Far too often, adult stem cell research pioneers aren't given their due. One person named Dr. Shinya Yamanaka was recognized as the 2012 Nobel Prize winner for Physiology or Medicine. He is famous for his work in the development of induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells. iPs cells are a more ethical route to create pluripotent stem cells. Dr. Yamanaka wanted to create iPs cells to help patients. These pioneers of science and patient treatments ought to be respected. The late Dr. Ernest McCulloch of Canada was a pioneer of bone marrow transplant and bone marrow adult stem cells. Dr. McCulloch and others made early work with mice in the 1960's, which provided the first evidence for the existence of bone marrow adult stem cells. This laid the groundwork for applications in bone marrow and adult stem cell transplantation. French scientist Dr. Georges Mathe was another pioneer and he died in October 2010. In 1958, he used donor bone marrow transplants to save several physicists that were accidentally exposed to high doses of radiations. He published one of the first successful donor bone marrow transplants for a patient with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 1968. In 2012, we lost 2 more pioneers. These people were dedicated to pushing the frontiers of patient treatment via the usage of adult stem cells. Their accomplishments will not be forgotten. Dr. Julio Voltaelli of Brazil died in March of 2012. Dr. Voltareilli was a Professor at Ribeirao Preto School of Medicine at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. He developed a highly ranked bone marrow and stem cell transplantation program, and initiated research efforts for adult stem cell transplants directed at autoimmune diseases, including Type I diabetes. The efforts bore fruit, resulting in at least 20 Type I diabetes patients becoming insulin free, after their treatment. The first, groundbreaking results were published in 2007. The research team published a follow up paper in 2009, which included more patients. Their technique utilized the patient's own adult stem cells as they were the only treatment capable of reversing type 1 DM in humans. Dr. Carlos Lima of Portugal passed away in June 2012. Dr. Lima pioneered the usage of nasal mucosal tissue. It has adult stem cells for the treatment of spinal cord injury. He built a skilled team at the Hospital de Egas Moniz in Lisbon, Portugal and included international collaborators to bring the best neurological expertise, to bear on the problem of using regenerative medicine techniques for treatment of spinal cord injuries. The team's first publication in 2006 gave information on the first few patients that went through the technique and experience clinical improvement. Their 2010 paper showed more extensive data, with significant improvement in paraplegic and quadriplegic spinal cord injury patients, even when treatment was begun years after the injury. They observed that 12 of 13 AIS A patients improved in AIS grade, and all of the patients regained some muscle movement in their legs. So, it is great to celebrate their accomplishments and to promote the improvements of patients.
In our age, we still have to promote human civil liberties. These issues have been going on for centuries in America since the current President isn't responsible for all oppression in America. Today, we have the responsibility to fight against oppression. It is wrong to have drone strikes in Yemen. The Washington Post on October 23, 2012 reported that there is a new database. It's found in the National Counterterrorism Center or the NCTC. It will list suspected terrorists and militants slated for extrajudicial assassination. This is part of the "kill list." They want people to be killed if they are accused of terrorism without due process of law. There is the Supreme Court case of Amnesty v. Clapper. It was about a lawsuit filed by journalists, human rights workers, and lawyers, who claimed that their jobs are unnecessarily hampered by the specter of the National Security Agency eavesdropping on their communications with clients overseas. As described by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), “the [Supreme] Court will essentially determine whether any court… can rule on whether the [National Security Agency]’s targeted warrantless surveillance of Americans’ international communications violates the Constitution.” The secret warrantless wiretapping program is immoral. The checks and balances in the government must be strengthened indeed. The NSA has intercepted electronic communications for decades since its secret inception in 1952. The Church Committee after the Watergate scandal found the spying by the FBI, NSA, CIA, and the Pentagon. These intelligence entities did even psychological torture techniques under the guise of defeating communism. The Cold War grew the military industrial complex. The CIA used subversion abroad. Even the FBI tried to destroy homegrown movements from civil rights groups, labor, anti-war activism, etc. Senator Frank Church opposed the NSA's power. Some reforms came about that they tried to have judges to review information before giving the NSA a warrant to spy on