What an incredible speech from the heart

Poor guy, he is such great actor. Love BTTF movies

Stem Cell research involves the destruction of blastocysts with 150 cells that are gonna be destroyed whether you do the research or not. For those who think 150 cells might sound like its a bit to complete for a human, the comparison is that a fruitfly's brain sports around 100.000 cells. This is a non-issue thats been hyped in the media as "the first step toward cloned babies" (which has nothing to do with it) and ignorant religious nutcases have found "a cause worth fighting for" where they think their religious morality can be of any use to "draw the line"... unfortunatly its as pathetic as the crusades against masturbation, condom use,deviation from the missionary position, dresscodes for men and women, rage against homosexuality, hatred of female bodyparts and all the other crap its been ramming down our throats down the centuries.

Lets have a real, informed, secular debate about morality, OK?

more worried about nanotech.

Religion aside, we still haven't decided when a person is a "person," meaning at what point does it fall under the protection of the state and rights of a citizen. The number of cells is a moot point since you start as one and eventually are billions. What's your magic number for being a person then? Make sure you don't leave out Gary Coleman.

Also, use of completely non-controversial adult-derived (and cord-derived) stem cells for treatment of adult conditions is making enormous strides. People who tell you otherwise don't know what they are talking about or have political agenda (and I happen to be a geneticist so I'm not Joe Q. on this topic. I hate to brag that cause it makes me sound like a prick, but otherwise people will just assume I'm another ...how'd you put it? "ignorant religious nutcase"). I'm all for stem-cell research. But it's unwise to rush into morally controversial territory when there is a completely non-controversial alternative that is getting more and more effective. The fact that there are destroyed embryos that could be instead used for science is another debate entirely, unfortunately. As for cloning babies? Well, I don't even have a problem with that really, a person is a person. But since the law currently allows late-term abortion in many places in the world, you could potentially clone yourself and kill the fetus late to harvest the tissue you need. I think anyone alive would find that detestable, but without the anti-cloning law, it would be legal... maybe not doable at the moment, but I give that one 3-4 years. Most of the methods needed are already worked out.

The public is only getting sound-bytes from uninformed politicians and fuming anti-theists about all this. They're being told that we need to ignore our ethics and do this NOW because PEOPLE ARE DYING!! Well, every kid in this world has 2 kidneys and that could save 2 lives for the price of one...what a deal! I mean, "people are dying" so we must act NOW!

I predict that Michael J. will be around to see adult-derived stem cell treatments for his condition.

In short, we're inches away from being able to reset certain cell types to recover most of their pluripotency. It shouldn't be long before we can take a bit of your bone marrow or (if you have it stored) cord-blood, reset the cells to a near embryonic progenitor, then tell them to become neurons or such. A few more years and we're there. Patience.

Faker.

it's real easy to "have a cause" when the cause affects you... Dufus J Fox should just retire from the public eye already

Faker

::Raspberry::

"Religion aside, we still haven't decided when a person is a "person," meaning at what point does it fall under the protection of the state and rights of a citizen."

Yes we have, at the point when a birth is registered at whatever national level.


"But it's unwise to rush into morally controversial territory when there is a completely non-controversial alternative that is getting more and more effective."

It is actually wise to pursue both methodologies - this is common sense first, and scientific reasoning second. I'd like to think both of these avenues are being explored based on sound medical judgement rather than either of them being stopped for political or religious reasons. Yes it's morally controversial, just like nuclear technology has always been.

The rest of the post is just fearmongering based on "this will lead to much worse things like x,y & z"

I look forward to hearing any substantial reason why this research should not be allowed. Nobody has been able to come up with one that actually makes any sense.

Fear-mongering is an unnecessarily harsh word to use. It was exaggeration in order to make the point that what I said was legal, yet reprehensible.

You have yet to hear an explaination that makes sense to you because you are not trying to empathize with those whose beliefs differ from your own. Some cultures think cannibalism is AOK. Most don't.

You argue that science should be exploring both ESCs and adult-derived research. That's fine if you have no moral or ethical problem with both. The arguement over whether we should be using ESCs is not scientific debate. It is an ethical debate. Every university has a bio-ethics committee to consider what science is ethical what science is unethical. Just like improper use of animals is always considered, here we need to consider what we think about ESCs and embryo cloning and destruction.

Basically if you have no moral objection and no religious or philosophical aversion to it, you will never "hear any substantial reason why this research should not be allowed."

at the end he did well to plead to all the stupids, buttered them up a bit first. smart guy

Jeez, Mike's got a bad case of stage fright there.

</badjoke>

I've done my own research on stem cells, and I can confirm, for those that were wondering, they are NOT practicing gay marriage. So chill out, conservatives!

