Frist Breaks Away From Bush

[Deleted]

Intersting development. Frist now supporting increased stem cell funding legislation.

www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/29/frist.stem.cells.ap/index.html

Interesting on a few levels. During the election, the Republicans play up a very moderate stance. Trotting out Arnold and Rudy at the convention to wit. Of course, the administration's actons once elected are anything but moderate (playing more to groups much further to the right), alienating many moderate Republicans I know, and many more I read about.

With this move, I think Frist all but kills his chances at being the next Presidential nominee for the GOP - assuming he wanted it to begin with. It'd be tough to square this with the far right base of the party that has essentially won the election for Bush both times.

[EasyEd]

Frist has just said he wants to spend my tax money to fund a practice that I consider to be murder. If the research is so damned important people will be falling over themselves to fund it and to reap the financial rewards of this abominable practice of taking a human life. The issue in this case is not whether the practice is or is not okay but the use of my tax money to fund it. Let the Mengeles of the world fund it or have the numerous advocacy groups fund it, not me.

[tgo]

ed said:

If the research is so damned important people will be falling over themselves to fund it and to reap the financial rewards.

no greater fact has ever been posted.

why does the govt need a role if this is as popular and as much of a slam dunk as everyone says? why is it that if so many people love PBS that those that dont have to be forced to pay for it? There are plenty of things the Government HAS to do for the people, maybe it would be better at those if it focused on that instead of constantly finding new things it can do.

[nychoya3]

Funding medical research isn't a new thing. The NIH and other federal funds have been involved in this for years and have generated countless medical advances that were eventually coopted into drugs and treatments by pharmaceuticals. I respect you devotion to market forces, and that's often a good way to go, but a real understanding of how the market works has to include things like public goods and other little "quirks" that prevent funds from being dispersed in a way that maximizes public good.

Embryonic stem cells aren't a slam dunk, but rather a long and drawn out research initiative that will hopefully pay incredible dividends down the line. It's exactly the sort of thing that the market is scared of. Would you invest 10 billion in possibly developing workable treatments from stem cells, knowing that you competitors will probably end up with a free ride from your hard work? Corporations pay attention to their private interests (as they should), while goverment can take a longer, big picture view.

As for Easyed's formulation, why should my tax dollars go to a war in Iraq that I consider a total screwup that is killing Americans and Iraqi's alike at terrible rates while making me less safe? We don't get to veto every government spending program because someone objects on moral grounds. If we did, the government couldn't involve itself in teaching evolution, sex education beyond abstinence-only, or any number of things that the majority of people like. That's called democracy.

Now, as for Frist, I'm guessing he's trying to seperate himself a little bit from Bush, since the very justified public perception is that he's basically a wholely owned subsidiary of the administration. Since Bush's popularity, well, sucks, and isn't looking likely to get much better come 2008, it pays to put a little distance there. That aside, his ambitions are laughable, considering the utter incompetence with which he runs the senate with a 4 seat majority.

Maybe he's also trying to grab back a little medical respectability after refusing to contradict the possibility that HIV is spread by tears.

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

Ed - I would clearly disagree with you on whether stem cell reasearch is murder. I think that issues of fetus viability, whether the embyos would even be likely to be used for the purposes of creation. However, I don't think that is what is central to your argument - it is rather the fact that your tax dollars (and public money, in general) is funding it.

However, I think that if all of us sat in on an appopriations or ways and means committee you would see your tax dollars going to all kinds of things that you probably don't want to spend money on.

I do not think that the comparisson of current stem cell research to Nazi eugenics experiments is fair at all. Nazi experiments were aimed at racial purity through many means - including death camps and systematic rape - modern science's stem cell research is aimed at saving the lives of those with chronic illnesses, therefore the comparison is invalid. I'm sure I just gave bin a stroke.

[jerseyhoya34]

I think that this discussion is missing a key point. Most Senators are not seeking to conduct this research for its own sake. They are seeking research on embryos that would otherwise be discarded. Is it your position that these embryos should simply be discarded/destroyed rather than serve a possible research/medical benefit for those suffering from dehabilitating disease?

I respect your position because it is based on your personal convicitions, possibly religious, but I am unable to see their application to a situation in which an embryo would be destroyed anyway regardless of the research. I agree with your larger point, however, that this research should not be conducted for its own sake on embryos that may be implanted for fertilization. It makes no sense to move whole hog in that direction, without first conducting research on those embryos that would be destroyed otherwise.

Additionally, many companies were reluctant to pursue treatments with embryonic stem cells because such treatments were less cost effective than your standard one size fits all drugs. Firms were reluctant to enter the market because of some government restrictions. As a result, this area remains untapped and relatively unknown for medical purposes.

While the President wisely allowed research to continue on embryonic stem cell lines that were already used for research purposes, these lines were already contaminated to the degree that their value was minimal.

Out of curiosity, what is your position on the death penalty? Does your viewpoint also apply to human treatment of animals, and should current restrictions on commercial development remain in the Endangered Species Act?

[jerseyhoya34]

nychoya3 said:

Embryonic stem cells aren't a slam dunk, but rather a long and drawn out research initiative that will hopefully pay incredible dividends down the line. It's exactly the sort of thing that the market is scared of. Would you invest 10 billion in possibly developing workable treatments from stem cells, knowing that you competitors will probably end up with a free ride from your hard work? Corporations pay attention to their private interests (as they should), while goverment can take a longer, big picture view.

Maybe he's also trying to grab back a little medical respectability after refusing to contradict the possibility that HIV is spread by tears.

Excellent points here, NYC. It is research for a reason. Nobody quite knows what these stem cells can give us in terms of medical advances, but that fact should not be sufficient to block the research based on the idea that it is not worthwhile if we don't know what we'll have at the end.

Frist's worst moment in his medical career was not the HIV/tears comment, sadly enough, but his stunning misdiagnosis of Terry Schiavo based only on a videotape. That was a sad day for medicine, and the State of TN, I understand, has apparently launched a quasi-review of his medical certification. That said, his speech yesterday (conveniently on a Friday before recess) was one of his better ones as a Majority Leader for the simple reason that he put aside his ever flickering Presidential ambitions and his ongoing panders to the conservative base for the sake of the public good and interest.