Don't you love it?  Grow your own transplant parts from your own stem cells. Claudia Castillo gets windpipe tailor-made from her own stem cells: (My emphasis)

A woman has been given a new section of windpipe created from her own stem cells in an operation that could revolutionise surgery.

Claudia Castillo, 30, who lives in Barcelona, has become the first person to be given a whole organ tailor-made for her in laboratories across Europe.

A graft from a donor was used, but because it has been imbued with Ms Castillo’s own cells, there is no sign that her body will reject the organ.

Researchers and surgeons from Britain, Italy and Spain collaborated to grow tissue from Ms Castillo’s own bone marrow stem cells, using them to fashion the new bronchus – a branch of the windpipe. They believe that one day the approach will be used to create engineered replacements for other damaged organs, such as the bowel or bladder. In five years they hope to begin clinical trials in which laboratory-made voice boxes are implanted into patients with cancer of the larynx.

Please notice that this breakthrough did not come from embryonic stem cells, the stem cell research that the Democrats are so gung ho on. This comment rather says it all from the Times: 

We continue to have vast success with adult stem cells, but the Obamamaniacs still want to use live embryos, (which have not had one cure in over 25 years), to satisfy the pro-abortion crowd.  ...John Frank, Reading, USA

Stem cell research was a big issue during the presidential campaign. Obama ads lied about McCain and Palin's stance on stem cell research. Truth is, the adult stem cell research that Republicans support is already yielding about 73 benefits to human patients. You can read more about it at CNS, and on the Stemcellresearch.org site.

Embryonic stem cell research, touted by Democrats, has hit snags in that when embryonic stem cells were introduced to rats, tumor growth resulted. From CNS:

Stem cells obtained from human embryos, however, have not been successful in yielding results in scientific research thus far.

Why should we support that embryonic type stem cell research when adult stem cells are already being used successfully  on humans? That does not make cents or sense!

Please, comment content should relate to the subject of the post. Although I try to respond to many, do not interpret my lack of a response as agreement.

 

Links: 

 

Brookfield7, Fairly Conservative, Vicki Mckenna, Jay Weber, The Right View Wisconsin, Mark Levin, CNS News

That may seem obvious to you. To some animal rights activists it is not.

Two weeks ago, two ads in Brookfield Now presented both sides of the argument: for and against animal testing at the Medical College of Wisconsin. This week I saw only a pro letter.

A column by Eugene Kane caught my eye. In it he presented some interesting quotes and interviews. On the pro side, the medical college statement reads, "As a medical school, it is essential that we remain true to our mission, which is to improve human life by educating the next generation of physicians..." On the con side, "According to Angela Speed, public relations specialist for the humane society, the shelter feels there's no compelling reason for the college to use dogs when top medical colleges like Harvard, Yale and Johns Hopkins don't. She said those universities use pigs instead."

So why not just use pigs, sheep, or goats? Because they are hoofed animals and not anatomically like the human. I can still remember back to my college days of physiology and anatomy class. We dissected cats. Why cats we asked? Because they were anatomically and physiologically similar to humans: The bones, muscles, and organs of felines and canines are arranged and function much like a human's.

By the way, I owned and loved a cat for 16 years. We affectionately called him our firstborn. We now own an adorable Maltese mutt, who rounds out our family to a nice even number of 4.

Seems pretty simple to me: People before animals.