Bloomberg.com: News: "Harvard Team Makes 10 Disease-Bearing Stem Cell Lines (Update2)
By Rob Waters
Harvard Team Makes 10 Disease-Bearing Stem Cell Lines (Update2)
By Rob Waters
Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Harvard University scientists have made lines of stem cells, able to turn into any other cell in the body, from bits of skin or blood of 10 patients with genetic diseases including muscular dystrophy and juvenile diabetes.
The findings will help researchers decipher the workings of these diseases, enabling them to study what happens as cells that carry a condition's genetic seeds develop and age. The lines will be made available for a ``nominal fee'' to researchers around the world, the Harvard scientists said.
Teams at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, created the lines using a technique that reprograms cells to give them the same power as those from embryos to become any of the roughly 210 cell types in the body. Their advance was described in a paper appearing today in the journal Cell.
The advance will ``allow researchers for the first time to get access'' to cells that are defective in a particular disease ``and to watch the disease progress in a dish, to watch what goes right or wrong,'' said Doug Melton, a Harvard cell biologist and co-director of the institute.
The Harvard teams created the new lines from tissue taken from 10 patients who ranged in age from a 3-month-old child with a form of immune deficiency sometimes known as ``bubble boy disease'' to a 57-year-old with Parkinson's. Last week, another Harvard team said they'd performed the same feat using the skin of two patients in their 80s with the neurodegenerative condition known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
Yamanaka Technique
The technique used to create the stem cells, developed by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan, has captivated scientists and transformed the research they're performing. The method involves using viruses to insert four different genes into skin cells. The genes turn on a process that causes the cells to revert to a primordial state similar to embryonic stem cells.
Yamanaka announced his breakthrough two years ago at a scientific meeting in Toronto, when he described how he had been able to endow skin cells from mice with the power of those from embryos. Other advances followed rapidly. Last November, two research teams, one led by Yamanaka and the other by James Thompson of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, announced independently that they'd done the same thing with the skin of living people.
Research teams around the world have rushed to use Yamanaka's technique for creating what he calls induced pluripotent stem cells, or IPS cells, for two key reasons. It is relatively easy and inexpensive to perform and it doesn't require the use of human embryos or unfertilized eggs, both of which can be difficult to obtain.
Ethical Concerns
Because human embryos aren't used or harmed to create the IPS cells, the method sidesteps ethical concerns that have dogged researchers. Religious and political leaders including President George W. Bush have objected to traditional stem cell research because embryos are destroyed in the process of creating the lines.
Still, because Yamanaka's technique uses viruses and genes that are known to cause cancer, lines created with this method can't be used as treatments. They will allow researchers to peer into the complex molecular and genetic processes that occur in defective cells as they develop, giving them a greater understanding of how and why disease begins.
``We are so ignorant at the moment we don't even know if when patients gets diabetes, they all get it the same way,'' Melton said in a conference call yesterday with reporters. ``There could be 50 different ways of getting Type 1 diabetes.''
Next Steps
George Daley, the lead author of today's paper and a researcher at Children's Hospital in Boston who studies blood diseases, said he and his colleagues will now take the newly minted stem cells and coax them to become blood cells of various types.
He said he hopes that by comparing them with normal healthy blood, ``we can find the particular development points where the defects arise and we can look at gene-repair strategies.''
He and other scientists also will be able to test thousands of existing drugs to see whether any of them remedy the defects, he said.
Daley said the new lines, and those developed in the future, will be maintained in a new laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Setting up the lab will enable other researchers to obtain the Harvard cells for their own experiments, something that didn't happen quickly after embryonic stem cells were first isolated in 1998, he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Rob Waters in San Francisco at rwaters5@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: August 7, 2008 15:03 EDT
Monday, September 1, 2008
Bloomberg.com: News
Bloomberg.com: News: "Harvard's Cell `Makeover' May Spur Diabetes Therapy (Update1)
By Rob Waters
Harvard's Cell `Makeover' May Spur Diabetes Therapy (Update1)
By Rob Waters
Aug. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Using a kind of biological alchemy, Harvard University researchers have turned one type of cell found in the pancreas of mice into the variety that secretes the hormone insulin.
If the technique can be used safely in humans, it may one day provide a treatment for diabetes, which occurs when the body either can't produce, or else makes too little of, the insulin needed to process blood sugar. The same approach might be used to make heart, brain, or liver cells from other existing cells and treat diseases in those organs, said Jeanne Loring, a stem-cell scientist who wasn't involved in the findings.
The technique marries gene therapy and stem-cell research ``in a completely novel way,'' said Loring, the director of the Scripps Research Institute's Center for Regenerative Medicine, in La Jolla, California. ``It turns the whole field on its head.''
The research team was led by Douglas Melton, a cell biologist and co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The scientists injected viruses bearing three genes into the mice, transforming a common pancreatic cell known as an exocrine cell into the much rarer beta cell that makes insulin. Their findings were published in the journal Nature.
Melton said he aims to refine the technique, show that it can be done safely, and begin human clinical trials within two to five years in diabetes patients.
``We were able to flip the cell from one state into another, what one of the younger students in my lab calls an extreme makeover,'' Melton said yesterday in a conference call with reporters.
'Direct Reprogramming'
The Harvard researchers are calling the process ``direct reprogramming.'' Previously, Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University turned adult cells into stem cells that can then be made into other cell types for therapy. Unlike Yamanaka, the Harvard scientists converted one adult cell into another without first making it into a stem cell.
The research exploits the fact that every cell in a person or animal contains DNA with the complete set of genetic instructions required to create that individual. By turning select genes on and off, scientists can transform existing cells so they start looking and acting like others.
Melton and his team spent three years searching for so- called transcription factors, which control proteins that in turn switch other genes on and off. They started with 1,100 candidate genes and narrowed the field to 28 that are involved in forming the part of the pancreas where beta cells are found.
Nine Genes, Then Three
Finally, they settled on nine genes they guessed might be involved and began a trial-and-error process, injecting them into the pancreases of mice and eliminating one at a time. Eventually, they found that just three genes were needed and that 20 percent of the exocrine cells they injected turned into beta cells, Melton said.
``Once the switch happens, you're changed from a Celtic to a Laker, if you like,'' Melton said in an interview on June 12. Unlike trades of players between professional basketball teams in the U.S., this represents ``a stable, permanent reprogramming,'' he said.
The two cell types have different appearances under a microscope. Exocrine cells look like cobblestones, while beta cells are smaller and shaped like spindles, the team reported in the Nature paper. To be certain the same cells transformed, they stained the original exocrine cells with special dyes and found the dye in the beta cells.
Safer Viruses
The viruses used to ferry the genes by Melton's team are known as adenoviruses and are considered safer than the retroviruses used in Yamanaka's work, Melton said. Adenoviruses have been widely used in gene therapy trials. Also, none of the three genes used are known to cause cancer, unlike the genes Yamanaka used, according to Melton.
Still, Melton said he aims to find still another method of transforming cells without using viruses at all, to ensure the process is safe.
He and his team will be exploring two different strategies for using the technique as a treatment, Melton said. One would involve directly injecting the genes into a human pancreas, as they did with the mice.
In the other, the scientists would take exocrine cells from the cadavers of organ donors, convert them in the laboratory to beta cells, coax them to congregate into clusters known as islets, and transplant those into patients. This may be the safest way to proceed, Melton said.