Americans (only in the case of overseas communication) via the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, etc. FISC rejected zero warrant requests since it was created. Today, the nation's largest telecommunications companies have worked with the NSA in order to efficiently spy even on the American people. An American citizen named Anwar al-Awlaki was killed by a drone attack during September 30, 2011. Even the ACLU opposed the NCTC's policy of continually assessing information of innocent Americans potentially up for five years (and this information can be shared to anyone not just federal, state, and local agencies). The NCTC works with counterterrorism operations like the CIA's targeted assassination program. In our time, due process has been circumvented in many arenas. In spite of FISC’s rubberstamping, following 9/11 the Bush administration began deliberately bypassing the court, because even its minimal evidentiary standard was too high a burden of proof for the blanket surveillance they wanted. Voices from across the political spectrum have described the war on terror as being evil, brutal, imperialist, and nonsensical. Many in the Democratic and Republican parties accept this huge power among the executive branch of government (of allowing agencies to kill people without due process or the warrantless wiretapping going on).
We made a lot of victories in our lives. Times are changing and we still have far to go in having a better society. Subconsciously, I do feel a little joy at how the reactionaries' anti-voter efforts were proven to be useless. Record voter turnout came about across demographics. Republicans experienced what real America is all about. Mitt Romney lost the election and the billionaires who paid Karl Rove to try to deliver a certain candidate to the White House failed. The one percent spent billions of dollars in an attempt to go backwards, but they can surely afford to pay more in their share of taxes to fund schools, infrastructure, the building of our environment, and universal health care. Now, in society, we should be more active in helping people. More of the working class people understand that corporate interests look after their bottom line. The Reagan Revolution is officially over since the pendulum has swung back. The Reagan Revolution began in the late 1970's. Before that, there was the Southern Strategy. The Southern Strategy of the GOP was a southern racist backlash against the passage of the Kennedy/Johnson civil rights legislation of the 1960's. Many of these people in league of this reactionary movement were some that voted against their economic interests. It lasted from 1968 to 2012. Reagan's policies cut many social programs and funded death squads in Latin America. Some Republican lawyers are now trying to gut parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (as it relates to the monitoring of Southern states). If they had their way, they would eliminate parts of even the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That is all the more reason for us to fight. We fight by organizing in independent organizations and efforts to cause reform. It is infeasable to have tax cuts for the super-rich and for record austerity to come about as a peace anti-neo-liberal platform. Also, we have the right to disagree with the immoral Citizens United decision that corporations have human rights. They don't. We have the bickering or battle among the Republican Party. It is between the more Tea Party/reactionary wing vs. the more moderate voices in the Republican Party. The third party system is still in existence. Hopefully, in the near future, third parties can have more power and influence since we need extra political choices in the USA. America isn't just a place for John Wayne types. I reject philosophically the John Wayne types' agenda. It's a place that including working people, the poor, peoples of color, women, and any American of any lifestyle. So, one primary mass issue here is economic justice. When you have a record amount of people on food stamps, worshipping the free market isn't going to cut it. You need economically progressive solutions in really handling the mass poverty that still exists in American society. We will continue to speak up for the poor and to oppose war. If we follow the real path of a high level of human development, we can have a greater economic equality and social justice (along with the protection of our civil liberties can grow our society). The reactionaries are so radical that they think a centrist policy of the ACA is equivalent to socialism. I thought I will never see the day when a human being is called an "alien." These are human beings not people from outer space. A vicious plutocracy wants economic inequality, but we should advocate a higher quality of health care and education for every American without exception. We don't need imperialism or an economic system that allows 1 percent of people in the world to own almost half the wealth of the world. The growth of a more democratic and a more cooperative society seems to be the wave of the future. The entire human race certainly have the right to possess freedom and social prosperity too.
