I wholeheartedly agree.

I also look at it this way: Politicians, and certainly quite a few of our citizens, are willing to send troops and national guardsmen overseas to fight and die, willing to sacrifice their lives for our freedom. However, why can't the citizenry do the same (potentially sacrifice their lives through fewer security measures at airports) in exchange for freedom (no invasion of privacy by backscatter, TSA, restrictions on liquids, etc)?

Reminds me of "The Adventure of the Red Headed League". Any chance you lived above a bank? :)

Good point. Stem cell biology is complex, and not just because I, or a legitimate authority, says so. But some people don't want to believe that is the case, or think they are knowledgeable enough to review all the information and decide for themselves.

I think the same mentality is at play with nuclear power plants. People think they have enough information to make an informed decision about whether a reactor should be built in their neighborhood, but that is not likely to be the case.

I don't think people should blindly submit to the authority of scientists or experts, but any well-educated person knows when they don't know enough.

As an aside, don't get me started on the anti-vaccine crowd. Sadly, ironically, and for our benefit, their genes don't always get passed on more than a generation.

Hmm. I am going to have to dig through some of the citations in that Wikipedia article. I am a bit skeptical, but need to see the science behind it to know how legit it is. Unfortunately, much of what I saw in the article seemed more like results from case studies rather than randomized trials.

Thanks for the background.

Citation needed.

I have a PhD in developmental biology (closely related to stem cell biology). I effectively work in the pharmaceutical industry. If it had been demonstrated that simply extracting, concentrating, and injecting stem cells actually rebuilt cartilage, you would see many legit biotech companies running this through the regulatory process as fast as possible. But you don't.

Also, if you talk to any physician, FDA staffer, or pharma worker, you will realize there is a necessity to balance efficacy versus safety. Any treatment for a lethal condition is granted far more leeway in safety profile and adverse events by the FDA, physicians, and patients than a non-lethal condition. Joint pain is non-lethal. Untested therapies, like stem cell therapy, are unwarranted in treating joint pain: the unknown potential for serious problem (cancer) is not offset by the upside of successful treatment. In cancer, you have compassionate use programs that allow drugs to be used on types of cancer they've never been tested in. Why? Because the upside (living) outweighs all the horrible side effects these drugs typically have.

Don't get me wrong, opioids are a real problem. Joint pain can be debilitating. But is curing it worth risking cancer or some unknown serious adverse event? Well, to reasonably answer that question we need to conduct clinical trials to determine the efficacy of the treatment and the type, severity, and frequency of adverse events.

But until there is any scientific proof that this procedure works, it is best if the average person does not have access to it.

*I am very hopeful about the promise of stem cells, but believe they should be tested properly.

But perhaps it is too little too late. There are dozens, if not hundrends of these clinics set up outside the US. Many are in Asia or islands in the Caribbean/Atlantic. Who knows how many people have been defrauded.

On the other hand, some of these shops might have reason to believe that stem cells only need to be extracted and applied to do their work. Jenner's small pox "vaccine" was just ground up scabs that he rubbed into a cut that he made in the patient's arm. Ridiculously crude by today's standards. But it worked. So perhaps (in their minds) some of these stem cell treatments could have merit.

But I don't think that is likely the case. Applied stem cell biology is quite complex, particularly since the body tries to keep stem cells from becoming cancer. In humans, it is more of an issue because we reproduce relatively later in life and rear our young for far longer than most animals. In other creatures, like newts, it is less of an issue and they can regenerate entire limbs.

Nearly all of these companies are probably well aware of how unlikely it is their treatment will help anyone, but can't say no to the truckloads of money. They don't want to perform the science that will lead to stem cell cures, and go after the crude "Jenner" method. The problem is that medical science has advanced significantly since the 18th century and conditions like joint pain don't exactly warrant unproven treatments in the same way that certain cancers might.

I, for one, look forward to the FDA shutting these operations down.

Even though crime in NYC is down, it's not a matter of victims carrying more valuables: thieves are targeting iPhones. For at least the past two years, the NYPD has publicly stated that thieves are targeting iPhones. These aren't random; they wait and watch. When someone walks by talking on an iPhone they charge at them from behind, knock them over, grab the dropped phone and run. I know someone who had this happen in broad daylight. I saw it happen to someone in broad daylight.