Researcher's Children
Melton, who has two children with the Type 1 form of diabetes, said he wakes up every day thinking about how to make insulin-producing beta cells. People with that condition have a defect in their immune system which causes it to attack and destroy their own beta cells.
Most of the almost 24 million people in the U.S. with diabetes have the Type 2 form, which generally develops in adulthood and is linked to obesity. Both forms can damage the kidneys, eyes, heart, limbs and nerves.
The most immediate application of Melton's work would be to replace the depleted stock of beta cells in people with severe Type 2 diabetes whose bodies can no longer make insulin. It wouldn't help people with the Type 1 form, like Melton's children, because the new beta cells would most likely be attacked by the same autoimmune process that causes the disease. Other strategies will be needed to block or reverse the immune attack, Melton said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Rob Waters in San Francisco at rwaters5@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: August 27, 2008 16:50 EDT
By Rob Waters
Harvard's Cell `Makeover' May Spur Diabetes Therapy (Update1)
By Rob Waters
Aug. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Using a kind of biological alchemy, Harvard University researchers have turned one type of cell found in the pancreas of mice into the variety that secretes the hormone insulin.
If the technique can be used safely in humans, it may one day provide a treatment for diabetes, which occurs when the body either can't produce, or else makes too little of, the insulin needed to process blood sugar. The same approach might be used to make heart, brain, or liver cells from other existing cells and treat diseases in those organs, said Jeanne Loring, a stem-cell scientist who wasn't involved in the findings.
The technique marries gene therapy and stem-cell research ``in a completely novel way,'' said Loring, the director of the Scripps Research Institute's Center for Regenerative Medicine, in La Jolla, California. ``It turns the whole field on its head.''
The research team was led by Douglas Melton, a cell biologist and co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The scientists injected viruses bearing three genes into the mice, transforming a common pancreatic cell known as an exocrine cell into the much rarer beta cell that makes insulin. Their findings were published in the journal Nature.
Melton said he aims to refine the technique, show that it can be done safely, and begin human clinical trials within two to five years in diabetes patients.
``We were able to flip the cell from one state into another, what one of the younger students in my lab calls an extreme makeover,'' Melton said yesterday in a conference call with reporters.
'Direct Reprogramming'
The Harvard researchers are calling the process ``direct reprogramming.'' Previously, Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University turned adult cells into stem cells that can then be made into other cell types for therapy. Unlike Yamanaka, the Harvard scientists converted one adult cell into another without first making it into a stem cell.
The research exploits the fact that every cell in a person or animal contains DNA with the complete set of genetic instructions required to create that individual. By turning select genes on and off, scientists can transform existing cells so they start looking and acting like others.
Melton and his team spent three years searching for so- called transcription factors, which control proteins that in turn switch other genes on and off. They started with 1,100 candidate genes and narrowed the field to 28 that are involved in forming the part of the pancreas where beta cells are found.
Nine Genes, Then Three
Finally, they settled on nine genes they guessed might be involved and began a trial-and-error process, injecting them into the pancreases of mice and eliminating one at a time. Eventually, they found that just three genes were needed and that 20 percent of the exocrine cells they injected turned into beta cells, Melton said.
``Once the switch happens, you're changed from a Celtic to a Laker, if you like,'' Melton said in an interview on June 12. Unlike trades of players between professional basketball teams in the U.S., this represents ``a stable, permanent reprogramming,'' he said.
The two cell types have different appearances under a microscope. Exocrine cells look like cobblestones, while beta cells are smaller and shaped like spindles, the team reported in the Nature paper. To be certain the same cells transformed, they stained the original exocrine cells with special dyes and found the dye in the beta cells.
Safer Viruses
The viruses used to ferry the genes by Melton's team are known as adenoviruses and are considered safer than the retroviruses used in Yamanaka's work, Melton said. Adenoviruses have been widely used in gene therapy trials. Also, none of the three genes used are known to cause cancer, unlike the genes Yamanaka used, according to Melton.
Still, Melton said he aims to find still another method of transforming cells without using viruses at all, to ensure the process is safe.
He and his team will be exploring two different strategies for using the technique as a treatment, Melton said. One would involve directly injecting the genes into a human pancreas, as they did with the mice.
In the other, the scientists would take exocrine cells from the cadavers of organ donors, convert them in the laboratory to beta cells, coax them to congregate into clusters known as islets, and transplant those into patients. This may be the safest way to proceed, Melton said.
Researcher's Children
Melton, who has two children with the Type 1 form of diabetes, said he wakes up every day thinking about how to make insulin-producing beta cells. People with that condition have a defect in their immune system which causes it to attack and destroy their own beta cells.
Most of the almost 24 million people in the U.S. with diabetes have the Type 2 form, which generally develops in adulthood and is linked to obesity. Both forms can damage the kidneys, eyes, heart, limbs and nerves.
The most immediate application of Melton's work would be to replace the depleted stock of beta cells in people with severe Type 2 diabetes whose bodies can no longer make insulin. It wouldn't help people with the Type 1 form, like Melton's children, because the new beta cells would most likely be attacked by the same autoimmune process that causes the disease. Other strategies will be needed to block or reverse the immune attack, Melton said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Rob Waters in San Francisco at rwaters5@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: August 27, 2008 16:50 EDT
Friday, August 29, 2008
Friend or Foe? Crows Never Forget a Face, It Seems - NYTimes.com
Friend or Foe? Crows Never Forget a Face, It Seems - NYTimes.com: "Friend or Foe? Crows Never Forget a Face, It Seems
Friend or Foe? Crows Never Forget a Face, It Seems
*
E-Mail
* Print
* Reprints
* Save
* Share
o Linkedin
o Digg
o Facebook
o Mixx
o Yahoo! Buzz
o Permalink
Article Tools Sponsored By
By MICHELLE NIJHUIS
Published: August 25, 2008
Crows and their relatives — among them ravens, magpies and jays — are renowned for their intelligence and for their ability to flourish in human-dominated landscapes. That ability may have to do with cross-species social skills. In the Seattle area, where rapid suburban growth has attracted a thriving crow population, researchers have found that the birds can recognize individual human faces.
Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge This Image
Top, Keith Brust; Jeff Walls
I KNOW YOU John M. Marzluff, a wildlife biologist tested crows’ ability to distinguish between faces.
Related
Times Topics: Birds
RSS Feed
* Get Science News From The New York Times »
Jeff Walls
The researchers used a simple hat and masks to test the animals' abilities.
John M. Marzluff, a wildlife biologist at the University of Washington, has studied crows and ravens for more than 20 years and has long wondered if the birds could identify individual researchers. Previously trapped birds seemed more wary of particular scientists, and often were harder to catch. “I thought, ‘Well, it’s an annoyance, but it’s not really hampering our work,’ ” Dr. Marzluff said. “But then I thought we should test it directly.”
To test the birds’ recognition of faces separately from that of clothing, gait and other individual human characteristics, Dr. Marzluff and two students wore rubber masks. He designated a caveman mask as “dangerous” and, in a deliberate gesture of civic generosity, a Dick Cheney mask as “neutral.” Researchers in the dangerous mask then trapped and banded seven crows on the university’s campus in Seattle.
In the months that followed, the researchers and volunteers donned the masks on campus, this time walking prescribed routes and not bothering crows.