There is always a counterrevolution or responses by reactionaries to controversial events. When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, the CIA utilized Operation Chaos against the anti-Vietnam War movement. After Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, there was emergency legislation that led to the state-sponsored violence in the 1968 Democratic Party Convention. After the evil 1993 First World Trade Center bombing and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the American state passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. Don't get it twisted, President Bill Clinton had his centrist side during his tenure by forming welfare reform, turning a blind eye to the genocide in Rwanda, promoting the NATO war crimes against Belgrade, and he passed the reactionary Anti-Crime Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton adopted the Republican policy positions like balancing the federal budget on the backs of the poor, NAFTA, etc. This proves that the two party system is heavily influenced by the corporate elite. When 9/11 came about and the strange anthrax attacks of 2001, the government passed Patriot Act, the COG measures (or the continuity of government), etc. There have been many workers who have protested Wal Mart. The reason is that Wal Mart workers said that they are receiving low wages, poor healthcare benefits, management disrespect, and some of them were forced to work on Thanksgiving. Labor economist and former Bennett College president Julianne Malveaux said “it’s especially egregious when Wal-Mart, the largest and richest company in our country, engages in these activities.” Workers complain they are limited to less than 30-hour weeks, to deprive them of healthcare benefits. “This is an oppressive matrix,” said Malveaux. That is uncalled for by Walmart completely. “We have to borrow money from each other just to make it to work,” said Colby Harris, a 3-year Wal-Mart employee from Dallas, Texas. Walmart made 15 billion dollars last year. Retail workers from Wal-Mart didn't want to be forced to give up the time with their families as a means to stock shelves and prepare stores for Black Friday Sales. Wal-Mart opened its stores as early as 8 pm. on Thanksgiving Day. Such protests exist in Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami, Seattle, Maryland, Oklahoma, and throughout the nation of America.
There is more interesting information about Paul Robeson. Paul Robeson was one of the greatest heroes in human history. In the 1930's, Robeson wanted African Americans to embrace black culture. That is why he was one of the most influential participants in the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was an eccletic array of black American musicians, painters, artists, scholars, etc. who developed a complex, elaborate, and excellent cultural expression in Harlem, New York (and in other places of America). He brought the Negro spirituals into the center of the American songbook. He starred in the film "The Emperor Jones." Even as early as 1934, he enrolled in the School of Oriental and African Studies or the SOAS. This is where he studied Swahili, Igbo, and Zulu languages. He was greatly interested in studying African history and culture. He traveled into the USSR and condemned the racism found in Nazi Germany including colonialism. He advanced the cause of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War and he supported Jawaharlal Nehru's fight for Indian independence in opposition to the British Empire. The British Empire rightfully ended, because the domination of man against man is plainly immoral. It's unjustified period. During WWII, he supported the Allied causes. He sang patriotic songs. He publicly condemned lynching in society too. Also, Robeson gave a radio address that called on all Americans of all races to demand that Congress pass civil rights legislation. People talk about Stalin and Communism, but corporate dictators have murdered millions of innocent human beings as well. The corporate plutocrats murdered millions of innocent human beings via the Maafa & the Shoah alone. No economic or political philosophy is 100 percent and that's a fact. I don't agree with Communism, but I reject 100 percent laissez faire capitalism. To a McCarthyite, having a public option or even universal single payer health care (which are legitimate aims), is taboo for a person to embrace wholeheartedly.That doesn't negate the contributions of Paul Robeson in greatly fighting for human rights in the Universe. Paul Robeson respected the labor movement and the civil rights movement as well. Both movements were crucial in human beings gaining the liberties and freedoms that we take for granted sometimes today near 2013. He offered his influence to fight against apartheid in South Africa. So, Paul Robeson possessed a lot of human courage in promoting his ideals. He lived and died like a man. We owe a great deal of gratitude for his profound gifts that he gave to the Earth.
By
Timothy
No comments:
Post a Comment