Here is another article, courtesy of the Christian Research Institute’s Twitter feed. (I am a glutton for punishment)

Scientists at Children’s Hospital in Oakland, California, are discovering a potential cure for leukemia and sickle-cell disease. How? By using blood stem cells from the placentas of women who have had Caesarian deliveries.

But researchers at the hospital are frustrated. State agencies have made multi-million-dollar grants available for embryo-destructive research, but money is scarce for its ethically sound counterpart, adult stem cell research.

Really? Not according to CNN. Please provide evidence that embryonic stem cells are ethically unsound.

In the Contra Costa Times, lead Children’s Hospital researcher Frans Kuypers says, “No one has been cured by an embryonic stem cell. We are able to cure folks with [adult] stem cells.”

Normally I don’t dive into ad hominem attacks, but this is pure insanity and betrays either a misunderstanding of the differences and similarities between adult and embryonic stem cells or a deliberate deception. Allow me, a complete layman when it comes to stem cells, to explain:

There are two classes of stem cells: multipotent and pluripotent. Pluripotent stem cells can give rise to any type of cell in the body except those needed to support and develop a fetus in the womb. Multipotent stem cells can give rise to a limited number of different types of cells.
Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent. Adult stem cells are multipotent. What this means is that while adult stem cell X may only be able to give rise to blood cells, an embryonic stem cell can give rise to blood and any other type of cell.

Adult stem cells have been being used for over four decades to cure disease in the form of bone marrow transplants. So of course people have been cured with adult stem cells. They’ve been researched for far longer than embryonic stem cells.

Embryonic stem cells have vastly more potential than adult-derived stem cells because they are pluripotent. What has been done for adult derived stem cells could potentially be done for embryonic stem cells, but on a much larger scale. Unfortunately, scientists have only been researching embryonic stem cells since 1998, all under heavy legal restrictions. Comparing the gains made by adult stem cells to the gains made by embryonic stem cells is akin to comparing the advanced problem-solving abilities of a two year old to that of a thirty year old.

 So why isn’t adult stem cell research receiving more funding? Josephine Quintavalle, director of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, says “What you get from [the adult stem cell] approach is a patient-specific cure. There’s no middleman . . . and there’s no drug company that’s going to get rich as a result of it.”

Why would a treatment with embryonic stem cells be less “patient-specific” than treatment with adult stem cells? Can the author provide evidence of the lack of funding of adult stem cell research as I have provided evidence showing that adult stem cell research received lots of funding?

If by “middleman” he means the companies who currently own the stem cell lines, then opening up embryonic stem cell research funding would eliminate or reduce this middleman, as those companies who have grandfathered in stem cell lines from before federal funding was banned would no longer be the sole holders of stem cell lines, as other companies could receive funding to develop new lines.

As far as the “get rich” comment… if no one has been cured using embryonic stem cells, how can a company “get rich” from them?

But, she explains, a lot of the pressure for stem-cell research is to find products that they can sell, as opposed to a treatment they can do to cure you.

Evidence please.  So what the author is saying is that embryonic stem cells don’t cure people and aren’t patient-specific, but drug companies think they can get rich off of them by marketing a product that sells rather than cures, due (in part) to this mysterious middleman. Got it. Provide evidence for this assertion.

Quintavalle is just one of many experts from both sides of the debate interviewed in the new documentary, Lines that Divide, produced by the Center for Bioethics and Culture. http://www.cbc-network.org/

Ah ha! Here is one point of this article – buy or see this documentary. I’ve e-mailed them and asked for a review copy.

In the documentary you’ll hear first-hand testimonies from people whose lives have been saved through adult stem cell research. Like Barry Goudy, who suffered with multiple sclerosis. Since undergoing adult stem cell replacement therapy, he’s been free from MS for five years.

“adult stem cell replacement therapy” – AKA a bone marrow transplant – has been conducted in uncontrolled trials for people with MS. No controlled trials have been completed, though there are some underway. Here is how it works: MS is an autoimmune disease in which an individual’s immune system attacks the myelin sheath surrounding their nerves. This causes symptoms as nerves do not function properly when the myelin is destroyed or damaged. Bone marrow is extracted from a participant with MS. The participant’s immune system is destroyed with chemotherapy. Then, the participant’s own bone marrow cells are put back in, effectively letting the participant with MS grow a new immune system. There is no proof that it works.