I think it was two years ago that the NYPD advised people to keep their phones hidden and replace the iconic white earbuds. You can imagine how that went over with the fanboys.

When my wife lost her iPhone we called AT&T and asked if they could help us get it back. They told us that they "can't track a phone". Not that "we can't do that for legal reasons" or something similar. They claimed that they don't have the technological capability. I asked, "If I were the CIA or FBI and asked you to find this phone, would you still say that you don't have the capability?" "Correct. We can't do it." Please.

The carriers don't care if someone loses a phone, or has one stolen. Whoever ends up with it could use it on their network, creating an additional customer. They care more about that than getting your mobile device back.

Good points. However, the vast majority of revenue from pharmaceutical sales comes from the US. Regardless of whether you think it is good or bad that these companies price very differently depending on the market and lobby to prevent drug importation, the fact is that if the US didn't pay more for drugs then drug development would certainly lag where it stands today, as the R&D budgets would necessarily be smaller. (If I recall, the US, less than 5% of the world population, provides about half of all revenue to pharma companies, with the other 95% of the world population providing the other half.)

The corollary is that if EU governments didn't exercise control over drug prices, those companies would have larger R&D budgets.

Do not infer that I am anti-EU or pro-pharma. I am just trying to clarify the GP's post with regard to how the business and healthcare environments in EU countries theoretically could have slowed progress in pharamceuticals.

I see this objection a lot. As someone with quite a bit of knowledge about the pharmaceutical industry, medicine, and basic research in biology, let me try to explain the problem: creating a cure is insanely difficult. Why?
      1. It usually requires permanently altering cellular anatomy or physiology/metabolism, and homeostasis won't let you.
      2. Many diseases have genetic components, which would require altering DNA to cure.
      3. We don't have the technology to carry out #1 and 2.

In a disease state, the body's homeostasis has diverged from a "normal" state. Homeostasis is a robust process, meaning that it can take a lot to change it; usually it occurs slowly over a long period of time. Taking a pill that temporarily alters that homeostasis doesn't reset it to normal. Think freshman chemistry: equilibrium and Le Chatelier's principle. You changed the equilibrium, and the disease state homeostasis fights to go back to what it was.

As for genetic components, cystic fibrosis should be the easiest disease in the world to cure: it's caused by having two copies of a bad allele for a potassium channel that result in misfolded proteins. Insert at least one good copy into the genome and voila! A cure! Yet nobody has ever demonstrated success with gene therapy in humans. Which leads us to the third point...

We just can't figure out how to get gene therapy to work well. We also can't figure out how to permanently move a diseased homeostatic process (e.g., insulin resistance) to a normal state.

It's not that the pharma companies don't want to. Patient compliance with medication is horrible. If you tell a patient to their face that they will only live 3 more years if they don't take this pill every day, versus 10 years if they do, the average patient will only take the pill about 180 days of the year. So, if a drug company could sell a cure at the same cost as a lifetime of one-a-day pills (which they could), then they would absolutely do so. It's guaranteed money, like a magazine subscription versus buying a copy off the rack whenever.

Besides, many scientists at academic and government research institutions would rather find cures for diseases, yet are unable to. Unless we pull out the tin foil hats and speculate that they, too, are on the payroll of the pharma companies, it should be clearer that there are other reasons cures don't happen.

I'm not sure if this is buried in a comment elsewhere, but I wanted to forego modding to point out an Oscar-winning "documentary" that (sort of) examines this question:

The Hellstrom Chronicle

This scene is filmed in slow motion demonstrating what happens when water drops hit insects.

Sadly, this title is not available on DVD or Blu-Ray.

2) Also, but probably not as relevant, no insects -> no insectivores. No chicken for you, buddy.

Except that chickens (in the US) actually eat corn and leftover cow parts.

Is this an early experiment in the development of psychohistory?

Hari Seldon would be proud.

Excellent! Now I can print my epidermal cells in the pattern of a new set of fingerprints, transplant that skin to my fingers, and leave traces of CmdrTaco at crime scenes across the world!

Come on, TSA!

You've already got the millimeter body scanners rolling out across the US and rest of the world. Kick it up a notch! Go straight for the biometric genital scanning!

Pfft, privacy. You don't need privacy. You need safety. Now drop your drawers!