Back when I was a self-loathing political strategist I read a lot of Bernays and Ivy Lee -- the two cornerstones of modern public relation. Bernay's in fact was Freud's nephew and used many of his findings in his efforts of mass manipulation. One particularly effective effort that sticks with me was when he took a contract with a cigarette company to grow sales. Bernays noticed that smoking was taboo among women and almost non-existant. He also sense the growing tide of women's liberation in America, so he convinced the burgoning suffarage movement to stick it to "the man" (or perhaps "the men") buy brazenly taking up smoking as a habit to demonstrate equality.
Why the Bernay's story? As someone who tracks science and technology development for a living, I sometime wonder watching this great debate on stem cell research if someone isn't pulling the strings. If there indeed isn't a a mass conspiracy at work, because all moral arguements aside, ebryonic stem cell research just isn't showing all that much promise yet politician after politician, state after state, is desperately vying for creating "a stem cell initiative" to get around that right-wing nut Pres. Bush who wants to ban research in this field that will have cures for every disease under the sun in a couple of years. The MSM and the academic research community continues to---well fucking lie their asses off. For the acedemics its about freedom to research whatever they want whenever they want ...oh and money. For the media, its a damn convenient means of panting Bush as a religous wackjob, because afterall ebyonic stem cells much like a Gensu knife, slice, dice, cut, chop, well fuck there is nothing they can't do ...well nothing except cure a single disease or illness. COuld they someday doso? Who knows. Are they better thann "adult stem cells"? No real proof one way or the other.
But along those line, ever hear of bone marrow or umbilical-cord-blood transplants? Likely not. Its not that they are rare, they just don't get much press. It's the stem cells in the marrow and blood that makes them work. They've been used therapeutically since the 1980s and now some 70 different diseases, primarily forms of leukemia, are treated with them. Catherine Verfaillie and her co-workers at the U. Minnesota's Stem Cell Institute recently published a report in Nature, suggesting that a certain type of marrow stem cells may give rise to almost any type of tissue in the body. They have isolated them from the marrow of mice, rats and people and so far have transformed them into cells of blood, the gut, liver, lung, brain, and other organs. Strange, if I didn't have to read boring ass publications like Nature, Science and Lancet, I would never know these things.
In separate experiments, scientists researched the ability of embryonic and adult mouse pancreatic stem cells to regenerate the body's ability to make insulin. Both types of cells boosted insulin production in diabetic mice. The embryonic success made a big splash with prominent coverage in all major media outlets. Yet the same media organs were strangely silent about the research involving adult cells. Stranger still, the adult-cell experiment was far more successful - it raised insulin levels much more. Indeed, those diabetic mice lived, while the mice treated with embryonic cells all died. Why did the media celebrate the less successful experiment and ignore the more successful one? Not to call it a conspiracy, but...
Frankly in 5-10 years these arguements may all be for naught. Methods for cultivating cells will advance and will likely negate the need for ebyonic one. The flip side is that if Bush gives up now what will potentially happen is that researchers will grow accostomed to getting their stem cells from disgarded embryos --tools to make it simple will be sold -- and it will become the "way things are done." Afterall we still do tons of testing on rats, mice, rabbit, dogs, and cats, all of which really doesn't prove much, it s just something we do , scientists are accostumed to it, before we do primate testing for medical techniques and treatments.
So I wonder if Karl Rove isn't behind this great lie who could it be? Donny Deutsche? The folks at Coca COla? Who knows.
He appears to be lashing out in a frenzy of self-loathing and destruction of his inner id breaking through the barriers established by 