Kolata, Gina. "PERSONAL BEST; Yes, Running Can Make You High." The New York Times. The New York Times, 27 Mar. 2008. Web. 16 Oct. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/health/nutrition/27best.html?_r=0>.
Works Cited: Carlson, Charles, Frank Collins, Ellie Sturgis, and James Rogers. "Muscle stretching as an alternative relaxation training procedure.” Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry. 21.1 (1990): March. Web. 23 Oct. 2012.
Twenty percent of people living with Congestive Heart Failure die within
twelve months of diagnosis. Research clinics across the nation believe stem
cells could offer a solution in the future. Unfortunately, for every research
clinic striving for the greater good, there are companies falsely offering
cures for financial benefits. These faulty clinics call for extreme regulation
in the field of regenerative medicine and, therefore, inhibit stem cell
research. The Food and Drug Administration prolong the process of approving
regenerative research due to invalid stem cell companies. Though the FDA
protects patients with new regulations, the administration also delays the
advancements of proper clinical trials. The Food and Drug Administration’s
deficiencies prove that regenerative medicine needs a new method of regulation
that ensures safety for patients as well as progress in stem cell research.
Regenerative medicine aims to recreate living, functional tissue to
repair the human body. Whether fighting a deadly disease, treating a genetic
disorder, or combating a painful deformity, regenerative medicine depends on
the future of stem cells. These undifferentiated cells hold the ability to mold
into nearly any other cell. With mild medical manipulation, scientists hope
stem cells will cure many diseases and deformities by replacing the damaged
cells. Though regulation for any medical process is necessary, can too much
regulation prevent advancement?
In 2010, the Food and Drug Administration won the right to regulate stem
cell therapy. Since their legal success, the FDA has only approved one
regenerative medicine company, Hemacord. Hemacord provides patients stem cells
from umbilical cords, peripheral blood cells, and bone marrow to treat blood
related diseases. In other words, the FDA approved bone marrow transplants.
Scientists first conducted bone marrow transplants in the 1960’s and have
successfully treated diseases such as leukemia since. Will we have to wait
nearly fifty years for the FDA to approve every new regenerative procedure?
With the rate that medical science discovers new potential cures,
waiting for FDA approval seems counterproductive. Yes, every new process needs
regulation to ensure purity and safety, but shouldn’t there be a faster way to
regulate new treatments? Science deemed bone marrow transplants effective long
before the FDA gave their seal of approval. The FDA claims patients should not
undergo any stem cell therapy that does not have approval because the
treatments do not exist. Yet, just because a clinical trial does not have FDA approval,
as a treatment does not mean the trials are ineffective.
The idea that stem cell therapy acts as a drug gave the FDA the right to
regulate regenerative companies. However, the medical community and drug
industry continue to argue over whether or not the alteration of stem cells
defines the procedures as drugs. The FDA claimed that a stem cell could only
have “minimal manipulation” before considered a drug. Unfortunately, “minimal
manipulation” lacks a concrete definition. The broad term causes mass amounts
of arguments as doctors and scientists perceive minimal manipulation
differently than the FDA. Therefore, whose definition do we trust: the FDA or
the scientists that created these procedures? The gap of knowledge between
medical stem cell specialists and the FDA currently prohibits further
regenerative medicine advancements. The FDA should have control only when a
sound definition of “minimal manipulation” arises. Until then, clinical stem
cell trials should not take the fall for the FDA’s lack of understanding.
This lack of understanding may derive from the Food and Drug
Administration’s lack of focus on the positive progress of stem cells. The
FDA’s recent media celebrity revolves around their battle to shut down all
companies promoting illegal stem cell therapies. These companies target
terminally ill patients and offer them untested stem cell treatments with the
promise of a cure. One company promised a treatment for an eleven-year-old
boy’s cerebral palsy. Tested by Duke University research lab, the stem cells
provided to the boy were either defective or dead. Upon further investigation,
the doctor providing the stem cells and promoting false treatment lost his
license years before moving to Ecuador to sell sham stem cells. Regrettably,
many more companies offering similar false treatments remain. These clinics
advertise treatments to incurable diseases and claim FDA approval. According to
Duke University’s scientific stem cell officer Joanne Kurtzberg, applying
defective or dead stem cells into another human can be fatal, causing a stroke
or brain inflammation. Therefore, FDA intervention is imperative. However, the
FDA does little to differentiate the clinics aiming for economic gains and
regenerative companies that intend to cure the world’s largest problems. The
negative media coverage of these clinics hinders the reputation of regenerative
medicine. With control over stem cell clinics, the FDA should not only abolish
faulty companies, but also promote successful procedures as well.
