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Australia Lifts Cloning Ban

11alive.com — Lawmakers rejected the moral views of their political leaders Wednesday and lifted a four-year ban on cloning human embryos for stem cell research — legislation that could put Australia at the forefront of research into diseases such as diabetes and Alzheimer's.

Who dugg this? Made popular Dec 8, 2006

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  • jackhole, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22It will be interesting to see if a massive flood sends Australia to the bottom of the ocean in the next decade or so, or if all the first born children die.

    I have been lead to believe by credible sources that these are the negative repercussions of stem cell research.
  • treelovinhippie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19Rational thought wins for once!
  • Stuntaneous, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20stem cell research has a lot of potential, its tops to see it come through
  • ZeitMachina, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14>> its tops to see it come through

    Tops for you guys, sucks for the still-backwards US as we'll lose some of our best minds to more free and open societies where such research is permitted.
  • rowanjl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7While its nice to see you think highly of Australia, there is a downside to living here: Telecommunications Monopoly. Our broadband sucks too :(
  • Tenlow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I read the title as "Australia lifts clothing ban" and was really interested to see what the hell was going on down there.

    While it's still really interesting, not what I was hoping to see.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Cloning has no side-effects.
  • javip, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6it was a stupid comment, when was Australia ever ultra-right?
  • RamanujanRedux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5A new age is dawning! The age of the marsupials is at hand!
  • nipuL, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Not really, it was a conscience vote. Meaning party values had no effect on the vote. Both leader of the opposition and the prime minister are opposed to the bill, so under normal circumstances the bill would not have passed.

    Despite this win for the forward thinkers, Australian government is still very much in control of the religious neocons.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I agree, cloning has no side-effects.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4You said 'ultra-right'. Now if you'd said 'ultra-correct', I'd have dug you up.
  • treelovinhippie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Well we do have a lot of nudist beaches here :)
  • Irradiatus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5No negative comments yet? OK, let me pre-empt them by asking a question: Can any of you stem-cell opponents tell us the fundamental difference between an embryonic stem cell and any one of the millions of skin cells you kill every day?

    This is GREAT news. YES, we may be able to eventually use adult stem cell populations. Yes we may be able to derive stem-cell like cells from other adult cells without having to sacrifice embryos. BUT, in order for us to be able to use any of these future therapies we will have to UNDERSTAND what makes a stem cell so pluri-potent. Which means we have to study them. Maybe then we will be able to re-program adult cells into ES-like cells.
  • Agret, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@djlosch
    No way the US has ***** broadband, hell you guys are getting 100mbps connections now.
    The max speed you can get in AU is 20mbps and that's "up to" and has only just been released. Oh yeah, and you have download limits =D I think that the best deal you get for 20mbps is 15gb/month with Internode for like $70/month
  • rowanjl, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Right now we're in a similar state to America with out leaders, only here there are less sheep (we're all super paranoid :P). Everyone hates our leaders, because they're all either Bush lackies or complete pansies unable to stand up for anything, let alone have a stable party leader...

    Javip, you're the one who has no idea what you're talking about.
  • MackPrime, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You're pretty much right. Even though the "conservative" label i used seems to be perfectly applicable to both parties.
  • 2Deluxe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3No, it was a worthless, inaccurate comment.
  • treelovinhippie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yep in Australia the max speed is 1.5mbps in regional areas (even 2 hours out of cities) and the max in cities is 24mbps.

    I'd rate the US technologies as being just a notch below Japan's and we're a couple of notches below the US.

    Which is understandable considering Telstra owns all the phone lines in Aus, and our country has a small spread-out population.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Um...How would you classify Howard? The guy is more conservative then Bush's bush!
  • javip, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3well then.. u must work for a union, or be a low skilled worker supporting the unions to get a free ride

    either that or not be Australian and have no idea what you're talking about
  • Arkitan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I thought it said clothing as well,
  • krinthekuz, on 09/16/2008, -0/+1we dont have 100mbps yet. verizon just started offering 20mbps in select areas. i'm in miami, and i have the best available: 8mbps. only a few select places have download limits though. i have an old 400 mhz comp running bittorrent downloading things all day every day.

    as for gadgets, asia destroys us too. we just started getting phones with 1.3mpx cameras, a few select phones have media players, and almost nothing has wifi. i had to get my motorola a1200 (pim, 2mpx camera, media player, bluetooth) imported from china. meanwhile, asia has apparently had tech like this for quite a few years.