The crows had not forgotten. They scolded people in the dangerous mask significantly more than they did before they were trapped, even when the mask was disguised with a hat or worn upside down. The neutral mask provoked little reaction. The effect has not only persisted, but also multiplied over the past two years. Wearing the dangerous mask on one recent walk through campus, Dr. Marzluff said, he was scolded by 47 of the 53 crows he encountered, many more than had experienced or witnessed the initial trapping. The researchers hypothesize that crows learn to recognize threatening humans from both parents and others in their flock.
After their experiments on campus, Dr. Marzluff and his students tested the effect with more realistic masks. Using a half-dozen students as models, they enlisted a professional mask maker, then wore the new masks while trapping crows at several sites in and around Seattle. The researchers then gave a mix of neutral and dangerous masks to volunteer observers who, unaware of the masks’ histories, wore them at the trapping sites and recorded the crows’ responses.
The reaction to one of the dangerous masks was “quite spectacular,” said one volunteer, Bill Pochmerski, a retired telephone company manager who lives near Snohomish, Wash. “The birds were really raucous, screaming persistently,” he said, “and it was clear they weren’t upset about something in general. They were upset with me.”
Again, crows were significantly more likely to scold observers who wore a dangerous mask, and when confronted simultaneously by observers in dangerous and neutral masks, the birds almost unerringly chose to persecute the dangerous face. In downtown Seattle, where most passersby ignore crows, angry birds nearly touched their human foes. In rural areas, where crows are more likely to be viewed as noisy “flying rats” and shot, the birds expressed their displeasure from a distance.
Though Dr. Marzluff’s is the first formal study of human face recognition in wild birds, his preliminary findings confirm the suspicions of many other researchers who have observed similar abilities in crows, ravens, gulls and other species. The pioneering animal behaviorist Konrad Lorenz was so convinced of the perceptive capacities of crows and their relatives that he wore a devil costume when handling jackdaws. Stacia Backensto, a master’s student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who studies ravens in the oil fields on Alaska’s North Slope, has assembled an elaborate costume — including a fake beard and a potbelly made of pillows — because she believes her face and body are familiar to previously captured birds.
Kevin J. McGowan, an ornithologist at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology who has trapped and banded crows in upstate New York for 20 years, said he was regularly followed by birds who have benefited from his handouts of peanuts — and harassed by others he has trapped in the past.
Why crows and similar species are so closely attuned to humans is a matter of debate. Bernd Heinrich, a professor emeritus at the University of Vermont known for his books on raven behavior, suggested that crows’ apparent ability to distinguish among human faces is a “byproduct of their acuity,” an outgrowth of their unusually keen ability to recognize one another, even after many months of separation.
Dr. McGowan and Dr. Marzluff believe that this ability gives crows and their brethren an evolutionary edge. “If you can learn who to avoid and who to seek out, that’s a lot easier than continually getting hurt,” Dr. Marzluff said. “I think it allows these animals to survive with us — and take advantage of us — in a much safer, more effective way.”
Friend or Foe? Crows Never Forget a Face, It Seems
*
* Reprints
* Save
* Share
o Linkedin
o Digg
o Facebook
o Mixx
o Yahoo! Buzz
o Permalink
Article Tools Sponsored By
By MICHELLE NIJHUIS
Published: August 25, 2008
Crows and their relatives — among them ravens, magpies and jays — are renowned for their intelligence and for their ability to flourish in human-dominated landscapes. That ability may have to do with cross-species social skills. In the Seattle area, where rapid suburban growth has attracted a thriving crow population, researchers have found that the birds can recognize individual human faces.
Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge This Image
Top, Keith Brust; Jeff Walls
I KNOW YOU John M. Marzluff, a wildlife biologist tested crows’ ability to distinguish between faces.
Related
Times Topics: Birds
RSS Feed
* Get Science News From The New York Times »
Jeff Walls
The researchers used a simple hat and masks to test the animals' abilities.
John M. Marzluff, a wildlife biologist at the University of Washington, has studied crows and ravens for more than 20 years and has long wondered if the birds could identify individual researchers. Previously trapped birds seemed more wary of particular scientists, and often were harder to catch. “I thought, ‘Well, it’s an annoyance, but it’s not really hampering our work,’ ” Dr. Marzluff said. “But then I thought we should test it directly.”
To test the birds’ recognition of faces separately from that of clothing, gait and other individual human characteristics, Dr. Marzluff and two students wore rubber masks. He designated a caveman mask as “dangerous” and, in a deliberate gesture of civic generosity, a Dick Cheney mask as “neutral.” Researchers in the dangerous mask then trapped and banded seven crows on the university’s campus in Seattle.
In the months that followed, the researchers and volunteers donned the masks on campus, this time walking prescribed routes and not bothering crows.
The crows had not forgotten. They scolded people in the dangerous mask significantly more than they did before they were trapped, even when the mask was disguised with a hat or worn upside down. The neutral mask provoked little reaction. The effect has not only persisted, but also multiplied over the past two years. Wearing the dangerous mask on one recent walk through campus, Dr. Marzluff said, he was scolded by 47 of the 53 crows he encountered, many more than had experienced or witnessed the initial trapping. The researchers hypothesize that crows learn to recognize threatening humans from both parents and others in their flock.
After their experiments on campus, Dr. Marzluff and his students tested the effect with more realistic masks. Using a half-dozen students as models, they enlisted a professional mask maker, then wore the new masks while trapping crows at several sites in and around Seattle. The researchers then gave a mix of neutral and dangerous masks to volunteer observers who, unaware of the masks’ histories, wore them at the trapping sites and recorded the crows’ responses.
The reaction to one of the dangerous masks was “quite spectacular,” said one volunteer, Bill Pochmerski, a retired telephone company manager who lives near Snohomish, Wash. “The birds were really raucous, screaming persistently,” he said, “and it was clear they weren’t upset about something in general. They were upset with me.”
Again, crows were significantly more likely to scold observers who wore a dangerous mask, and when confronted simultaneously by observers in dangerous and neutral masks, the birds almost unerringly chose to persecute the dangerous face. In downtown Seattle, where most passersby ignore crows, angry birds nearly touched their human foes. In rural areas, where crows are more likely to be viewed as noisy “flying rats” and shot, the birds expressed their displeasure from a distance.
Though Dr. Marzluff’s is the first formal study of human face recognition in wild birds, his preliminary findings confirm the suspicions of many other researchers who have observed similar abilities in crows, ravens, gulls and other species. The pioneering animal behaviorist Konrad Lorenz was so convinced of the perceptive capacities of crows and their relatives that he wore a devil costume when handling jackdaws. Stacia Backensto, a master’s student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who studies ravens in the oil fields on Alaska’s North Slope, has assembled an elaborate costume — including a fake beard and a potbelly made of pillows — because she believes her face and body are familiar to previously captured birds.
Kevin J. McGowan, an ornithologist at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology who has trapped and banded crows in upstate New York for 20 years, said he was regularly followed by birds who have benefited from his handouts of peanuts — and harassed by others he has trapped in the past.
Why crows and similar species are so closely attuned to humans is a matter of debate. Bernd Heinrich, a professor emeritus at the University of Vermont known for his books on raven behavior, suggested that crows’ apparent ability to distinguish among human faces is a “byproduct of their acuity,” an outgrowth of their unusually keen ability to recognize one another, even after many months of separation.
Dr. McGowan and Dr. Marzluff believe that this ability gives crows and their brethren an evolutionary edge. “If you can learn who to avoid and who to seek out, that’s a lot easier than continually getting hurt,” Dr. Marzluff said. “I think it allows these animals to survive with us — and take advantage of us — in a much safer, more effective way.”
