Could New Movie Cause Another Big Debate On Stem Cell Research? SPOILERS

[InfoMinister]

Ok, if you don't want the movie spoiled don't read anymore. It's about a new movie called The Island. In a review I just read a plot point was given away about the film.

"Well, he conveniently gets past an unguarded ladder and when he follows it up, boom! he's smack dab in the middle of the government labs where they are all being hidden (the clones). It is here where we see that the latest person chosen (Michael Clark Duncan's character) is actually being harvested for his organs. You see, he is the insurance policy for a famous football player in the real world that got badly banged up."

- http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=20661

It got some pretty good reviews but I'm afriad that now I'm going to have to convince my friends that stem cell research isn't going to be used that way or maybe laws need to be passed so things like this don't happen in the future. From what I understood reading some info on stem cell research they could actually grow organs by themselves without a human body or anything that would have conscious though. Am I right about this?

[Lerkfish]

1. no.

stem cell research has nothing to do with cloning and organ harvesting.

[InfoMinister]

5. Why The Debate About S. Korea

The news claimed they had made breakthroughs in stem cell research and there was discussion about cloning within the same segment as if they were both connected.

[Lerkfish]

6. why does the administration keep linking Iraq to 9/11>?

just because people insist on linking them, doesn't mean its a valid link.

[InfoMinister]

7. Problem Is Everyone Seems To Connect It To Cloning

I've talked with several people about this and even one was a nurse that believed that stem cell research was going to result in a scenario similar to this movie.

[Lerkfish]

9. that's the problem with EVERYTHING these days...

catapulting propaganda results in mistaken perceptions, intentionally.

[CBGLuthier]

2. new movie my ass

That's The Clonus Horror. :-)

[TlalocW]

4. Beat me to it

Now I'm going to have to harvest your organs.

TlalocW

[TlalocW]

3. Sounds like a remake of Parts: The Clonus Horror

A 1979 movie about a compound where clones are grown to be available for spare parts for rich and powerful people in the real world. The clones are kept intellectually stunted and treated like children until one of them begins asking too many questions and escapes to find the man he was cloned from.

Horrible, horrible movie - had Peter Graves as a presidential candidate who used his influence to get his journalist brother cloned - that very same clone was the one who escaped. Made fun of on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

TlalocW

[insane_cratic_gal]

8. It's cloning not stem cells

but sadly you might be right, the distinction will not be made.

here <snip>

Stem cell research is often confused with cloning because both areas involve the use of embryonic cells. The public and the media often equate "cloning" with the manipulation of embryonic cells to produce an organism, and stem cell research was first brought to the spot light when human stem cells were isolated from human "embryonic tissues". Both fields got even more confused when the term therapeutic cloning was introduced as a means to produce embryonic stem cells. But stem cell research does not always involve embryonic stem cells.

While reproductive cloning (the production of a whole new individual from one original cell by cloning technology) and therapeutic cloning (the use of cloning for the isolation of stem cells) both use techniques involving embryos, stem cell research involves the use of several different types of cells besides embryonic stem cells, such as adult stem cells from humans or animals, or stem cells from fetuses, umbilical cord or amniotic fluid.

Thus, a clear line should be drawn between cloning for the production of a cell or organism with the same nuclear genome as another cell or organism and stem cell research, which is based on the isolation of adult and embryonic stem cells in order to find cures for many degenerative diseases.


http://www.isscr.org/science/faq.htm#14a