I’m banging the same drum here, but I just came across this headline on the front page of CNN.com:
Obama moves to separate politics, science
So forcing all federal taxpayers to fund even more scientific research that destroys human life isn’t political? This is impartial, fact-based media coverage? Really? Isn’t it funny how this headline matches completely with the political strategy of the Obama White House?
I know the media have struggled to cover President Barack Obama and I keep hoping it will get better but this is getting ridiculous.
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Comments (21) |
March 9, 2009, at 10:36 pm
As with the initial, so-called “ban” so the funding question is also more complicated than headlines or talking points would have it.
Julie Rovner’s article at NPR gives more of the ins and outs of funding and restrictions at state and institution levels. She helpfully points out that the Obama decision permits federal funds for research on existing cell lines, a legislative ban on the use of federal dollars to create new stem cell lines remains in place.
The subtlety here is that while the latter legislative ban bars the destruction of embryos, the former allows for such destruction but without federal funds. Perhaps a case fruit of the poisonous tree, so to speak.
March 9, 2009, at 11:31 pm
Mollie,
That is the headline to http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/09/obama.science/index.html But as the story itself says; President Obama signed two statements today. The second http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Memorandum-for-the-Heads-of-Executive-Departments-and-Agencies-3-9-09/ was specifically directed to putting science ahead of politics in his administration. The story discussed this signing and a number of areas where Bush overruled scientists for political ends.
I do agree that the stem cell issue is not a matter of science versus politics but a conflict of morals and ethical beliefs. So, to that extent, the CNN headline falls short but is not as badly constructed as you indicated here.
March 10, 2009, at 12:01 am
Jerry,
Two things — I have no problem with the media explaining that the Obama administration’s political message is (like the one that Democrats have been using successfully using for years) about separating politics and science.
I have a huge problem with the media making that its own message.
Secondly, in addition to the much-trumpeted embryonic stem cell funding decision, Obama also rescinded a Bush E.O. that explicitly required funding for alternative methods of getting stem cells — methods that don’t destroy human embryos. That’s a huge story that I have seen reported precisely nowhere.
This is the one area where pro-lifers and pro-choicers agree. Quite promising advances have been made in this area in the past year. No one asked for this change in law and President Obama never campaigned on a promise to rescind it.
I have absolutely no idea why he did it, but it hasn’t even been covered. Still, it’s a curious move that doesn’t match the science/politics narrative. Just because Obama didn’t highlight this change in policy doesn’t mean it’s not newsworthy.
March 10, 2009, at 1:40 am
I know the NY Times is a favorite punching bag for some, but in this case where they analyze the science behind stem cell research, they are I think spot on: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/science/10lab.html
March 10, 2009, at 5:16 am
If Obama is “putting science ahead of politics” he is not doing his job.
He is a political leader and has to make political decisions. He is not a scientist.
But all this is either self-delusion or hypocrisy anyway: in his funding decision, Obama is not pursuing science but his particular political/ideological values.
“The story discussed this signing and a number of areas where Bush overruled scientists for political ends.”
Whether what Bush did was proper depends on what is meant. Science is science and should present the results gained by scientic methods. But a government has to decide about its own declarations and about its own objectives.
But science (with its always preliminary and often controversial findings) cannot ever demand that politics simply adopt the views of scientists - the US is a democratic republic, not a scientocracy.
March 10, 2009, at 7:33 am
I am not sure why one would need an embryonic stem cell as opposed to an adult stem cell in this situation.
March 10, 2009, at 8:19 am
Our local news last night ran a story about two women with spinal cord injuries who have gone to Russia and gotten good results from treatments that involved using their own stem cells, manipulated and re-implanted. Somehow this was was used to support Pres. Obama’s actions regarding embryonic stem cells. Of course, they also dutifully reported “the Vatican” opposing this move.
Normally, I use their own preferred terms for each side in the abortion debate. However, the politics of embryonic stem cell research is clearly a surrogate for what may reasonably be considered, in this instance, to have moved beyond simple choice. Clearly the presidents actions represent a pro-abortion ideology.
March 10, 2009, at 10:57 am
If
Then what will become of Political Science?
March 10, 2009, at 11:08 am
Mollie, I tried clicking on the second link in your #3 and got only an image of a blank piece of White House stationery. I infer from your summary that the required-funding order was part and parcel with the basic funding-limit policy, an attempt to shift research (inasmuch as it is federally funded) to adult stem cells. Obama’s recission of it is thus also consistent, in that he is clearing Bush’s arrangements away completely.
As to why it wasn’t covered — laziness? It’s easier to report what the President makes a speech on than do paperwork.
March 10, 2009, at 2:13 pm
“Their chief interest is to derive embryonic stem cell lines from patients with specific diseases, and by tracking the cells in the test tube to develop basic knowledge about how the disease develops.”
