their experiments on this.”

At issue was research by Roberts and three others at Missouri indicating that immediately after the first division of a mouse embryo, the two cells take different paths. One cell was bound for creation of a placenta while the other began forming the fetus.

Other researchers on the paper were Kaushik Deb of the Department of Animal Sciences, Mayandi Sivaguru of the Department of Biological Sciences and Hwan Yul Yong of the Department of Biochemistry.

Asked what some people thought was wrong with the paper, Roberts said, “The purpose of the investigation is to determine whether there is anything wrong with it.” He declined to discuss the investigation.

The issue that was raised, Kelner said, was that the results were implausible “based on what is known experimentally already.”

“So independently, those people contacted the University of Missouri and they did what they should have done. They started an inquiry,” Kelner said.

The Intellecutual Conservative gives non-religious/moral reasons to vote no.

So what is this bill about? One word: money. Embryonic stem cell research is not very promising in the eyes of most businesses, and they’re struggling for funding. If they can’t get money, they’ll have to (heaven forbid) go back to the drawing board and think of something else, or at the very least put this on the back burner for awhile until the technology is there to better study it. And for this they want us to sign a blank check and fund them into infinity with no accountability on research that may never lead anywhere. And even if we find that it’ll lead absolutely nowhere, the only way to even limit funding is to remove the amendment. A yes vote on Amendment 2 is your signature on the bottom of a blank check to an industry that will enver tire of coming back with an open hand and greasing their palms with your money.

There are plenty of reasons to vote no on the Stem Cell Initiative, and there are plenty of good ones that don’t even deal with religious or moral reasons. But they’re just hoping that this November, the voters will be swayed by rhetoric and will be too full of sympathy to read the three pages of fine print, and just take their word that all the lame will walk again and there will be no more disease. So feel free to vote yes on Amendment 2, but don’t be surprised if you can’t find your wallet the next day, and nothing to show for it.

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2 Responses to “More Reasons For Missouri To Vote No On Amendment 2”

das heize (info4beer) on November 5th, 2006 8:18 am

Realize there are literaly $Billions of dollars to be made with this craftily worded ammendment.

$Billions of dollars and an ammendment that voids governance once immplemented spells bad news for the right thinker.

The common uninformed voter will love this ammendment…sad.
kerwin_brown on November 5th, 2006 9:11 am

“At issue was research by Roberts and three others at Missouri indicating that immediately after the first division of a mouse embryo, the two cells take different paths. One cell was bound for creation of a placenta while the other began forming the fetus.”

That discovery would actually favor the pro life position as it throws a wrench into the argument that any cell in the early living human being can become any other cell in the living human body. This would mean cutting up a human being is not different than harvesting the cells from a more mature human being.

From what I heard a liver was created from part of a human being that was chopped up. If that claim is true then it contradicts Roberts findings