Spin machine in full force to keep the $$ flowing for ESCR

 Jill Stanek wrote an informative post with some inside information gleaned from a conference  call from  the  White House, Dept. of Justice, and National Institutes of Health  to liberal supporters and beneficiaries of federally funded embryonic stem cell research. The WH operatives told them to start the publicity machine going to get support for ESCR and purport   great public support. This is contrast to recent Rasmussen Report showing 57% OPPOSE funding of ESCR. They are encouraged to  get the spin going....

The local paper, The Tennessean, wrote a headline story last Sunday entitled 
Stem Cells: From researcher to plaintiff, TN enmeshed in embryo debate.
Actually it should have said embryonic stem cells but that is customary with print stories...often the author is not up to speed on the issue or deliberately seek to confuse/influence with the slight of hand on the words or it could be a space thing...but the story was pretty balanced.  On to my point, they tell how Vanderbilt in Nashville is  significantly hurt  by this court decision which they said hit them by surprise..gosh don't they have lawyers over there that can read the law???   Obama, the constitutional law professor, signs the appropriations bill including the Dickey Wicker amendment banning the use of federal funds for the destruction of ESCR two days after his much publicized Executive Order authorizing the use of federal funds for ESCR.....so I guess I should not be so hard on Vandy lawyers if even the POTUS does  it. But anyway the article points out how upset Vandy is with the loss of the very lucrative income from federal funding.... once you get plugged into the public trough, the good times just keep on rolling.

"The impact of the court statement is becoming painfully clear," said Dr. Mark Magnuson, director of the Vanderbilt Center for Stem Cell Biology. "Unless it is reversed, we will likely need to cease any and all work that involves the use of human embryonic stem cells. Already, we have halted all of our own experimental plans."
Vanderbilt also could have to suspend adult stem cell studies if any research equipment used was purchased with federal grant money for embryonic stem cells.

Today the liberal  Tennessean complied  by publishing an  editorial   from Stephen S. Ent­man, M.D., is pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus, obstet­rics and gyne­col­ogy, at Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­sity Med­ical Center. It was pretty weak in evidence and vague  but of course it was meant to rally support for spending tax money on ESCR for unrealized  cures but building  hopes for cures to come. He glosses over the fact that the embryo must be destroyed to get their  stem cells and with a courtesy nod to the life begins at conception "belief"  ...goes on with his half hearted comments. I almost felt like he got the assignment from someone on the conference call  to get the advocacy going since they benefited so handsomely from the funding.

The embryos that are avail­able for research will never achieve life beyond their cur­rently frozen state; the other options are dis­mal — or worse.
Nation­ally, there are tens of thou­sands of frozen embryos. Nobody really has a pre­cise count.

Alas, today Politico is running a story  about DeGettte (D CO) trying to rush through a bill permitting funding for ESCR. She is working to see that "pro life Dems" won't raise objections...unfortunately that is not too hard to get as we saw from the Obamacare vote. She hopes that this will help the Dems in the upcoming election and even says they will paint the opponents as extremists. She says the stars are aligned in her favor. Hmmmm ....isn't that something Obama said during the campaign. Maybe she was getting her talking points from the conference call from the WH and NIH.