By Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor Santa Fe Sun News first published as a blog as mybarackobama.com Aug 23rd, 2008 at 10:07 pm EDT Dr. Howard Dean III may have higher goals than being Health Secretary or FDA Commissioner in the Obama Administration.
He is, after all, the brains behind the 50 state coordinated strategy which might actually bring back a 60 vote filibuster proof majority to the Democrats in the Senate, and where do you go from there, having done that? He might be too smart to be in such a job; that would be up to him, of course, and to Obama.
But just for a minute, remembering the speeches we have heard and the letters we have read from Dr. Dean: imagine having a populist consumer protectionist physician of Dr. Dean's calibre (there are no others) at the helm of the FDA, the single most important Federal Agency, since it directly oversees 25% of the American economy, instead of the glut of corporate serving lackeys we have had in the past 8 to 16 years.
Just like I want to see a major internationalist like Bill Richardson as Secretary of State, and the recent placement of his speech at the Democratic Convention proves others are thinking along the same lines; similarly, I want to see a massive overhaul of the American regulatory system in terms of food additives, chemicals, preservatives, sweeteners, etc., as I am sure they killing millions, and not just in the USA. Similarly. an Attorney General with the positive record and proven stance in protecting consumers rather than corporate bottom lines would be California Attorney General Jerry Brown.
I am in the process of determing what Dr. Dean has to say about this, and hopefully, it wouldn't be a step down for him to go in to the FDA in January, and correct many or all of the ghastly mistakes by the FDA, particulalry the Bush Commissioner, Dr. Andrew Von Eschenbach, in the latter's penchant for coming up with corporate-pleasantries as policy. If it doesn't appeal to Dr. Dean to do this, who would he in turn recommend?
The FDA is a state of abject failure, and a large part of the failure stems from the cozy relations it has with Big Pharma, which unforatunately spills over into the far larger field of Big Grocery, with ghastly consequences for us every time we sit down to eat, or everytime we go to a regular commercial grocery store, to dodge the carcinogens and neurotoxins in the food additives. The fundamental perspective has to be overhauled in the next FDA: it is there for the consumers, not for the coporations.
There are not many people I would trust to put in charge of overseeing and regulating 25% of the US economy, but I do trust Dr. Howard Dean to do that.
IN FACT, HE WOULD BE BRILLIANT.
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THE ENTIRE INTERFACE BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND STEM CELL TECHNOLOGY AND RESEARCH IS ABOUT TO CHANGE, FOR THE BETTER...
Japanese scientists have devised a method of creating stem cells from wisdom teeth which would otherwise have been discarded, allowing them to find cures to diseases without the controversy implicit in using embryos.
"This will prove to be a major breakthrough," said Dr Hajime Ogushi, from his Osaka laboratory of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology.
His team extracted dental pulp from wisdom teeth removed from a 10-year-old girl three years ago and had been stored in a freezer, and from that pulp, stem cells with the ability to develop into replacement human organs or nerves can be grown. Research on stem cells taken from human foetuses has resulted in criticism from the Catholic Church, for destroying human life. The research seeks cures to a range of illnesses, including diabetes and cancer.
"These teeth were extracted three years ago and would have simply been thrown in the rubbish," said. Dr Ogushi. "Skin or bone marrow for this sort of research is quite difficult to obtain but this sort of operation is routine and very straightforward." The cells were extracted from the wisdom teeth and encouraged to develop for a period of 35 days. Tests then confirmed they were stem cells.
Dr Oguchi said it was also simple to store the cells; he therefore plans to develop a tissue bank - as long as the funding is forthcoming, estimating that will take a decade to achieve, and give future scientists a range of genetic codes that can be matched to a patient to minimise the risk of transplanted organs of tissue being rejected.
Dr Ogushi said that people who have their wisdom teeth removed as youngsters could have them frozen and use them later in life for treatment.
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Embryome Sciences develops new medical products using embryonic stem cell technology and is a subsidiary of BioTime Inc., reported on 21 August that the company has licensed a portfolio of patents and patent applications from Advanced Cell Technology Inc with respect to induced pluripotent stem cells and embryonic stem cell differentiation technology.
The company is applying the license for the commercialisation of products in human therapeutic and diagnostic product markets. The technology covers methods for the transformation of cells of the human body, such as skin cells, into an embryonic and pluripotent state. Embryome Sciences Inc believes that the licensed technologies could be advantageous in the development of human stem cell products for use in medicine and are, therefore, important advancements in the field. In addition, Embryome Sciences Inc is presently marketing cell growth media, called ESpan, in collaboration with Lifeline. ESpan is designed for the culturing of human embryonic progenitor cells using ACTCellerate technology and other sub licensed technologies.
Red Blood Cells Providing New Incentives for Advanced Cell Technology
Could red blood cells be mass-produced? Advanced Cell Technology (ACTC) is a Los Angeles, California-based company devoted to turning human embryonic stem cells into therapies.
On 19 August, the journal Blood published a paper reporting the efficient production of red blood cells from human embryonic stem cells. Lead author was Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer at ACT (his co-authors are from the University of Illinois, Chicago, and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota).
Up to 100 billion cells had been generated from a single plate of stem cells. The cells produced had oxygen-carrying abilities and physiological responses comparable to those of the cells from blood banks used in transfusions.
Advanced Cell Technology has 3 major products in the FDA Clinical Trials Pipleline: one to do with retinal repair, another with myoblast repair, after a heart attack, and the other is a hepatic (liver) repair stem cell product.
This recent development seems to add a major and obvious 4th feather to their hat....
The paper "clearly shows that stem cells could serve as an unlimited source of blood for transfusion in the future," Lanza says. "The potential here could be enormous."
"This is a major advance because it shows for the first time that these cells can be expanded; they can create [red] blood cells and they can carry oxygen," says Anthony Atala, the director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. "Blood therapies and blood replacement agents are an area of large need."
While the company searches for a big deal to stabilize it financially, Lanza says, "We are still going paycheck to paycheck." That's a familiar feeling for veterans of the 14-year-old company, he notes. "It's probably the fifth or sixth time we've had the phones turned off. When you get in trouble, that's your first warning." Although ACTC has in the FDA Clinical Trials pipeline stem cell products in three key areas, Advanced Cell Technology has been living precariously on signing smaller licensing deals.
On 21 August, the life-sciences research company Embryome Sciences, a subsidiary of BioTime, announced a licensing agreement with ACT. Embryome, based in Alameda, California, has licensed a portfolio of patents related to virus-free induced pluripotent stem cells and embryonic stem cell differentiation technology. Although key technical hurdles remain to moving ACT's red blood cell method to the clinic, there are also questions about the commercial prospects for a product that would have to compete with freely donated blood.
"It's certainly a very exciting result from a scientific perspective," says Cathy Prescott, the director of Biolatris, a biotechnology and health-care consulting company in Cambridge, UK. Thanks to the Telegraph, the London newspaper; to Medical News today (UK), and Dr. Catherine Paddock, to Embryome Press release, and to Meredith Wadman's article in Naturenews.
