Showing posts with label Science magazine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science magazine. Show all posts

Monday, October 12, 2020

Science journals’ editorials against Trump

These science journals promote an amazing misuse of a world tragedy. Since I regularly read medical and science journals, especially JAMA and NEJM, let me assure you they have all been way left in their editorial coverage since I began reading them in the 1980s. Also, in clinical trials, they are quick to demand all sorts of fair, unbiased and diverse controls, sex, age, weight, culture, socio-economic status, smoking, alcohol use, marital status, health history, but in this pandemic, they only look at Trump.

I think they are angry that his leadership in cutting red tape and "making deals" has uncovered the stultifying "science" culture which has its own deep state and swamp. This isn't China, David Foster, or even Sweden. In a country where we have a Constitution to protect us from the state, "scientists" see this as a lost opportunity for the federal government to take the same grab for power that the states have with mandates, lockdowns and petty local demands.

The "scientists" (I think Obama had one advisor on this one) have loved the EMR installed by fiat at a cost in the billions (which is why medical costs soared during Obama's reign) with no known benefit to health or reduced cost because it's plan was data diving and not to get you quickly admitted or treated. Now they are called on to do actual research, find new drugs, figure out the mutations, think outside the box--as a businessman would do. We already have many new drugs ready to be on the market--it's called competition--and you can see how the popular and science media have reacted. Why can't everyone get this drug, why compassionate use for a guy we hate, why should he speculate or dream when that's a scientist's job, why does he listen to a virologist or an epidemiologist and not a cell biologist (or someone on our board); and most importantly, why didn't he die!

Trump has shown in 4 years that our bloated government, our stagnant universities, our rigid peer review publication system, our technology sector with embedded lobbyists in Washington to make sure start ups get squashed with new laws needs a shake up. I don't believe the pandemic was a plot (many do), but leftists in every field, every corporation, every university, every church, realize that if they don't act very quickly and get rid of this man, their days of fancy awards, fat grants at our expense, flying to conferences to wine and dine, and living in their self designed bubbles, just might be threatened. Bring him down and get rid of him, no matter the cost. We all know the next Democrat elected whether this year or in 4 years will return things to "normal" crony capitalism, but they are are afraid of the fall out.

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Thank you, thank you, Mr. President

As I read the year end article on science breakthroughs in the paper yesterday I could only whisper a Thank You to George W. Bush for holding the line on embryonic stem cell research. Perhaps you've forgotten, but that issue became a subplot in the 2004 election. Like the Iraq War, stem cell research was off the political agenda in 2008. GWB held out.

    "In an effort to cause the country to abandon this conviction [ethical principles], some advocates of the research, including nearly every prominent Democrat in Congress, have made reckless and irresponsible promises, offered false hope to the suffering, depicted their opponents as heartless enemies of science, and exploited sick people for crass political gain." Link.
It's not illegal in the U.S., never has been, to experiment on human embryos, to wallow up to your knees and soul in a bioethical swamp that hasn't been drained. But it wasn't expanded with government money during the Bush years. And then. The break through that only PETA extremists could quibble about (originally done in mice).
    "A crescendo of discoveries pushed stem cells from the lab dish to news headlines this year. Only two years ago, a Japanese research team led by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University announced a method for turning mouse skin cells into unspecialized ones that resembled embryonic stem cells, prized by biomedical researchers for the potential to turn into any kind of tissue. This year, teams made use of the discovery in human cells to earn "Breakthrough of the Year" status from Science magazine. For the first time, two teams created families of induced pluripotent cells — unspecialized cells derived from specialized cells — from patients suffering 11 different diseases, including Parkinson's disease and juvenile diabetes. And a team led by Harvard's Doug Melton demonstrated "lineage switching" in a Nature journal study, switching ordinary kidney cells into specialized tissues that produce insulin in mice. The end goal of cell reprogrammers is to create immune-system-friendly transplant tissues for patients." USAToday
Now we won't have to have colonies of poor women farming their eggs, and Bush has saved the Democratic Party from yet one more accolade of being the party of death, already enthusiastic about abortion and euthanasia for the less than perfect, the poor, the elderly and the handicapped.
    "In one fell swoop the politics of the issue shifted, says Ramesh Ponnuru, a harsh critique of the Democrats' stem cell policy and author of "The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life." "I am not surprised to see that politicians running for office on the Democratic side are talking about this issue less because there is not as much profit to it anymore," Ponnuru said. Democrats had downplayed the possibility that adult stem cells could be used as an alternative. They argued instead that embryonic cells represented the cutting edge of science. "Now that same argument can be turned against them," Ponnuru said. "If they want to go based on clinical results, adult stem cells are better. If they want to go based on which has more promise, these (new) alternatives are better." Link
Thank you again, Mr. President. So your Treasury guy was a bust--you still saved a lot of lives.