They reboot your immune system,” he explains. “I live a normal life. I coach hockey, I play racquetball, I golf.” Without the adult stem cell transplant, Goudy would probably be in a wheelchair.

The plural of anecdote is anecdotes, not data (Thanks quackcast). Also, it really annoys me when writers say things like, “if X did not happen, he’d be in a wheelchair’. Being in a wheelchair is better than being stuck in bed without a wheelchair.

Twenty-two-year-old Corrina Archuleta also shares her dramatic recovery from a flesh-eating auto-immune disorder. Her family was making her funeral arrangements before adult stem cell therapy saved her life.

So… she had a bone marrow transplant? I wonder why the authors don’t mention that bone marrow transplants can cure leukemia and other autoimmune disorders. A blood marrow transplant is a transplant of stem cells. Why don’t the authors of this article or the writers of this documentary call it a “bone marrow transplant”? Most people understand what that is. My guess is that if they stop calling it “bone marrow transplant” and call it “adult stem cell transplants” then they can politicize it.

The film also covers why even traditionally pro-choice advocates are speaking out against embryo-destructive stem cell research. In order to extract enough eggs for embryonic stem cell research, a woman’s ovaries are hyper-stimulated so that she will produce a dozen or more eggs at a time.

But doctors know that ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome and the drugs themselves have caused blood clotting, stroke, and even death. The former chief medical officer of the FDA warms that potential egg donors “need to be aware that this is not a procedure that is without risk.” Even the risk of death.

Bone marrow transplants are not without risk, either.

The vast majority of embryonic stem cells are leftovers from thousands of unused embryos from in vitro fertilization clinics. A simple solution to this problem might be to limit the ability of women to donate eggs to a stem cell clinic unless they are part of a fertility procedure. This is not an argument against stem cell research but an argument against fertility procedures.

That’s not what you are seeing in the media. What you do see, however, are celebrities and politicians gushing over the potential for embryo-destructive stem cell research. Even while lives are being saved today by adult stem cell therapy.

Well yes, because embryonic stem cell research does have lots of potential, whereas the potential of adult stem cells has been realized (at least in part) for 40+ years.

We need to be informed in order to help shape the public debate-and encourage our leaders to fund proven, morally unproblematic adult stem cell research.

That’s why I urge you to get a hold of the film Lines that Divide.

Wait, what was that about profits? I don’t want scientists to research procedures that have already been proven effective. I want research to fund potentially effective treatments using science-based methodology.

The other day I received a comment from Pastor Moody, the pastor at Holy Cross Deaf Lutheran Church. We infiltrated this church several months ago, and our encounter can be found here. 

So apparently we’ve been counter-infiltrated – a pastor from a church we infiltrated has infiltrated back! We’re having quite an interesting conversation there in the comments of the original faith infiltration now. We think this is pretty cool. Pastor Moody’s comment was:

I want to thank you again for visiting Holy Cross Deaf. I encourage you to keep on visiting Christian Churches because I believe that gives the power of God’s Word more opportunities to bring His grace and forgiveness into your hearts.

Like I said in my sermon on Easter Sunday, using the three of you as examples of all of us in our dead (without faith in Christ) condition, that God greatly loved us all and sent His Son to save us all. In Baptism God crucified us with Christ, we died with Him; we were buried with Him and He rose us with Him so we can live His life now and forever. We can, as the Bible says, be the walking dead (whitewashed tombs)or have Christ’s empty tomb as ours.

I mentioned you in the Sermon since one post mentioned that I could not pray for something (President Obama to understand that life begins at conception) unless it was mentioned other places in the Service. I pray for a lot of things without mentioning them other places including prayers now for you three by name. I have encouraged our members to do that also and will be contacting other Church that you have infiltrated to ask them to also pray for you.

An aside about the “simple” language used in our services… Deaf people have no Passive Voice in their language or thinking process. So we speak/sign everything is in the Active Voice. It makes the English sound simpler but it is just clearer and more easily understood by all.

