Media Bias in the Stem Cell Issue
By Gary Krasner (11/20/06)
Just this short item which I feel demonstrates slanted news coverage
favoring Democrats. Before I describe it, you need to know a little bit
about stem cell research.
Some of you may or may not know that there's almost a hundred therapies
being used from adult stem cell (ASC) research, while embryonic stem cells
(ESC) are still stalled in the experimental phase, as they have posed
unsurmountable problems with regards to both protein rejection and its
pluripotency characteristics.
Democrats were able to successfully demogogue this issue during the
elections by ignoring the distinctions between ASC and EAC, and the fact
that embryonic stem cells are a scientific deadend. The media cooperated
with that plan. There were also many Republicans who didn't object to
embryonic stem cell research, but preferred there be in place more detailed
and explicit bioethical laws BEFORE a burgeoning industry with strong
vested interested could influence the direction of the bioethical debate.
Charles Krauthammer was one who took such positions. The media cooperated
here too, by keeping the public ignorant of the secular bioethical debate.
With that background, the following news anomoly will make some sense. I
heard on the news today of yet another breakthough in stem cell research.
This one involved Muscular Dystrophy in experimental dogs. I simply
searched for this news item in Google News, and grabbed the first few links
that were displayed (see below). If you load any of these pages, and type
Control-F, and enter "Embryonic", you will not get a single hit on that
page. In other words, none of these articles makes it clear that this
latest success in stem cells came solely from adult stem cells.
Why this blatant intent not to inform? The reason is obvious. Journalists
and editors who support Democrats will not make the distinctions clear.
Republicans supported federal funding of the more promising adult and chord
cell research, and had voted for such legislation last summer. The
Democrats voted for the alternative bill that would have funded the less
promising embryonic stem cell research. Why would Democrats support failed
research? Weren't they listening to Republican Senators Brownback,
Santorum and others during last July 17th &18th floor debates, in which
they detailed the success with ASC; the problems with ESC; and raised the
bioethical dilemmas that included human cell cloning (needed to surmount
some of the medical problems that embryonic cells pose), and fetal farming
(similarly plagued with problems of tissue rejection, aside from being
ethically-challenged as well)?
The Democrats WERE listening. They just didn't have any good answers.
Senators Nelson, Harkin, Levin and Feinstein were particularly clueless,
and apparently unprepared for a scientific debate. This debate in the
senate was supposed to portray most Republicans as anti-science, ignorant,
religious fanatics who place the the life of an embryo above that of
sentient adult human beings. But it didn't. Rather, it showed how
scientifically ignorant and morally bankrupt the Democrats were. And those
who watched the debate---which ran into the late hours of the night on both
days---saw that clearly. Those who rely on the nightly news got the
opposite impression. And every Democrat pol knew that. They were looking
ahead to the November elections to cash in on that ignorance.
That part of the medical community fully vested in ESC were all too happy
to help finance the Democrat plan to politicize what should be a science
issue, and portray Republicans as heartless people who don't care about the
hardship of Michael J. Fox. One can track the political contributions back
to corporations and individuals who were unable to attract private funding
for ESC, and were banking on Democrats to squeeze it out of taxpayers.
And it worked. Democrats used false sanctimony and held out false hopes to
win back control of Congress. They will now have to pay the piper with
your money. It will be your money poured down a rathole, but at least it
got Democrats elected. Either Mr. Fox is ignorant about stem cells and was
being exploited by Democrats, or else he's aware of the problems with ESC
and was a willing part of this cynical, wedge-issue politics which places
partisanship over curing diseases.
If you were not aware of the differences between ESC and ASC, then the
liberal media succeeded in augmenting the political agenda of the Democrat
Party.
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Search results when you Google the aforementioned news today about stem
cells helping Muscular Dystrophy:
http://www.onelocalnews.com/prescottherald/ViewArticle.aspx?id=26576&source=2
http://www.prolifeblogs.com/articles/archives/2006/11/more_stem_cell.php
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1948905,00.html
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20061116/1014370.asp
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003432990_dystrophy16.html
http://www.themoneytimes.com/articles/20061116/a_stem_cell_trial_in_dogs_kindles_hope_to_treat_md_in_human-id-102141.html
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Scientific background information on stem cell research:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/861hhanx.asp?pg=2
http://www.stemcellresearch.org/
http://www.stemcellresearch.org/facts/treatments.htm
http://www.stemcellresearch.org/polisci/index.html
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=489953
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