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Groundbreaking Advance Allows for 'Reprogramming' of Adult Cells - washingtonpost.com
Groundbreaking Advance Allows for 'Reprogramming' of Adult Cells - washingtonpost.com
Groundbreaking Advance Allows for 'Reprogramming' of Adult Cells
Research Could Lead to Bevy of Cures, Sidesteps Debate Over Embryonic Stem Cells
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 27, 2008; 6:05 PM
Scientists have transformed one type of fully developed adult cell directly into another inside a living animal, a startling advance that could lead to cures for a plethora of illnesses and sidestep the political and ethical quagmires that have plagued embryonic stem cell research.
Through a series of painstaking experiments involving mice, the Harvard biologists pinpointed three crucial molecular switches that, when flipped, completely convert a common cell in the pancreas into the more precious insulin-producing ones that diabetics need to survive.
The feat, published online today by the journal Nature, raises the tantalizing prospect that patients suffering from not only diabetes but also heart disease, strokes and many other ailments could eventually have some of their cells reprogrammed to cure their afflictions without the need for drugs, transplants or other therapies.
"It's kind of an extreme makeover of a cell," said Douglas A. Melton, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, who led the research. "The goal is to create cells that are missing or defective in people. It's very exciting."
The findings left other researchers in a field that has become accustomed to rapid advances reaching for new superlatives to describe the potential implications.
"I'm stunned," said Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass., a developer of stem cell therapies. "It introduces a whole new paradigm for treating disease."
"I think it's hugely significant," said George Q. Daley, a stem cell researcher at Children's Hospital in Boston. "This is a very spectacular first."
Even the harshest critics of embryonic stem cell research hailed the development as a major, welcome development.
"I see no moral problem in this basic technique," said Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, a leading opponent of embryonic stems cells because they involve destroying human embryos. "This is a 'win-win' situation for medicine and ethics."
Melton and other researchers cautioned that many years of research lay ahead to prove whether the development would translate into cures.
"It's an important proof of concept," said Lawrence Goldstein, a stem cell researcher at the University of California, San Diego. "But these things always look easier on the blackboard than when you have do them in actual patients."
Although the experiment involved mice, Melton and other researchers were optimistic the approach would work in people.
"You never know for sure -- mice aren't humans," Daley said. "But the biology of pancreatic development is very closely related in mice and humans."
Melton has already started experimenting with human cells in the laboratory and hopes to start planning the first studies involving people with diabetes within a year. "I would say within five years we could be ready to start human trials," Melton said.
Other scientists have already started trying the approach on other cells, including those that could be used to treat spinal cord injuries and neurogenerative disorders such as Lou Gehrig's disease.
"The idea to be able to reprogram one adult neuron type into another for repair in the nervous system is very exciting," said Paola Arlotta, who is working in the Center for Regenerative Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital-Harvard Medical School, in Boston.
The research is the latest development in the explosive field of "regenerative medicine," which is trying to create replacement tissues and body parts tailored to patients. That dream appeared within reach after scientists discovered human embryonic stem cells, which can develop into any type of cell in the body. But stem cell research has been plagued by political and ethical debates because the cells can only be obtained by destroying embryos, which has been opposed by President Bush and others who believe that even the earliest stages of human life have moral standing.
Scientists last year shocked the field when they announced they had discovered how to manipulate the genes of adult cells to turn them back into the equivalent of embryonic cells -- entities dubbed "induced pluripotent stem" or "iPS" cells -- which could then be coaxed into any type of cell in the body.
The new work takes further advantage of the increasing prowess scientists have developed in harnessing the once mysterious inner workings of cells -- this time to skip the intermediary step of iPS cells and directly transform adult cells.
"This experiment proves you don't have to go all the way back to an embryonic state," Daley said. "You can use a related cell. That may be easier to do and more practical to do."
Doerflinger argued that the discovery was the latest evidence that research involving human embryos was no longer necessary.
"This adds to the large and growing list of studies helping to make embryonic stem cells irrelevant to medical progress," Doerflinger wrote in an e-mail.
But other researchers disputed that, saying it remains unclear which approach will ultimately prove most useful.
"Embryonic stem cells offer a unique window in human disease and remain a key to the long-term progress of regenerative medicine," Melton said.
For their work, Melton and his colleagues systematically studied cells from the pancreas of adult mice, slowing winnowing the list of genes necessary to make a "beta" cell that produces insulin. After narrowing the candidate genes to nine, the researchers genetically engineered viruses known as adenoviruses to ferry the genes into other pancreatic cells, known as exocrine cells, which normally secrete enzymes to help digest food. That finally enabled the researchers to identify the three crucial genes needed take control of the rest of the cell's genes to convert an exocrine cell into a beta cell.
"It was a mixture of work, luck and guessing," Melton said. "We achieved a complete transformation, or re-purposing, of cells from one type to another. We were delighted."
When the scientists tried the approach on diabetic mice, the animals became able to control their blood sugar levels.
"It didn't cure the mouse, but they were able to reduce their blood sugar levels to near normal," Melton said.
Melton and others said it remains to be seen whether it will be necessary to use genetically engineered viruses, which could face obstacles getting regulatory approval because of concerns about unforeseen risks, or whether chemicals might be found to do the same thing.
If preliminary studies in the laboratory are promising, Melton said he might first try converting liver cells to insulin-producing pancreatic cells because that would be safer than the pancreas. An alternative strategy would be to use the approach to grow beta cells in the laboratory and transplant them into patients.
Lanza said he was optimistic.
"One day, this may allow the doctor to replace the scalpel with a sort of genetic surgery," Lanza said. "If this can be perfected, it would represent one of the Holy Grails of medicine."
Groundbreaking Advance Allows for 'Reprogramming' of Adult Cells
Research Could Lead to Bevy of Cures, Sidesteps Debate Over Embryonic Stem Cells
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 27, 2008; 6:05 PM
Scientists have transformed one type of fully developed adult cell directly into another inside a living animal, a startling advance that could lead to cures for a plethora of illnesses and sidestep the political and ethical quagmires that have plagued embryonic stem cell research.
Through a series of painstaking experiments involving mice, the Harvard biologists pinpointed three crucial molecular switches that, when flipped, completely convert a common cell in the pancreas into the more precious insulin-producing ones that diabetics need to survive.
The feat, published online today by the journal Nature, raises the tantalizing prospect that patients suffering from not only diabetes but also heart disease, strokes and many other ailments could eventually have some of their cells reprogrammed to cure their afflictions without the need for drugs, transplants or other therapies.
"It's kind of an extreme makeover of a cell," said Douglas A. Melton, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, who led the research. "The goal is to create cells that are missing or defective in people. It's very exciting."
The findings left other researchers in a field that has become accustomed to rapid advances reaching for new superlatives to describe the potential implications.
"I'm stunned," said Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass., a developer of stem cell therapies. "It introduces a whole new paradigm for treating disease."
"I think it's hugely significant," said George Q. Daley, a stem cell researcher at Children's Hospital in Boston. "This is a very spectacular first."
Even the harshest critics of embryonic stem cell research hailed the development as a major, welcome development.
"I see no moral problem in this basic technique," said Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, a leading opponent of embryonic stems cells because they involve destroying human embryos. "This is a 'win-win' situation for medicine and ethics."
Melton and other researchers cautioned that many years of research lay ahead to prove whether the development would translate into cures.