God does love you. There are no atheists after death. I just hope you realize His love for you before that day comes. That is my prayer for you.

If you ever want to talk about anything, let me know.

Pastor Moody

 I responded that Flimsy didn’t really mean that Pastor Moody couldn’t pray for something he hadn’t already mentioned in the service – Flimsy just thought it was a little unexpected, and I think the language he used might have led to a slight misunderstanding.

The “no atheists after death’ comment is interesting. By this I take that to mean that there are no atheists after death because P. Moody believes we’ll all stand in front of the Christian god on judgment day.  I suppose that since I see no evidence that our consciousness continues after death, I can conclude we’re all atheists after death – none of us are theists after death, after all – as there is no neuronal activity in which to give us any thoughts. But, that’s just an aside.

It’s interesting that we’ve been used in sermon(s?), and I am not entirely sure how I feel about that. I am inclined to say since I visit churches and write about my experiences on a blog that can be viewed by the entire world, its only fair that said churches be able to speak or write about their experiences with me.

For those of you just joining us, nearly every week, Flimsy and I go to a church. We’ve been to about 17 churches so far, and have blogged about each one of them. We usually blog about our general opinions of the church structure and members and have something to say about the sermon. This week, our friend The Alien joined us. She blogged about her experience at the church too, so go check it out if you get time.

We went to Holy Cross Deaf Lutheran Church. This church, as you might guess, is for people who are Deaf. I feel like I need to point out that Deaf culture is alive and vibrant, and does not automatically include people who are deaf or exclude people who are hearing. It is an individual’s sense of belonging to the Deaf community that makes them part of it, hearing or not. I know very little ASL, and the Alien knows more, but since I am an occupational therapy student and work in a lab located within an independent living center, I am around people who are Deaf fairly often.

At this church, the pastor is hearing and speaks English, while translating his words into American Sign Language (ASL), or having someone else translate into ASL. When members of the congregation spoke or signed, it was re-signed or translated. Some people introduced themselves by signing to us, and we were able to communicate with each other fairly well.

Since sound is not a particularly important aspect of this church, there were moments of silence that seemed a little awkward to me, such as when the choir was first preparing for song. The choir songs consisted of a recorded hymn, and instead of singing the hymn, the choir members and pastor signed the hymn in unison, while the members of the congregation signed back.  During times when the pastor spoke and a response was expected, most people signed a response.

The sermon was honestly rather plain and somewhat simplified. The speaker asked members of the congregation to tell him some of their favorite Bible verses, and told everyone that sometimes we don’t know what to do when it is time to make decisions in our lives, but that was okay and Jesus loved you. The Bible verses in turn were translated into a simpler English, which may have seemed a little odd, but there is good reason for it – If you’re Deaf, it’s much harder to learn a phonetic language than if you are hearing.

Bible verses translated into ASL take much longer to translate than to just speak them, so one can imagine that if a typical church has one interpreter for people who communicate via ASL, it is very hard to translate, and much text will get left out. The service moved slow for us, but was probably at the perfect pace for them.

Here’s a little surprise for everyone; the church records their entire service every week and broadcasts it over the internet. If you want to see the entire service, go to their website and click “church” just to the left of “Feb 22″ under “2009 Archive”.

Near the end of the service, the pastor informed the congregation that there were two groups of visitors -  The Alien, Flimsy and myself were one group, and a family with mother, father and son were the other group. The pastor had the family stand up, and they signed their names and where they were from. then, the pastor had us stand up, and we told them that we didn’t know much ASL, but that we went to different churches every week. While this occurred, the cameras were pointed right at us. If you’d like to do some stalking, this is a prime opportunity to see us caught in the act of faith infiltration.

*Flimsy
As Ziztur said, the service was very simplified.  Really only two things caught my attention.  One was the closing prayer, during which the Pastor prayed that God would open President Obama’s eyes to the fact that life begins at conception.  It’s not unexpected to hear that abortion is important enough to the church to mention in prayer even when it’s not mentioned in the service at all, but it would have been nice to hear some kind of reasoning behind this conclusion.  Without making this a huge post about abortion, I’ll just briefly say that I’ve never heard a pro-choice argument that insisted that a fertilized embryo was not alive.