Recently, the Department of Neurosciences of City of Hope discovered a
groundbreaking new correlation between stem cells and inoperable brain tumors.
Doctors diagnose nearly 23,000 Americans a year with glioblastomas, an
extremely aggressive malignant brain tumor. With an average survival rate of 15
months, over half of the patients die soon after diagnosis. Miraculously, City
of Hope’s Dr. Karen Aboody provides a clinical trial that strives to treat
these once terminal tumors. Before this trial, doctors considered chemotherapy
dangerous and ineffective on glioblastomas. Backed by the National Cancer
Institute, Aboody’s trial injects chemically manipulated stem cells into a
patient’s brain, which then attach to the tumor. The patient then takes a
specific drug that reacts with the enzymes in the stem cells, providing an
effective form of chemotherapy on the cancer. This trial is far from FDA
approval, but has shown positive results thus far. While two patients
undergoing treatment lived seven months longer than originally expected, one
man still lives today, three years after treatment.
Aboody’s trial targets similar patients as faulty stem cell companies,
terminally ill patients with nothing to lose. Furthermore, Aboody’s treatment
does not yet have FDA approval and still needs far more testing before
considered a proven cure. So, how do patients differentiate between positive
trials like the City of Hope’s and falsely advertised stem cell companies?
First of all, everyone should heavily research any clinical trial before
agreeing to a medical procedure. However, many of these patients hold an
unstable emotional state due to their fatal diagnosis and will try anything,
regardless of the dangerous side effects. As the FDA works tirelessly to shut
down harmful clinics, regenerative medicine needs another form of regulation
that encourages the work of pioneering stem cell research.
The field of medicine is growing at a faster rate than ever as
scientists seek to find cures for the world’s most troublesome diseases and
disorders. Currently, thousands of medical clinics provide trials that offer
hope in the future of curing cancer, heart disease, diabetes, genetic
disorders, and more. While every medical procedure must be heavily monitored
and proven before offered to patients, the field of regenerative field of
medicine must create a faster and more successful method of regulation. Until
the knowledge gap between scientists and regulators diminishes, the Food and
Drug Administration should not hold sole power over stem cell research. The
regenerative medical field encompasses the potential to attain great
accomplishments through stem cell research. In a generation plagued by cancers
and incurable disease, do we have time to delay prospective solutions?
Works Cited
Baum, Stephanie. "Is
it drug manufacturing or the practice of medicine? Stem cell therapy
debate just getting
started." Med City News. 3 Aug 2012: n. page. Print.
Boyle, Andrew J.
"Controversies in Cardiovascular Medicine." Circulation. 114.4 2006): 339-352. Web. 16 Sep. 2012. <http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/114/4/339.full>.
"Cells In Use." Learn
Genetics. The University of Utah, 2012. Web. 16 Sep 2012. <http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/tech/stemcells/sctoday/>.
Cyranoski, David.
"FDA's claims over stem cells upheld."Nature. 488.7409 (2012): n. page. Print. <http://www.nature.com/news/fda-s-claims-over-stem-cells-upheld-1.11082>.
"The darker side of
stem cells." Nature. 483.7387 (2012): n. page. Web. 6 Sep 2012.
Whenever I go shopping with my mom, I always venture off on my own and find a random array of things that I want to buy. Most of the time my mom just shakes her head and I have to go back to the aisles where I found my treasures and place them back on the shelf. I never understood why she wouldn’t just let me buy the mini-pink handheld vacuum I wanted, I promised it would help me keep my room cleaner. My mom saw the bigger picture; she was probably thinking about all the bills we pay, or about the things that are much more necessary for us to buy. Sometimes when you are wrapped up in something, you only see the immediate benefits. When you step back you may realize that the negative repercussions outweigh the benefits. If you look at NASA as a single entity, the benefits seem literally out of this world. When you look at the world as a whole, NASA shouldn’t be a top priority when it comes to federal funding. Global warming, overpopulation, death due to unsanitary water and countless other issues need our attention. However, NASA’s countless failed or irrelevant missions have wasted many of those federal funds. We need to solve the problems on our Planet before we spend millions of dollars annually exploring other ones.