How is that actually possible as deriving embryonic stem cells kills the embryo used for this. And the disease would have to be present and detectable already in the embyro.
March 10, 2009, at 2:22 pm
Harris,
As with the initial, so-called “ban” so the funding question is also more complicated than headlines or talking points would have it.
“Julie Rovner’s article .. helpfully points out that the Obama decision permits federal funds for research on existing cell lines, a legislative ban on the use of federal dollars to create new stem cell lines remains in place.”
As you said, that means that new cell lines created without federal dollars are open to be researched on federal funds. And I guess there is no deadline restricting funding for new cell lines (as there is in the German law which bans creating new lines and restricts research to those created before a certain date - note this refers to the research, not merely to funding.)
The complaints of Obama & Co. (“Bush bans science”) anyway never were to be taken seriously, as the US government never banned any of this research, not even the embryo-killing creation of new cell lines. The little that the Bush administration did was restrict federal funding.
March 10, 2009, at 2:48 pm
Str1977:
Guessing a bit here, but one could create a pancreas cell line from a Type 1 diabetic and see how the disease progresses from scratch, not just when symptoms crop up. (This is somewhat above the pay grade of many journalists.)
The “little” that the Bush Admin did was effectively freeze this research in the US, letting other countries get ahead of us (see the note about the Russian spinal injury treatment), except where states like California substituted state funding. And there, wasteful duplication ensued to keep state- and federally-funded facilities separate. This was covered in the News Hour report last night (Monday the 9th).
March 10, 2009, at 4:35 pm
“The “little” that the Bush Admin did was effectively freeze this research in the US, letting other countries get ahead of us”
If the little Bush did, did so much damage to this digusting enterprise, the better for it.
And always this annyoing song of “letting others get ahead”. China is also ahead of the USA in torture etc. Advancements in barbarity are not something to be wished for.
“except where states like California substituted state funding.”
So it is essentially: it was freezed except when it wasn’t.
March 10, 2009, at 5:56 pm
I’m not arguing the morality of the freeze. I’m telling you what its effect was, and it was not “little.”
Journalism, please?
March 10, 2009, at 7:07 pm
The point of said note being that the treatment has nothing to do with embryonic stem cells; the treatments involved utilizing the women’s own stem cells.
One might suppose easy, and financially lucrative, access to embryonic cells could discourage other, more innovative, more scientifically valid treatments. One wonders if Pres. Bush had no frozen funding whether the advances in adult stem cell research would have made embryonic stem cell research of questionable value.
March 10, 2009, at 7:25 pm
Ken, sorry, I should have checked back to your comment rather than trusting my memory. That’s actually a very promising development; lots of people have spinal cord injuries.
I don’t see how Bush not freezing federal funding of embryonic research would have speeded the development of adult stem cell research.
I’m still interested in the press coverage. I’m mindful of what that scientist/talking head said last night on the News Hour, that adult stem cells cannot form up just any kind of tissue the way embryonic cells can. I’m aware of the “big news” last year about adult stem cells. These seem to be in contradiction with one another. Are the MSM going to straighten this out for us by asking good questions? This is a matter of fact, not ethics; it should be possible to tease out one correct answer.
March 10, 2009, at 10:27 pm
Dave -
If I could type (or at least proof-read), you might have caught on to my meaning: had easy money been available for embryonic stem cell research under Pres. Bush, would we have learned that “fully pluripotent stem cells (cells having the qualities of those produced by destroying embryos) could be created directly from adult cells”?
The quote is from the Bottum/Anderson article to which Mollie linked on the other thread.
March 10, 2009, at 10:33 pm
Ken, I don’t know enough about this field to guess how work on embryonic stem cells could have uncovered facts about adult stem cells. I was educated as a physicist. Both my parents were biologists so I sort of speak biology as a second language, but not at this level of subtlety.
March 11, 2009, at 5:26 am
Dave,
still, even after your description, Bush’s measures seem to be little and the complaints of the opponents whining. Well now the have a president to their liking.
March 11, 2009, at 11:40 am
Str1977, I can only rebut your claims of fact. I can’t change your mood. My issue is still, whether we have a president to my liking or yours, is the press coverage of adult vs embryonic stem cell medicine balances or biased?
March 11, 2009, at 1:29 pm
Dave,
“I can only rebut your claims of fact.”
Only that you can’t.
When a president restricts the use of federal funds for something he is doing less than when a president would ban that something alltogether.
And when there are big states like California jumping in with state funds the impact is even less.
And yes, the press coverage is biased.
I can’t change your mood. My issue is still, whether we have a president to my liking or yours, is the press coverage of adult vs embryonic stem cell medicine balances or biased?