The second thing that caught my attention was the children’s dedication (this was toward the very end of the service, in case anyone out there wants to see it in the video we mentioned).  This consisted of the children in the congregation moving up to the front and the pastor telling them individually, one-on-one about Jesus.  Honestly, this creeped me out.  The pastor would grasp each child gently by their chin or hair, perform a cross motion on their face, and speak directly into their faces about Jesus.  Some of these children were no more than a year or two old.  Ah, indoctrination.

The only other interesting aspect of the service was a rampaging, piss-steaming ball of energy that looked alot like a red-headed little toddler.  He seemed a bit like a crazed howler monkey on speed and viagra.  A man who seemed to be the boy’s father failed quite thoroughly, never attempted to reign him in as he bounced all over in the pews, talking and laughing loudly.  A woman (girl?) who looked like she was fifteen (if that) acted like the boy’s mother, though despite her actual efforts to get the boy to be quiet, failed as well.  Eventually, the pastor took the boy aside during a song and talked to him.  Unfortunately, the kid quieted down a bit after that.  He had been quite amusing.

Okay. I am an Occupational Therapy student. I am beyond passionate about the rights of people with disabilities to be able to have the same quality of life as anyone else. I absolutely think that people with and without disabilities have the right to bear arms, and think that a gun designed to be easier for people with limited hand function is an awesome idea. Everyone (who is of legal age, who is not restricted from gun use or ownership for other reasons such as felony charges) should be able to own and shoot a gun if they so desire, and one day I am totally taking my friend Mike to the shooting range and rigging up my own S&W 9mm Sigma so he can fire it with a switch when I can visit Tampa.

But a company in New Jersey has created a gun that is easier to use by people with disabilities and has sought FDA approval for the gun as a medical device. The FDA rejected the product. Media and bloggers were in an uproar over this, believing that the company wanted medicare to fund the device. This is a massive, absurd non-sequitur

Classification of any device as a medical device does not mean medicare will pay for it and does not mean that doctors can prescribe it. Medicare won’t even cover wheelchairs for people with disabilities unless it can be proven that the wheelchair is necessary for use inside the home. If an OT writes a letter of medical necessity dictating that an individual with, say, a spinal cord injury, needs a wheelchair for community mobility or to be able to perform job duties, medicare does not care, and such a letter will be rejected. Medicare will only fund medical devices if they will keep a person from developing a health problem that is more costly to care for than the device itself. If you have a disability but can use the walls of your house or an office chair to get from your bed to the bathroom or kitchen but can’t leave the house because the distance is too far for you to walk to your car, Medicare does not care. You don’t need the wheelchair inside your home, so they won’t pay for it.

Medicare flat out doesn’t cover things like tub transfer benches, grab rails, reachers, sock aids or any other daily living aid whatsoever. As far as medical devices go, they cover these:

• power wheelchairs
• some positioning devices
• walkers, rollators
• scooters
• seat-lift mechanisms for lift-chairs
• artificial limbs
• orthotics, splints

Does “handgun” fit under any of these categories in any way? Nope. Does the company want their handgun funded by Medicare and available via prescription? Sources I can find are a little unclear on that. Is it possible that Medicare “might” approve of funding for this device? Not a chance. The whole story is misplaced sensationalism at best and outright falsehoods based on misunderstanding Medicare policies and kneejerk reactions at worst. It gives people an outlet to say, “holy crap this is crazy!” Yes it is. It’s also not true.

I know that news headlines like “Medicare may prescribe guns for seniors!” sells newspapers and grabs people’s attention but please: truth before headlines, people.

Flimsy and I should absolutely perform a Faith Infiltration on this church:

The Madonna of Orgasm Church (Orgasmens Madonnas kyrka) took an important step toward official recognition in Sweden last week when a court ruled it had the right to be registered as a faith community.

Originally, the Legal, Financial and Administrative Services Agency (Kammarkollegiet) had refused the church’s registration application on the grounds that its name may offend Christians.

But the church’s founder, artist Carlos Bebeacua from Lövestad in southern Sweden, won his appeal to the county administrative court.

If the agency does not appeal the court’s decision within three weeks, then it must process Bebeacua’s application to register the church, which he founded in the early 1990s.