"It's an important proof of concept," said Lawrence Goldstein, a stem cell researcher at the University of California, San Diego. "But these things always look easier on the blackboard than when you have do them in actual patients."
Although the experiment involved mice, Melton and other researchers were optimistic the approach would work in people.
"You never know for sure -- mice aren't humans," Daley said. "But the biology of pancreatic development is very closely related in mice and humans."
Melton has already started experimenting with human cells in the laboratory and hopes to start planning the first studies involving people with diabetes within a year. "I would say within five years we could be ready to start human trials," Melton said.
Other scientists have already started trying the approach on other cells, including those that could be used to treat spinal cord injuries and neurogenerative disorders such as Lou Gehrig's disease.
"The idea to be able to reprogram one adult neuron type into another for repair in the nervous system is very exciting," said Paola Arlotta, who is working in the Center for Regenerative Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital-Harvard Medical School, in Boston.
The research is the latest development in the explosive field of "regenerative medicine," which is trying to create replacement tissues and body parts tailored to patients. That dream appeared within reach after scientists discovered human embryonic stem cells, which can develop into any type of cell in the body. But stem cell research has been plagued by political and ethical debates because the cells can only be obtained by destroying embryos, which has been opposed by President Bush and others who believe that even the earliest stages of human life have moral standing.
Scientists last year shocked the field when they announced they had discovered how to manipulate the genes of adult cells to turn them back into the equivalent of embryonic cells -- entities dubbed "induced pluripotent stem" or "iPS" cells -- which could then be coaxed into any type of cell in the body.
The new work takes further advantage of the increasing prowess scientists have developed in harnessing the once mysterious inner workings of cells -- this time to skip the intermediary step of iPS cells and directly transform adult cells.
"This experiment proves you don't have to go all the way back to an embryonic state," Daley said. "You can use a related cell. That may be easier to do and more practical to do."
Doerflinger argued that the discovery was the latest evidence that research involving human embryos was no longer necessary.
"This adds to the large and growing list of studies helping to make embryonic stem cells irrelevant to medical progress," Doerflinger wrote in an e-mail.
But other researchers disputed that, saying it remains unclear which approach will ultimately prove most useful.
"Embryonic stem cells offer a unique window in human disease and remain a key to the long-term progress of regenerative medicine," Melton said.
For their work, Melton and his colleagues systematically studied cells from the pancreas of adult mice, slowing winnowing the list of genes necessary to make a "beta" cell that produces insulin. After narrowing the candidate genes to nine, the researchers genetically engineered viruses known as adenoviruses to ferry the genes into other pancreatic cells, known as exocrine cells, which normally secrete enzymes to help digest food. That finally enabled the researchers to identify the three crucial genes needed take control of the rest of the cell's genes to convert an exocrine cell into a beta cell.
"It was a mixture of work, luck and guessing," Melton said. "We achieved a complete transformation, or re-purposing, of cells from one type to another. We were delighted."
When the scientists tried the approach on diabetic mice, the animals became able to control their blood sugar levels.
"It didn't cure the mouse, but they were able to reduce their blood sugar levels to near normal," Melton said.
Melton and others said it remains to be seen whether it will be necessary to use genetically engineered viruses, which could face obstacles getting regulatory approval because of concerns about unforeseen risks, or whether chemicals might be found to do the same thing.
If preliminary studies in the laboratory are promising, Melton said he might first try converting liver cells to insulin-producing pancreatic cells because that would be safer than the pancreas. An alternative strategy would be to use the approach to grow beta cells in the laboratory and transplant them into patients.
Lanza said he was optimistic.
"One day, this may allow the doctor to replace the scalpel with a sort of genetic surgery," Lanza said. "If this can be perfected, it would represent one of the Holy Grails of medicine."
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
About New York - One Protest, 52 Arrests and a $2 Million Payout - NYTimes.com
About New York - One Protest, 52 Arrests and a $2 Million Payout - NYTimes.com: "One Protest, 52 Arrests and a $2 Million Payout
One Protest, 52 Arrests and a $2 Million Payout
*
E-Mail
* Print
* Reprints
* Save
* Share
o Linkedin
o Digg
o Facebook
o Mixx
o Yahoo! Buzz
o Permalink
Article Tools Sponsored By
By JIM DWYER
Published: August 19, 2008
The city has agreed to pay $2,007,000 to end a lawsuit brought by 52 people who were swept up in a mass arrest along a Midtown sidewalk during a protest against the invasion of Iraq.
They were charged with blocking pedestrians, but videotapes show that at their most annoying, they might have slowed a few people carrying coffee into work. Public order did not seem to be in unusual danger that morning — certainly nothing that called for rounding up 52 people, or spending millions of dollars.
Only two people were tried; they were acquitted, and charges against the other 50 were dismissed.
The arrests were made on April 7, 2003, during the opening days of the invasion of Iraq and right after the city persuaded the Republican Party to hold its 2004 convention in New York. The people arrested said their rights to free speech had been abused, and sued the city and the police.
Now, five years later, the $2 million settlement is only part of the bonfire of legal expenses. And only some of the costs from this episode involve money.
Of the $2 million paid to the people who were arrested, $1,057,000 is for legal fees and expenses owed to their lawyers. The Law Department could not provide an estimate on Tuesday of how much it spent on the defense, said Laura Postiglione, a spokesman for Michael A. Cardozo, the city’s chief lawyer.
Just about every Tuesday and Thursday for over a year, witnesses were deposed under oath, part of the pretrial process in civil cases, according to Sarah Netburn, a lawyer with the firm Emery Celli Brinkerhoff Abady, which, along with the Center for Constitutional Rights, represented many of the people arrested that morning. The deposition transcripts cost over $100,000, said Matthew Brinkerhoff, another lawyer for the plaintiffs.
Among those deposed were 55 police officers and their supervisors. Between preparation and testimony, many would have lost two days of regular police work.
The city had five lawyers handling the case over the last four years, along with a special appellate team. A conservative estimate is that the city spent $1 million on the defense, including the salaries and benefits of police officers and lawyers, before running up the white flag.
“Although defendants believe that they would ultimately have prevailed at a trial, the costs of going forward weighed in favor of a settlement at this time,” said Susan Halatyn, a city lawyer.
But why were the arrests made in the first place?
That morning, two groups gathered on West 56th Street, outside the offices of an affiliate of the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm that has holdings in defense industries and employs many world figures, including the first President Bush.
One group of about 10 people planned to commit civil disobedience by sitting in front of the building, on the south side of 56th Street. The other group, of about 100 people, stood on the north side of the street, chanting.
Sarah Kunstler, 31, a lawyer, a filmmaker and the daughter of the renowned lawyer, said she had gone to see if there were possibilities of making a film about war protests. “I found out I could get arrested for absolutely no reason,” Ms. Kunstler said.
A film editor, Ahmad Shirazi, 70, said he was in the group on the north side of the street and had just finished speaking with reporters for the BBC when he saw officers beginning to mass.
“All of a sudden, from the Fifth Avenue side, a huge number of police officers entered 56th Street,” Mr. Shirazi said. “The protest was on the south side of the street. We were standing on the north side of the street. They came directly to us, they were in riot gear, and they surrounded us. They made a semicircle around us, shoulder to shoulder, with their batons.”
“Then they started arresting us, one by one. At that point, I got emotional — I could not believe in my country, in my city, I could get arrested for doing absolutely nothing and standing on the sidewalk,” Mr. Shirazi added.
