The radio Program we listened was about a research on Stem Cells which have the capacity of becoming any type of cell and by this, replace any cell in the body that is destroyed.Dr. Hans Keirstead discovered how stem cells can help human beings. He first injected it to paralyzed rats and six months later, they started to move. So he realized the importance of the use of stem cells to treat human diseases. It could help long term paralyzed people, and can cure heart diseases, Diabetes, Alzheimer and every single disease. To treat them, it would be necessary to inject 20 million of these cells into a human body.
Stem cells replace the damaged cells and wrap themselves in the spinal cord, making able for the paralyzed person to walk again.
This process of injecting stem cells to human beings has been very controversial, because it involves the destruction of embryos so it has a strong criticism from the scientific community and also from President Bush who opposes to the killing of embryos because as he says, there is life in those embryos. But another group of people is in favor of the development made with stem cells like the California vote. They wanted to build a laboratory with supplies so that it can improve. Dr. Keirstead said that life must not be thrown away. If we have life, we must use it.
I think that this discovery is very useful because it is a new way of treating diseases and it is very powerful as it can cure everything. It has a grate advantage and there is a great hope for old people. But we must think
that there is also a life in the middle. An embryo, even though it’s not mature, it’s a life, a persons life. It does not mean that because it’s not mature enough to talk it doesn’t have the same right of living as we have.Although it has a lot of advantages, I think that they should keep on investigating and find the way of having the same results without killing embryos.