According to the Skånska Dagbladet newspaper, the idea for the church came to Bebeacua, who is the church’s self-appointed cardinal, after a painting of his entitled ‘The Madonna of Orgasm’ sparked protests requiring police action during the 1992 World’s Fair in Seville, Spain.

“The orgasm is God, the orgasm should be worshiped,” Bebeacua told the Kvällsposten newspaper.

“The orgasm is the ultimate feeling of lust, it shouldn’t be limited to ejaculation. You can reach it through art or by looking at a landscape and thinking ‘Wow!’”

According to Bebeacua, the church has a few hundred followers, and he hopes that registering the Madonna of Orgasm Church will get more people to consider the orgasm as God.

The church only has priestesses and its scriptures are called the Catechism of the Orgasm. The only gospel peached is the gospel of sex.

“It’s so we do what we know is right and good,” Bebeacua told Kvällsposten.

During ceremonies, the priestesses read verses and eat fruit and drink juice. Sex isn’t the focus, but it’s not forbidden either.

“It’s never happened. I don’t know how we’d react if it happened,” said Bebeacua.

He deflects allegations that his church is all about orgies and sex, claiming its purpose is to help people see orgasms as a metaphor for a love of life.

“There’s nothing dangerous in what we say, we’re harmless. It’s just that we have our doubts about established religions,” he told the TT news agency

 Obviously I don’t think the orgasm is god, but I like that this church recognizes the fundamental spirituality of sex.

I know a few people in this world who think they are somehow “above” sex. They think that sex is some kind of animalistic instinct they have risen up above, and so they are better people for not wanting or needing or partaking in sex. I’m not making a blanket statement about people who are Asexual, I completely understand asexuality – someone who does not experience sexual attraction or desire for sex – but I do not understand explaining or justifying asexuality in terms of having risen above or being too good for sex. If you don’t like sex, that’s perfectly fine, and I totally get it. My friend The Alien is Asexual, and I find myself defending her all the time – I don’t get why people care so much that she doesn’t want sex. Pretending you’ve evolved above sex, and thinking that you are better than the sexual people around you because you don’t need sex – I don’t get that.

Sexuality, to me, is fundamentally spiritual. It’s also an expression of ubuntu. I know sex may seem like a basic instinctual function, and they may think that rising above one’s own instincts is a way to be a more evolved person, but I think that recognizing that sex is instinctual and thus embracing it as part of being human is being much more true to oneself. I’m not talking about raping and being unsafe, I am talking about accepting one’s own innate sexual drives as being healthy.  Obviously, there is a point when sexual drives can be unhealthy – say, if you endanger yourself or infringe upon the rights of others. Sexual instincts themselves are not unhealthy. They don’t prevent people from attaining spiritual fulfillment or enlightenment. On the contrary, I think healthy sex can be used to obtain spiritual fulfillment.

Sex to me is more about trust and intensity of knowing than anything else. It is about letting go of walls and fears. Of course, it’s also about pleasure – being able to pleasure someone else, having someone else give you pleasure, and experiencing mutual pleasure.

Our society, especially the religious half of it, has this idea that denying yourself pleasure is somehow a good thing. Do religious people really think they can know god intimately without knowing another human intimately first? To me, it seems like breaking down the walls between other human beings is the first step in breaking down the walls between yourself and some universal transcendent entity.

In addition to the population of people who think they have risen above sex, there is a population of people who society somehow thinks are below sex. Why is it that society thinks people with disabilities are somehow innately asexual or that they don’t need or want sex? Why is it that able-bodied society thinks people with disabilities are “being exploited” when they engage in sex or internet pornography? It absolutely blows my mind that I even have to bring this up – people with disabilities are people, and as such they have the same sexual drive as anyone else. If you think people with disabilities don’t desire sex and are incapable of making their own descitions with regard to sex, that says a lot more about your perception of people with disabilities than it says about the people themselves.