Are there any lessons from the day? The Law Department said the $2 million payout did not mean the police had done anything wrong. “This settlement was reached without any admission of liability on behalf of the city and the individual defendants,” said Ms. Halatyn, the city lawyer.
The Police Department did not respond to a request for comment on the settlement.
Mr. Shirazi said that as he was being handcuffed for the first time in his life, he told the officer that the plastic cuffs were squeezing him. “He said, ‘You should have thought about that before you came out this morning.’ It was like a dagger in my heart, that a police officer of my city would come up with anything like that.”
E-mail: dwyer@nytimes.com
One Protest, 52 Arrests and a $2 Million Payout
*
* Reprints
* Save
* Share
o Linkedin
o Digg
o Facebook
o Mixx
o Yahoo! Buzz
o Permalink
Article Tools Sponsored By
By JIM DWYER
Published: August 19, 2008
The city has agreed to pay $2,007,000 to end a lawsuit brought by 52 people who were swept up in a mass arrest along a Midtown sidewalk during a protest against the invasion of Iraq.
They were charged with blocking pedestrians, but videotapes show that at their most annoying, they might have slowed a few people carrying coffee into work. Public order did not seem to be in unusual danger that morning — certainly nothing that called for rounding up 52 people, or spending millions of dollars.
Only two people were tried; they were acquitted, and charges against the other 50 were dismissed.
The arrests were made on April 7, 2003, during the opening days of the invasion of Iraq and right after the city persuaded the Republican Party to hold its 2004 convention in New York. The people arrested said their rights to free speech had been abused, and sued the city and the police.
Now, five years later, the $2 million settlement is only part of the bonfire of legal expenses. And only some of the costs from this episode involve money.
Of the $2 million paid to the people who were arrested, $1,057,000 is for legal fees and expenses owed to their lawyers. The Law Department could not provide an estimate on Tuesday of how much it spent on the defense, said Laura Postiglione, a spokesman for Michael A. Cardozo, the city’s chief lawyer.
Just about every Tuesday and Thursday for over a year, witnesses were deposed under oath, part of the pretrial process in civil cases, according to Sarah Netburn, a lawyer with the firm Emery Celli Brinkerhoff Abady, which, along with the Center for Constitutional Rights, represented many of the people arrested that morning. The deposition transcripts cost over $100,000, said Matthew Brinkerhoff, another lawyer for the plaintiffs.
Among those deposed were 55 police officers and their supervisors. Between preparation and testimony, many would have lost two days of regular police work.
The city had five lawyers handling the case over the last four years, along with a special appellate team. A conservative estimate is that the city spent $1 million on the defense, including the salaries and benefits of police officers and lawyers, before running up the white flag.
“Although defendants believe that they would ultimately have prevailed at a trial, the costs of going forward weighed in favor of a settlement at this time,” said Susan Halatyn, a city lawyer.
But why were the arrests made in the first place?
That morning, two groups gathered on West 56th Street, outside the offices of an affiliate of the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm that has holdings in defense industries and employs many world figures, including the first President Bush.
One group of about 10 people planned to commit civil disobedience by sitting in front of the building, on the south side of 56th Street. The other group, of about 100 people, stood on the north side of the street, chanting.
Sarah Kunstler, 31, a lawyer, a filmmaker and the daughter of the renowned lawyer, said she had gone to see if there were possibilities of making a film about war protests. “I found out I could get arrested for absolutely no reason,” Ms. Kunstler said.
A film editor, Ahmad Shirazi, 70, said he was in the group on the north side of the street and had just finished speaking with reporters for the BBC when he saw officers beginning to mass.
“All of a sudden, from the Fifth Avenue side, a huge number of police officers entered 56th Street,” Mr. Shirazi said. “The protest was on the south side of the street. We were standing on the north side of the street. They came directly to us, they were in riot gear, and they surrounded us. They made a semicircle around us, shoulder to shoulder, with their batons.”
“Then they started arresting us, one by one. At that point, I got emotional — I could not believe in my country, in my city, I could get arrested for doing absolutely nothing and standing on the sidewalk,” Mr. Shirazi added.
Are there any lessons from the day? The Law Department said the $2 million payout did not mean the police had done anything wrong. “This settlement was reached without any admission of liability on behalf of the city and the individual defendants,” said Ms. Halatyn, the city lawyer.
The Police Department did not respond to a request for comment on the settlement.
Mr. Shirazi said that as he was being handcuffed for the first time in his life, he told the officer that the plastic cuffs were squeezing him. “He said, ‘You should have thought about that before you came out this morning.’ It was like a dagger in my heart, that a police officer of my city would come up with anything like that.”
E-mail: dwyer@nytimes.com
Pastor Rick's Test
Pastor Rick's Test: "Pastor Rick's Test
The Candidates Submit, and a Principle Suffers
By Kathleen Parker
Wednesday, August 20, 2008; A15
Pastor Rick's Test
The Candidates Submit, and a Principle Suffers
By Kathleen Parker
Wednesday, August 20, 2008; A15
At the risk of heresy, let it be said that setting up the two presidential candidates for religious interrogation by an evangelical minister -- no matter how beloved -- is supremely wrong.
It is also un-American.
For the past several days, since mega-pastor Rick Warren interviewed Barack Obama and John McCain at his Saddleback Church, most political debate has focused on who won.
Was it the nuanced, thoughtful Obama, who may have convinced a few more skeptics that he isn't a Muslim? Or was it the direct, confident McCain, who breezes through town-hall-style meetings the way Obama sinks three-pointers from the back court?
The candidates' usual supporters felt validated in their choices. McCain convinced and comforted with characteristic certitude those who are most at ease with certitude; Obama convinced and comforted with his characteristic intellectual ambivalence those who are most at ease with ambivalence.
The winner, of course, was Warren, who has managed to position himself as political arbiter in a nation founded on the separation of church and state.
The loser was America.
In his enormously successful book "The Purpose-Driven Life," Warren begins: "It's not about you." Agreed. Nor is this criticism aimed at Christians, evangelicals, other believers or nonbelievers -- or at Warren, who is a good man with an exemplary record of selfless works. Few have walked the walk with as much determination or success.
This is about higher principles that are compromised every time we pretend we're not applying a religious test when we're really applying a religious test.
It is true that no one was forced to participate in the Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency and that both McCain and Obama are free agents. Warren has a right to invite whomever he wishes to his church and to ask them whatever they're willing to answer.
His format and questions were interesting and the answers more revealing than what the usual debate menu provides. But does it not seem just a little bit odd to have McCain and Obama chatting individually with a preacher in a public forum about their positions on evil and their relationship with Jesus Christ?
The past few decades of public confession and Oprah-style therapy have prepared us perfectly for a televangelist probing politicians about their moral failings. Warren's Q&A wasn't an inquisition exactly, but viewers would be justified in squirming.
What is the right answer, after all? What happens to the one who gets evil wrong? What's a proper relationship with Jesus? What's next? Interrogations by rabbis, priests and imams? What candidate would dare decline on the basis of mere principle?
Both Obama and McCain gave "good" answers, but that's not the point. They shouldn't have been asked. Is the American electorate now better prepared to cast votes knowing that Obama believes that "Jesus Christ died for my sins and I am redeemed through him," or that McCain feels that he is "saved and forgiven"?
What does that mean, anyway? What does it prove? Nothing except that these men are willing to say whatever they must -- and what most Americans personally feel is no one's business -- to win the highest office.