Many people envision NASA as a profound institution that betters the nation and world through discoveries and the obtainment of knowledge. While this is true, there are a lot of negative repercussions that also need to be recognized. NASA consistently wastes federal funds. Recently, NASA spent 270.5 million dollars on the Constellation Project, a project aimed to send astronauts back to the moon. (Fox News). The Constellation Project was eventually cancelled by Congress, but because Congress failed to create a budget NASA still wasted $1.4 million dollars a day on other constellation projects (Fox News). Also, have you heard about the Orbiting Carbon Observatory; the project that was launched in 2009 and proceeded to crash into the pacific ocean not long after wasting $278 million dollars? Think about how many ways the United States could have better used 278 million dollars (Degroot); health care, water sanitation, education, or research to stop the growing environmental crisis. On a larger scale there are a lot of international issues that require our attention and funds. President Eisenhower once stated that “every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed” (qtd. in Degroot). It seems almost silly to spend so much money on exploring a never ending field of research while we have so many unsolved problems on Earth.
NASA's Constellation Project aimed to revisit the moon. http://www.flickr.com/photos/penguinbush/2768719983/
Not only is it seemingly silly to spend money on something that we will never truly understand but it also takes massive amounts of time to acquire information for research or to build a spacecraft. The years it takes to build spacecrafts are years of continuous burning of fossil fuels to make parts and supply energy to make parts. The universe is endless and therefore the research and studying on it is endless. If there is no final goal, no answers that can ever really be found, why spend so much time searching for something that as humans we can never really find?
The information that NASA obtains through their endless research doesn’t even render importance to many people. The voyagers, one of NASA’s big projects, are celebrating their 35th year in space (Kalser). Have you heard of the Voyagers before? Chances are unless you have done some research on space discoveries you haven’t. Have you heard about increased climate change or Cancer? 1,500 people die each day due to Cancer (cancer.org).These issues are much more prevalent in our day to day lives because they directly affect us. These issues are not solved and require funding and attention. Things such as climate change, cancer, water sanitation, malnutrition, and overpopulation are issues that affect a large number of people; they can result in tragedy and without a really big effort to solve these problems they will escalate exponentially. These problems need to be addressed before we spend time and money on anything other than them.
With all that being said, NASA shouldn’t become obsolete. Exploring is part of human nature. Our curious minds are what in the past has lead us to groundbreaking discoveries that change the way we live. All I am saying is that before we can focus so much attention, money, and time on exploring outer space, earthbound issues need to be solved. As NASA’s website states, it is important to explore so that we continue “our self-preservation as a creative, as opposed to a stagnating, society” (Dick). I think learning and growing for mankind is very important, and I think outer space holds lots of questions that allow curiosity and allow our minds to grow. However, there needs to be limitations. As Jerry Degroot, author of The Telegraph article, “The Space Race is a Pointless Waste of Money”, argues that “obscenely expensive manned missions mean that practical, earth-based science suffers, as does the genuinely valuable satellite research so essential to the way we live today.” To me, it is ridiculous to allow billions of government dollars go to a single organization. There are nearly 100 current missions lead by NASA. All of those missions require funding.
NASA need to prioritize, limit themselves to the missions they decide are most important and decrease their governmental funding. They could create a panel, to vote on missions they think would most benefit humankind, and then we can use the money that NASA doesn’t on more prevalent issues on earth. The panel could be comprised of all different types of people; NASA scientists, politicians, doctors, teachers, etc. Its important to get a broad range of types of people so that they can decide what missions are most relevant and deserve the most attention in an unbiased way. NASA’s benefits are stellar, however, they just need to prioritize; to pay the bills before they buy the mini-vac.
Works Cited
Dick, Steven J. "NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration." NASA. NASA.com, 22 Nov. 2007. Web. 03 Oct. 2012. <http://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/Why_We_01pt1.html>.
Fox News. "Wasteful NASA Constellation Spending." Fox News. FOX News Network, n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2012. <http://www.foxnews.com/topics/wasteful-nasa-constellation-spending.htm>.
The Huffington Post UK. "Nasa Mars Landing: Curiosity Rover Touches Down On Red Planet (PICTURES)." Huffingtonpost.co.uk. The Huffington Post, 06 Aug. 2012. Web. 12 Sept. 2012.<http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/08/06/nasa-mars-landing-curiosi_n_1745718.html>.
Kalser, Tiffany. "NASA Voyager 2 Space Mission Turns 35." Dailytech.com. The Daily Tech, 21 Aug. 2012. Web. 12 Sept. 2012.<http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=25470>.
Degroot, Jerry. "The Space Race Is a Pointless Waste of Money." Telegraph.co.uk. The Telegraph, 25 Feb. 2009. Web. 12 Sept. 2012. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/4807506/The-space-race-is-a-pointless-waste-of-money.html>.