Spirituality is arguably an essential component to the daily lives of human beings, and it is one of the things that separate the human animal from other kinds of animals. Spirituality can be very loosely defined as a personal search for transcendent understanding (Yuen, 2007), where transcendent means beyond the world, beyond human understanding, or beyond the self. It is the essential search and understanding of and for meaning and purpose in ones life through relationships with entities outside the self (McColl 2000), and the search for meaning and purpose of the individual. Spirituality was defined by Johnstone (2006) as an internal experience of cultivation motivated by interest in experience of meaning, purpose and significance.

Individuals with traumatic chronic disabling conditions (such as a stroke, spinal cord injury, etc) are thrust into unanticipated life-changing events. Traumatic disability is a unique experience which brings forth a unique dimension to spirituality. Five themes of spirituality and disability according to McColl (2000) are: Awareness and appreciation, closeness and intimacy, trust as related to the need to depend on others, purpose and life and purpose of the injury itself, and vulnerability and awareness of one’s own mortality. Many people with chronic disabling conditions report changes in their sense of spirituality after the onset of their disability.

While a sense of spirituality can and does exist without religion and the supernatural, religion is inseparable from spirituality. Polls and surveys consistently show that most people (89%) indicate that religion is fairly or very important in their lives (Johnstone, 2006). As such, an understanding of the ways religion can influence one’s sense of spirituality must be taken into account in general, but especially in the light of disability. There are many studies indicating that people who are religious have better mental health, greater social support, and less substance abuse (Johnstone, 2006). This is largely related to the social support network associated with religious practice. As such, if an individual is already religious, the social support network they have built up around their religious community may be able to help them cope with their disabling condition.

As individuals try to make sense of their own disabling conditions, they often question not only their own purpose after acquiring a disability, but the purpose of the disability itself. Virtually all people with chronic disabilities use some type of spiritual coping method. (Matheis, 2006). In this study, of 75 participants who were interviewed by telephone, quality of life was highest among participants who used a more secular spiritual coping rather than a religious spiritual coping.

Because spirituality is so essential in the coping and adjusting process for people with disabilities, it is important for those in the healthcare field to recognize the spiritual changes and spiritual issues that an individual may have. Disability raises many questions about order and purpose in the universe, reminding individuals that they are not in control, and challenging concepts about higher powers. Disability may cause spiritual issues to go unaddressed because disability often removes people from their social support systems and other resources for dealing with spiritual crises. (Ross, 1995). At the same time, disability can open up an individual’s life to meditation and new kinds of relationships with others. (Young, 1993)

It is important to note that while at times it is hard to separate spirituality from religion and belief in the supernatural, the two are not intrinsically connected. While a healthcare practitioner (such as an occupational therapist) might feel that a devoutly religious individuals needs might be best met by clergy or religious figures, he or she may be in the best position to meet the spiritual needs of the non-religious. People without religion such as atheists, agnostics and humanists have an equally deep need for meaning and purpose in their lives. (Kier, 2004). They may have similar sets of unanswered questions regarding spirituality. The fact that atheists and agnostics have been shown to have unaddressed spiritual needs in the healthcare field points to the fact that spiritual needs are universal in the human animal, and traumatic disabling conditions almost universally causes questions regarding spirituality to arise, and new ideas about spirituality to be formulated.

References:

Johnstone, B., Glass, B., Oliver, R. Religion and disability: Clinical, research and training considerations for rehabilitation professionals. Disability and Rehabilitation (2006) 29(15) 1153-1163

Kier, F. Unaddressed Problems in the Study of Spirituality and Health. American Psychologist (2004) 53-54

Matheis, R., Tulsky, D., Matheis, R. The Relation Between Spirituality and Quality of Life Among Individuals With Spinal Cord Injury. Rehabilitation Psychology (2006) 51:265-271

McColl, M., Bickenbach, J., Johnston, J., Nishihama, S., Schumaker, M., Smith, K., Smitsh, M., Yealland, B. Changes in Spiritual Beliefs After Traumatic Disability. Arch Phys Med Rehabil (2000) 81:817-23

Ross L. The spiritual dimension: its importance to patients’ health, well-being and quality of life and its implications for nursing practice. bit J N&s Stud 1995;32:457-68.

Young C. Spirituality and the chronically ill Christian elderly. Geriatr Nurs 1993; 14:298-303.

Yuen, E. Spirituality, Religion and Health. American Journal of Medical Quality (2007) 22:77