Warren tried to defuse criticism about staging the interviews in his church by saying that though "we" believe in the separation of church and state, "we" don't believe in the separation of faith and politics. Faith, he said, "is just a worldview, and everybody has some kind of worldview. It's important to know what they are."
Presumably "we" refers to Warren's church of fellow evangelicals. And while, yes, everybody has some kind of worldview, it shouldn't be necessary in a pluralistic nation of secular laws to publicly define that view in Christian code.
For the moment, let's set aside our curiosity about what Jesus might do in a given circumstance and wonder what our Founding Fathers would have done at Saddleback Church. What would have happened to Thomas Jefferson if he had responded as he wrote in 1781:
"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
Would the crowd at Saddleback have applauded and nodded through that one? Doubtful.
By today's new standard of pulpits in the public square, Jefferson -- the great advocate for religious freedom in America -- would have lost.
Kathleen Parker is syndicated by theWashington Post Writers Group. Her e-mail address iskparker@kparker.com.
The Candidates Submit, and a Principle Suffers
By Kathleen Parker
Wednesday, August 20, 2008; A15
Pastor Rick's Test
The Candidates Submit, and a Principle Suffers
By Kathleen Parker
Wednesday, August 20, 2008; A15
At the risk of heresy, let it be said that setting up the two presidential candidates for religious interrogation by an evangelical minister -- no matter how beloved -- is supremely wrong.
It is also un-American.
For the past several days, since mega-pastor Rick Warren interviewed Barack Obama and John McCain at his Saddleback Church, most political debate has focused on who won.
Was it the nuanced, thoughtful Obama, who may have convinced a few more skeptics that he isn't a Muslim? Or was it the direct, confident McCain, who breezes through town-hall-style meetings the way Obama sinks three-pointers from the back court?
The candidates' usual supporters felt validated in their choices. McCain convinced and comforted with characteristic certitude those who are most at ease with certitude; Obama convinced and comforted with his characteristic intellectual ambivalence those who are most at ease with ambivalence.
The winner, of course, was Warren, who has managed to position himself as political arbiter in a nation founded on the separation of church and state.
The loser was America.
In his enormously successful book "The Purpose-Driven Life," Warren begins: "It's not about you." Agreed. Nor is this criticism aimed at Christians, evangelicals, other believers or nonbelievers -- or at Warren, who is a good man with an exemplary record of selfless works. Few have walked the walk with as much determination or success.
This is about higher principles that are compromised every time we pretend we're not applying a religious test when we're really applying a religious test.
It is true that no one was forced to participate in the Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency and that both McCain and Obama are free agents. Warren has a right to invite whomever he wishes to his church and to ask them whatever they're willing to answer.
His format and questions were interesting and the answers more revealing than what the usual debate menu provides. But does it not seem just a little bit odd to have McCain and Obama chatting individually with a preacher in a public forum about their positions on evil and their relationship with Jesus Christ?
The past few decades of public confession and Oprah-style therapy have prepared us perfectly for a televangelist probing politicians about their moral failings. Warren's Q&A wasn't an inquisition exactly, but viewers would be justified in squirming.
What is the right answer, after all? What happens to the one who gets evil wrong? What's a proper relationship with Jesus? What's next? Interrogations by rabbis, priests and imams? What candidate would dare decline on the basis of mere principle?
Both Obama and McCain gave "good" answers, but that's not the point. They shouldn't have been asked. Is the American electorate now better prepared to cast votes knowing that Obama believes that "Jesus Christ died for my sins and I am redeemed through him," or that McCain feels that he is "saved and forgiven"?
What does that mean, anyway? What does it prove? Nothing except that these men are willing to say whatever they must -- and what most Americans personally feel is no one's business -- to win the highest office.
Warren tried to defuse criticism about staging the interviews in his church by saying that though "we" believe in the separation of church and state, "we" don't believe in the separation of faith and politics. Faith, he said, "is just a worldview, and everybody has some kind of worldview. It's important to know what they are."
Presumably "we" refers to Warren's church of fellow evangelicals. And while, yes, everybody has some kind of worldview, it shouldn't be necessary in a pluralistic nation of secular laws to publicly define that view in Christian code.
For the moment, let's set aside our curiosity about what Jesus might do in a given circumstance and wonder what our Founding Fathers would have done at Saddleback Church. What would have happened to Thomas Jefferson if he had responded as he wrote in 1781:
"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
Would the crowd at Saddleback have applauded and nodded through that one? Doubtful.
By today's new standard of pulpits in the public square, Jefferson -- the great advocate for religious freedom in America -- would have lost.
Kathleen Parker is syndicated by theWashington Post Writers Group. Her e-mail address iskparker@kparker.com.
Candidates' Abortion Views Not So Simple - washingtonpost.com
Candidates' Abortion Views Not So Simple - washingtonpost.com
Candidates' Abortion Views Not So Simple
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 20, 2008; A01
The narrative of the presidential campaign appeared to be set on the issue of abortion: Sen. Barack Obama was the abortion-rights candidate who was reaching out to foes, seeking common ground and making inroads. Sen. John McCain was the abortion opponent whose reticence about faith and whose battles on campaign finance laws drew suspect glances from would-be supporters.
But both those impressions have been altered since the Rev. Rick Warren's Saddleback Civil Forum in California on Saturday.
Obama's hesitant statement at the forum that defining the beginning of life is "above my pay grade" took even some supporters by surprise. Since then, the National Right to Life Committee has challenged him on an obscure law that protects babies born alive after failed abortions, saying that his opposition to the measure in the Illinois state legislature proves he is an extremist.
McCain's performance at the forum seemed to hearten many conservatives, not only because of his firm, uncompromising stand against abortion but his broader appeals on global warming, genocide and the embrace of causes greater than self. But the clarity that McCain exhibited at Saddleback has been somewhat diminished with his suggestion that his running mate might favor abortion rights.
"Since Saturday night, I've seen a lot of confusion in the younger Christian voting bloc because they thought they had figured this thing out," said Cameron Strang, editor of Relevant magazine, which is aimed at a new generation of evangelicals. "There's no absolutely right candidate for an evangelical, and there's no absolutely wrong candidate. They're both right, and they're both wrong."
On paper, this campaign looks fairly standard. Obama, an Illinois Democrat, is staunchly in favor of abortion rights, while McCain, an Arizona Republican, has compiled a solid record over four Senate terms of opposing abortion.
But McCain has repeatedly been at odds with the National Right to Life Committee and other antiabortion groups over his efforts to limit their ability to run pointed "issue advocacy" advertisements in the closing weeks of campaigns. Although his voting record is strictly antiabortion, he has never made religiosity or social issues centerpieces of his political persona. And his 2000 labeling of evangelists Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell as "agents of intolerance" deepened evangelical suspicions.
"To be perceived as authentic on this issue, you need to have some grounding in it, and usually that grounding is faith," said Douglas W. Kmiec, a Pepperdine University professor of constitutional law who opposes abortion but supports Obama.
As McCain moves toward naming a running mate, he has not backed off a suggestion to the conservative Weekly Standard that his pick could favor abortion rights. Speculation on whom that could be has centered on former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge and independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut.
Similarly, Obama has made a show of reaching out to abortion opponents to find common ground on pregnancy prevention and adoption. He has urged evangelicals and Catholics to expand the definition of "pro-life" to include opposing torture, poverty and unnecessary war. In the Democratic primary, Obama was criticized by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign and others for being insufficiently committed to abortion rights because he did not cast some votes on the issue in the Illinois legislature.
