The London Times Online reported Sunday that some "footballers," or "soccer players" as we say in the States, are saving stem cells. The headline reads, "Footballers use babies for 'repair kits.'" Put this way, it sounds insidious. The truth is much more benign.
PREMIERSHIP footballers are storing stem cells from their newborn babies as a potential future treatment for their own career-threatening sports injuries.
They are freezing the cells taken from the umbilical cord blood of their babies as a possible future cure for cartilage and ligament problems. Stem cells can be used to regenerate damaged organs and tissue because they are the earliest form of cells. (emphasis added)
I'm having trouble understanding the slant of this story, especially the headline. To say these players are "using babies" makes it sound like an invasive procedure to remove stem cells from their newborn babies' little bodies, and this is untrue.
I'll say it simply, so everyone can understand: Umbilical cords are not part of the baby. The blood that's inside the umbilical cords is also not part of the baby. The blood that's inside the umbilical cords is full of stem cells. Stem cells from the blood that's inside the umbilical cords have been used successfully to treat lots of diseases. Here is a link to a list of diseases currently being treated with umbilical-cord-blood stem cells. Umbilical cords are usually discarded. Preserving umbilical cords for the use of their stem cells in treating disease is a good thing.
I don't understand the MSM's apparent split personality over stem cells. While I'm not sure how the London Times itself views embryonic stem cell research, the overall left-leaning MSM supports it. The have absolutely no qualms about destroying the life of a human embryo for its stem cells. In fact they embrace and encourage the practice for the hope of some future cure. But to use stem cells from sources that don't end in the destruction of life, is distasteful at best to them and is expressed in ghoulish terms.
Again I say, I don't understand.
If you're having a baby soon, make plans to save the umbilical cord (the website with the list of treated disease has more info on this). It may save a life.
3 comments:
There's much to be said about this kind of research. I think we need to approach this with open-mindedness. If God gives us knowledge, should we not use it?
Dave,
Openmindedness is good. And if God gives us knowledge, that too is good. But sometimes we have knowledge without God.
The knowledge of Zyklon gas gave Hitler's people a better way to kill. We have knowledge of abortion in all stages of pregnancy. These things are not good.
I'm paraphrasing really badly, but the Apostle Paul said that all things are available to us, but not all things are good for us.
We need to use our discernment and wisdom as we evaluate whether or not we should use new methods and technologies. For me, I draw the line at what destroys a human life--at any stage of development.
As usual, there is a lot of disinformation and purposeful misleading by the mainstream media on the subject of stem cell research. As a result, those who do not do their own fact checking and who rely solely on the media are not accurately informed.
It's sad to me that the more promising umblical and adult stem cell research avenues are not being touted more. These areas of study have shown so much more promise and actual results whereas fetal stem cells are not yielding positive results at the high cost of human lives.
The politics of this issue are clouding good judgement and the mainstream media is doing all they can to push the liberal political agenda in order to continue to cloud the real issues.
Great post, Skyepuppy.
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