Mayor Menino and health care have a funny relationship. He’s against Minute Clinics in drug stores –for reasons that escape me. He’s also seemingly in favor of drug reimportation from Canada, yet his program to encourage it was ill-conceived and is now being abandoned.
Wired A HREF=”http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/mccain-on-stem.html”reports/A tha Senator John McCain has taken a stronger stance against embryonic stem cell research lately. Wired says McCain would even “criminalize a promising branch of stem cell research.”
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In his statement, McCain at first claimed to support ESC research. However, he said “clear lines should be drawn that reflect a refusal to sacrifice moral values and ethical principles for the sake of scientific progress” — a qualification that disturbed many scientists and bioethicists with its ambiguity.
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McCain also took a harder line than the Bush administration with somatic cell nuclear transfer, better known as therapeutic cloning — a cutting-edge process that could some day provide personalized embryonic stem cell therapies. Though currently legal, McCain would outlaw the technique.
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The new stance is an abrupt reversal for the Arizona senator. As recently as 2007, McCain appeared to favor embryonic stem cell research more strongly than most of the Republican party, especially its most religiously conservative members. “I believe that we need to fund this,” he said during a presidential candidates’ debate in May 2007.
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Since then, he’s become steadily cagier in his support, courting Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, an ardent opponent of all ESC research, and avoiding discussion of ESCs in favor of alternative cell types. Those familiar with the debate interpreted McCain’s latest platform, which framed his support in the language of research opponents, as a signal that President Bush’s research-limiting policies may continue.
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IWired/I notes that McCain would make it a “federal crime for researchers to use cells or fetal tissue from an embryo created for research purposes.” They quote a Harvard researcher who says he would be arrested for research he peforms today on somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT).
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“I am researching SCNT and so would be considered a criminal if McCain gets his way,” said the Harvard researcher Daley. “It’s a sad society that starts criminalizing legitimate science.”
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The article says that is an unlikely such a ban on SCNT would pas Congress. You can read another article about McCain’s stem cell positions and about criminalizing SCNT A HREF=”http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2008/09/22/mccain-stem-cells/”here/A. A ban on human cloning and the creation of human embryos is part of the GOP’s health A HREF=”http://www.gop.com/2008Platform/HealthCare.htm#4″platform/A. With this platform it seems they would also be against A HREF=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IVF”IVF/A.
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GOOD, a do-gooder media company “serving people who want to live well and do good” and Starbucks are partnering to provide “The GOOD Sheet,” a weekly page that explores key political topics. It’s an exclusive arrangement, so you won’t see these sheets at Peet’s. For 11 weeks leading up to and following the US presidential election, GOOD Sheets will be produced and distributed on specific topics, including gas prices, voter turnout and the environment.
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This is image of Hurricane Ivan taken from space on Sept. 15, 2004. Ivan had estimated winds of 135 mph at the time. The IBoston Globe/I has a collection of impressive hurricanes from space photos A HREF=”http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/09/hurricanes_as_seen_from_orbit.html”here/A take by NASA.
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