Abortion foes are now accusing Obama of being an abortion-rights extremist. In recent days, the National Right to Life Committee has charged that Obama is misrepresenting his record to broaden his appeal. At issue is a measure in both Illinois and Congress called the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which defines as a protected human any life expelled from a mother. Abortion foes championed the cause when an Illinois nurse and antiabortion activist said some pre-viable fetuses were being aborted by inducing labor and then being allowed to die.
Obama, then a state senator, opposed the measure in 2001, saying it crossed the line of constitutionality and "essentially says that a doctor is required to provide treatment to a pre-viable child, or fetus."
As a committee chairman in the state Senate in 2003, Obama supported GOP efforts to add language to the act, copied from federal legislation, clarifying that it would have no legal impact on the availability of abortions. Obama then opposed the bill's final passage. Since then, he has said he would have backed the bill as it was written and approved almost unanimously the year before.
Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, charged that Obama is trying to have it both ways because the Illinois bill he opposed was virtually identical to the federal law he said he would support.
Obama aides acknowledged yesterday that the wording of the state and federal bills was virtually identical. But, they added, the impact of a state law is different, because detailed abortion procedures and regulations are governed by states. Johnson and others are oversimplifying the situation, aides said.
"They have not been telling the truth," Obama told the Christian Broadcasting Network in response to a question on the matter. "And I hate to say that people are lying, but here's a situation where folks are lying."
At Saddleback, McCain won plaudits from conservatives when he said that life begins "at the moment of conception," especially after Obama deflected the question.
But the inroads McCain made are now threatened by his flirtation with a running mate who supports abortion rights.
"I think that the pro-life position is one of the important aspects or fundamentals of the Republican Party. And I also feel that -- and I'm not trying to equivocate here -- that Americans want us to work together," McCain told the Weekly Standard.
Conservative commentator David Limbaugh slammed the idea yesterday, warning that McCain "would make a fatal mistake to assume that social issues, especially abortion, are ever off an equally blazing front burner for an inestimable number of social conservatives."
Abortion remains an important issue to a large portion of the electorate, but it is not the biggest. An early August poll for Time magazine found that one in five likely voters would not consider voting for a candidate who did not share their views on abortion. Twenty-six percent of Republicans saw the issue as decisive, compared with 18 percent of Democrats.
Polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.
Candidates' Abortion Views Not So Simple
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 20, 2008; A01
The narrative of the presidential campaign appeared to be set on the issue of abortion: Sen. Barack Obama was the abortion-rights candidate who was reaching out to foes, seeking common ground and making inroads. Sen. John McCain was the abortion opponent whose reticence about faith and whose battles on campaign finance laws drew suspect glances from would-be supporters.
But both those impressions have been altered since the Rev. Rick Warren's Saddleback Civil Forum in California on Saturday.
Obama's hesitant statement at the forum that defining the beginning of life is "above my pay grade" took even some supporters by surprise. Since then, the National Right to Life Committee has challenged him on an obscure law that protects babies born alive after failed abortions, saying that his opposition to the measure in the Illinois state legislature proves he is an extremist.
McCain's performance at the forum seemed to hearten many conservatives, not only because of his firm, uncompromising stand against abortion but his broader appeals on global warming, genocide and the embrace of causes greater than self. But the clarity that McCain exhibited at Saddleback has been somewhat diminished with his suggestion that his running mate might favor abortion rights.
"Since Saturday night, I've seen a lot of confusion in the younger Christian voting bloc because they thought they had figured this thing out," said Cameron Strang, editor of Relevant magazine, which is aimed at a new generation of evangelicals. "There's no absolutely right candidate for an evangelical, and there's no absolutely wrong candidate. They're both right, and they're both wrong."
On paper, this campaign looks fairly standard. Obama, an Illinois Democrat, is staunchly in favor of abortion rights, while McCain, an Arizona Republican, has compiled a solid record over four Senate terms of opposing abortion.
But McCain has repeatedly been at odds with the National Right to Life Committee and other antiabortion groups over his efforts to limit their ability to run pointed "issue advocacy" advertisements in the closing weeks of campaigns. Although his voting record is strictly antiabortion, he has never made religiosity or social issues centerpieces of his political persona. And his 2000 labeling of evangelists Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell as "agents of intolerance" deepened evangelical suspicions.
"To be perceived as authentic on this issue, you need to have some grounding in it, and usually that grounding is faith," said Douglas W. Kmiec, a Pepperdine University professor of constitutional law who opposes abortion but supports Obama.
As McCain moves toward naming a running mate, he has not backed off a suggestion to the conservative Weekly Standard that his pick could favor abortion rights. Speculation on whom that could be has centered on former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge and independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut.
Similarly, Obama has made a show of reaching out to abortion opponents to find common ground on pregnancy prevention and adoption. He has urged evangelicals and Catholics to expand the definition of "pro-life" to include opposing torture, poverty and unnecessary war. In the Democratic primary, Obama was criticized by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign and others for being insufficiently committed to abortion rights because he did not cast some votes on the issue in the Illinois legislature.
Abortion foes are now accusing Obama of being an abortion-rights extremist. In recent days, the National Right to Life Committee has charged that Obama is misrepresenting his record to broaden his appeal. At issue is a measure in both Illinois and Congress called the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which defines as a protected human any life expelled from a mother. Abortion foes championed the cause when an Illinois nurse and antiabortion activist said some pre-viable fetuses were being aborted by inducing labor and then being allowed to die.
Obama, then a state senator, opposed the measure in 2001, saying it crossed the line of constitutionality and "essentially says that a doctor is required to provide treatment to a pre-viable child, or fetus."
As a committee chairman in the state Senate in 2003, Obama supported GOP efforts to add language to the act, copied from federal legislation, clarifying that it would have no legal impact on the availability of abortions. Obama then opposed the bill's final passage. Since then, he has said he would have backed the bill as it was written and approved almost unanimously the year before.
Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, charged that Obama is trying to have it both ways because the Illinois bill he opposed was virtually identical to the federal law he said he would support.
Obama aides acknowledged yesterday that the wording of the state and federal bills was virtually identical. But, they added, the impact of a state law is different, because detailed abortion procedures and regulations are governed by states. Johnson and others are oversimplifying the situation, aides said.
"They have not been telling the truth," Obama told the Christian Broadcasting Network in response to a question on the matter. "And I hate to say that people are lying, but here's a situation where folks are lying."
At Saddleback, McCain won plaudits from conservatives when he said that life begins "at the moment of conception," especially after Obama deflected the question.
But the inroads McCain made are now threatened by his flirtation with a running mate who supports abortion rights.
"I think that the pro-life position is one of the important aspects or fundamentals of the Republican Party. And I also feel that -- and I'm not trying to equivocate here -- that Americans want us to work together," McCain told the Weekly Standard.
Conservative commentator David Limbaugh slammed the idea yesterday, warning that McCain "would make a fatal mistake to assume that social issues, especially abortion, are ever off an equally blazing front burner for an inestimable number of social conservatives."
Abortion remains an important issue to a large portion of the electorate, but it is not the biggest. An early August poll for Time magazine found that one in five likely voters would not consider voting for a candidate who did not share their views on abortion. Twenty-six percent of Republicans saw the issue as decisive, compared with 18 percent of Democrats.
Polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)