    i want a handheld with a pim, 4mpx camera with 4x optical zoom + flash, a media player that doesnt have a moronic UI, bluetooth, wifi, gps, and isnt vendor locked to *****. my a1200 (a linux phone) mounts in linux, but it only mounts the usd card, not the system memory. the FIC2 will be the closest to this, but wont be out until mid 2k7
  • krinthekuz, on 09/16/2008, -2/+3when i need a new {insert organ here}, i'm going to australia. we have ***** education, ***** broadband, ***** technology. one of the things people come to america for is our medical care. sure, it's not free (or even cheap), but much of it is the best in the world. well... we're about to fall behind on that one too.
  • seaeaglesrule, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Actually, here in Australia it won't be just "fat, rich people who will be able to afford it" benefiting from the research. As we Aussies have a universal health care system (that is, we're all insured by the national insurer - Medicare) & most procedures will probably be covered, any Australian citizen will be able to afford them.
  • tylerjames, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i would say that finding cures or improved treatments for cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, spinal cord injuries, diabetes among a grocery list of other diseases and ailments would go a long way toward "improving people's quality of life", wouldn't you agree?
  • dagonweb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Very nice, this field of science needs massive investments to catch. The mad yankee stance made us lose precious years.
  • TeeSeeJay, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Can any of you stem-cell opponents tell us the fundamental difference between an embryonic stem cell and any one of the millions of skin cells you kill every day?"

    I'm not a stem cell opponent, but I can tell you that the fundamental difference between the two types of cells is that one has the capacity to differentiate into any type of cell/tissue and could, if given the proper stimulus and environment, develop and grow into a human being. The other is a skin cell that's past its prime.

    What are you trying to show with this question? I think a more germane question would be the distinction between a culture of a patient's skin tissue for restorative (grafting) purposes and a blastocyst from the same patient's somatic cells + stem cell + SCNT.
  • Jinxtengu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I’m not against this research however I believe it’s being undertaken for fame and money rather than for genuinely improving lives. Why not find a cure for aids?? because it’s far less lucrative. Even though we have a universal health care system the research can still be sold off to other countries such as the US. Cancer and Alzheimer's are FIRST world diseases; the only reason to develop these treatments is to make money.

    Also, this research won’t benefit people like the aboriginals because it doesn’t solve any of the problems within the society.
  • Jinxtengu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0 There should be more focus on healthy living and proper eating. If we weren’t exposed to so much garbage food, nutrasweet, etc then less people would be getting cancer and related diseases. That is what I meant by “quality of life”. Eating a hamburger a day is not what I consider “quality of life”

    I don’t think it’s fair that people can live unhealthy lifestyles and then get cured, I think those people should die.
  • Irradiatus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The point is that fundamentally, there is no difference, other than that specific genes are turned on or off (whether by repression elements or chromatin modification) in the two cell types.

    A good metaphor is a combination lock. Imagine a lock. With the right combination of numbers it can be opened. With the wrong combination it cannot. However fundamentally the lock is still the same thing. The lock combination can even be reprogrammed.

    This is simply to point out the fact that the ES cell is not somehow fundamentally different from, and thus more sacred than, any other cell.
  • Jinxtengu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I agree that this topic has been debated irrationally. By the conservative reasoning every sperm is sacred since it too has the potential for life.
    Unfortunately the research is all for profit. Who benefits from this research? Fat rich people who will be able to afford it. What about Australia’s indigenous community? This research certainly won’t benefit them.
  • MackPrime, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2seems like the only Conservatives or Neo-Cons are in parliament. I've never met a Howard supporter, and never met anyone who approves of the government's actions.
  • Pandemonium1x, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Glad to see this, I bet as soon as one of these conservative politicians needs the help from step cell research they will be on the first flight down under. Now that somebody else has taken the first step forward, perhaps we Americans will follow suit.
  • Jinxtengu, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Why can't we focus on improving people’s quality of life instead of searching for some unrealistic “miracle cure”
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Great all we need is two Big Kev's, Jeanie Little's, John Howards, John Laws's, Alan Jones's, but I'll have a Nicky Osbourne if there's one to spare.
  • mugenkeiji, on 10/12/2007, -5/+0That is because you are working class, which includes IT. Associate with the wealthy or educated (and by that I do not mean a worthless paper education, such as Arts or Sociology) and you might find more supporters.

    It always makes me smile to see people like you and rowanjl claiming to speak on behalf of Australia. You do not. You speak on behalf of the plebeians, and no more. There is good reason why the business community, the educated, and social elites of Australia have no interest in Labor.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -13/+6So Australia is finally moving away from their ultra right wing stance. First it was the states, now Australia, hopefully Canada is next! Yay for common sense!
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -10/+0Why was i undug? Thats a good comment dammit!
  • sockpuppets, on 10/12/2007, -15/+1Dateline 2029: America celebrates the release of "Clones Gone Wild." Sockpuppets watches it backwards so it appears the clones have learned their lesson.

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