Let's not slam people with certain conditions who take it up as their cause. These people (Lance Armstrong, Christopher Reeves...) know intimately how it can affect a person's life. They meet hundreds or thousands of people suffering from similar conditions, and they know, intimately, how treatment or a cure would change these people's lives. They also often do lots and lots of research into treatments and possible cures for their own sake. When they come across one which only requires some funding, or a change in policy, they realize how much of an impact they as celebrities can have. They feel incredibly privileged to be in a position to be able to do something for all those people they know who are suffering and they step up as, hopefully, any of us would.

The cause chooses them, not the other way around.

he doesnt take his meds purposely so he looks this bad.

when he takes his meds hes very calm and looks normal.

because of this i think its ok to make a parody of this interview, it would be hilarious.

Not taking the meds doesn't make it look bad, tbone. It makes it look real.

Actually it's the reverse tbone8ty: CBS News Followup

In the one time that he was said to be "off his medication" or "overacting" by Rush Limbaugh for a ad supporting stem cell research. Micheal actually was over-medicated and dyskinesic in said ad, nothing that has to do with this interview. Even in that "controversial" ad he denies trying to play up his disease in any way shape or form.

He also made a note that without his medication he wouldn't be able to speak. I don't see anyway that this incident should allow us to "parody" on his disease.

Even should he decide to go without medication to make a point, I think it's a valid tactic. Those of us who do not have this condition cannot know what he's going through, yet we claim authority over decisions that affect the possibility of a cure for his condition. We owe it to him and others like him not to kid ourselves about what the symptoms are like.

::Raspberry::

I was kidding.

wtf is raspberry supposed to mean?

It's a weird conundrum. The gov't is supposed to protect life, but the constant question is "when" can you define life as being - when is abortion murder? Anti-abortionists would say that happens at conception, which to me is just religious rhetoric to bolster the notion of life associated with a "soul".

"wtf is raspberry supposed to mean?"

1) Stick out your tongue.
2) Close your lips around your tongue.
3) Blow.
4) Clean the spittle off your monitor.

Haha - Oh yeah. I heard that before.
But step 4 made me laugh.
Now, another question: where the hell did they get the name raspberry from?

Great speech, but MAN that was annoyingly edited... like, really annoyingly. I need to track down the entire piece now. Ok, found it, and I thought this was really old... it is, from October 27, 2006... anyway, here is the piece in its entirety (I think, haven't watched it yet, but seems so): http://youtube.com/watch?v=o8lsjfjgAA8

hey blankfist....what about the anti-abortionists that are atheists? Or that are not Christian? The association of religion, soul, and conception, was not born of religiosity, it was implanted by public discourse, editorialized upon and spun, by the media, fueled by a few extremeist types, since Row V Wade. Prior to this, abortion has always been, an action in which the medical estab., was not complicit....and the act of eliminating a pregnancy, was either initiated by genetic predisposition, injury, or when perpetrated by the individual, has been a social stigma, since civilized societies have been around.....abortion is a cop out like suicide, in most cases...and teh justifications used, invariably come back to bite the asses of those guilty.

^Even if you're joking, that's really fucked up.

Agreed MarineGunrock thankfully now we can mark comments inappropriate

We don't yet know whether embryonic stem cells are necessary to cure Parkinson's. Adult stem cells might work, and might not. An entire branch of research should not be closed for the sake of dubious moral objections.

There is no one point at which a fertilized egg becomes a person, because the change occurs tiny bit by tiny bit, continuously. However, a fertilized egg is clearly not a person, because it cannot think anything, cannot feel anything, and cannot know anything. Is an acephalic child (a birth defect in which the baby is born with no skull, head, or brain) a person? I think not.

The potential human life argument goes nowhere. If every time you prevent a person from coming into being is murder, then every time you use a condom or abstain from sex you are comitting murder. It would be quite convenient for clergy to lead people to believe all forms of avoiding reproduction are immoral, since that would cause the population of their flocks to exceed that of competing religions. Most religion spreading occurs by fucking and indoctrinating offspring, not by conversion. Indeed clergy tried to outlaw contraception and persecute some nonchildbearing women with witch trials. But most people eventually saw through that bullshit.

Katie Couric is the real lame-o.

... but embryonic stem cells are babies! Frozen babies that we must throw away so as not to anger our Lord!

Not taking anti-parkinson medication with advances Alzheimer's could mean severe motor impairment (repetitive and uncoordinated movement, inability to vocalize, etc.). There is no reason to conclude he is not taking his meds judging by his movements and speech. It is a rather unpredictable progressive disorder. http://www.umm.edu/parkinsons/signs.htm

Poor guy. I miss his acting in old days.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Sunday, September 23rd, 2007 9:24am PDT - promote requested by dotdude.

Thanks for the promote dotdude!