West Michigan hospital recruiting patients for adult stem cell trial

Spectrum Health will be testing a new treatment for peripheral arterial disease (PAD) using patients' own adult stem cells. The trial hopes to show that adult stem cells can help prevent amputations.

The procedure involves extracting blood cells from bone marrow and injecting them into the leg to increase the body’s ability to grow new blood vessels.

PAD affects about 8 million Americans – about one in 20 adults age 50 and older. Cholesterol and fat collect on the walls of the arteries that supply blood to the limbs, reducing blood flow. The condition raises the risk for heart attack and stroke.

Most patients can be treated with lifestyle changes, medicine, endovascular and surgical procedures, said Dr. Christopher Chambers, a vascular surgeon with the Spectrum Health Medical Group.

“However, despite advanced techniques and technology, about 10 to 20 percent of people with severe PAD do not respond to these measures and are at risk for lower limb major amputation,” he said. “I’m hoping this new investigational technology will give these patients another option.”

FULL STORY

Chaunie's Story

Michigan's Chaunie Brusie shares the story of her unplanned pregnancy while in college on a new YouTube video posted by Feminists for Life. She also discusses the prolife work she did on campus to help her university provide more resources to pregnant and parenting college students. Chaunie and her husband live in Michigan with their daughters, Ada and Mya. Today she is a labor and delivery nurse who speaks for Feminists for Life on college campuses, at prolife events and at Capitol Hill briefings.

Komen foundation gave more than half a million to Planned Parenthood in 2010

From LifeNews:

New figures directly from the Komen for the Cure foundation show 18 affiliates of the breast cancer charity gave a total of more than $569,000 to the Planned Parenthood abortion business in 2010.

The donations will certainly prompt the continued boycott of the Komen breast cancer group by millions of pro-life Americans who find it disingenuous that the women’s organization would partner with an abortion business when abortions are linked to an increase in breast cancer and when Planned Parenthood has been proven to mislead the public by falsely claiming it performs mammograms.

FULL STORY

Learn more about the Komen for the Cure foundation's relationship with America's leading abortion provider from this Buried in Pink factsheet.

Recent advances with direct cell conversion

Biochemist and author Dr. David Prentice wrote about several recent studies involving direct reprogramming of regular cells, skipping the need to create or grow stem cells to obtain the cell types needed for potential treatments.

A passel of scientific papers have recently reported the direct conversion of skin cells to nerve cells, without going through an intervening stem cell step.

No fewer than seven studies published in the last three months have shown different methods for directly converting ordinary skin cells into types of nerve cells......

The even newer technique of direct conversion skips the stem cell intermediary, directly transforming one specialized cell type into another specialized cell type.

FULL STORY

Vice President Biden says he doesn't "second guess" China's coercive one-child policy

At The Week, Ed Morrisey discusses a recent controversy over Vice President Joe Biden's comments in China addressing their official state policy which strong arms women into only having one child. This policy has led to forced sterilizations, coerced abortions and millions of girls being aborted solely because they're females.

One might suppose that an American vice president would take the opportunity to draw attention to the horrific procreation policies of Beijing, and try to take a positive step for both their economy and for human rights. Instead, Biden gave the one-child policy at least a tacit endorsement:

"Your policy has been one which I fully understand — I'm not second-guessing — of one child per family. The result being, that you're in a position where one wage earner will be taking care of four retired people. Not sustainable. So hopefully we can act in a way on a problem that's much less severe than yours, and maybe we can learn together from how we can do that."

Biden fully understands China's one-child policy? Let's hope not — because if so, then he has truly brought shame on the United States and this administration with this statement. (Biden's spokesperson later backtracked on his behalf, saying the vice president finds China's policy "repugnant.")

FULL STORY

The Importance of Life

At Public Discourse, O. Carter Snead provides an essay which explains the prolife postion, compares the Bush and Obama presidencies and discusses the importance of having a prolife president.

The central animating claim of the pro-life movement is that each human being is intrinsically equal in basic dignity simply because of who he or she is as a member of the human family. Each human being is valuable and irreplaceable, regardless of her age, size, location, race, sex, usefulness (or burdensomeness) to others, her possession or lack of certain favored physical or mental capacities, or the worth assigned to her by others. It is worth pausing for a moment to focus on the radical and distinctive nature of this claim. The moral status of each human being is, according to this view, unconditional and noncontingent. It does not wax and wane according to the judgment or interests of others, in light of physical, mental, or circumstantial criteria that such others might establish........

The “life issues” are not merely the ancillary concerns of a small but active fringe of our political landscape. Rather, they involve essential questions of membership—of “who counts” for purposes of moral concern and basic legal protections—at the heart of our nation’s commitment to justice and equality for all, including the most vulnerable. These are questions that we cannot afford to ignore or answer wrongly. Literally millions of lives hang in the balance. Regarding the unborn child, the only path that comports with our best moral traditions and our nation’s founding principles is to provide equal justice for all, even when it would seem more useful or convenient to do otherwise. In this regard, the office of the presidency offers a unique power to promote justice or do great harm. The man or woman who holds that office must have the wisdom, courage, and, yes, the empathy to use his or her powers to protect the least among us to the extent that the law allows.

FULL STORY

Only 37% of Michigan voters approve of Senator Stabenow's job performance

A survey of likely Michigan voters taken in August found only 37% of give the pro-abortion United States senator a positive job rating. Stabenow is up for re-election in 2012.

A poll shows Democratic U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow could face trouble in her 2012 re-election bid.

The survey of 600 likely Michigan voters released Monday by Lansing-based EPIC-MRA shows 37 percent gave her a positive job rating, while 54 percent gave her a negative rating and 9 percent were undecided.

Forty-seven had a favorable opinion of the two-term senator, while 38 percent had an unfavorable view and 13 percent were undecided.

FULL STORY

SENATOR STABENOW'S PRO-ABORTION VOTING RECORD

NY Times piece on the "selective reduction" of twins

Last Sunday, the New York Times' Magazine featured a story on women, who after becoming pregnant with twins through in-vitro fertilization, decide to have one of their twins killed through a type of abortion known as "selective reduction."

The concept of killing one of two twins solely for elective reasons even makes some who favor legal abortion uncomfortable.

As word spread, a stream of patients called Wapner’s office, scheduling reductions to a singleton. A few months later, after the last patient of the day left, the sonographer who had worked with Wapner for nearly 20 years stopped at his office. She told me what happened next, on condition of anonymity because she doesn’t want her relatives to know everything her work entails: “I told him I just wasn’t comfortable doing a termination of a healthy baby for social reasons, and that if we were going to do a lot of these elective reductions, I thought he should bring in someone else who was more comfortable. From the beginning, I had wrestled with the whole idea of doing reductions, because I was raised in the church. And after a lot of soul searching, I had decided there were truly good medical reasons to reducing higher-order multiples to twins. But I had a hard time reconciling doing reductions two to one. So I said to Dr. Wapner, ‘Is this really the business we want to be in?’ ”

Wapner immediately called a meeting with his staff. Every one of them — the sonographer, the genetic counselors, the schedulers — supported abortion rights, but all confessed their growing unease with reductions to a singleton. “There’s no medical justification in a normal twin pregnancy to reduce to one,” Wapner said. “So we decided to allocate our resources to those who would get the most benefit. We were in the business to improve pregnancy outcomes, and those reductions didn’t fit the criteria.” He hasn’t done an elective two-to-one reduction since.

FULL STORY

President Obama's Justice Department goes after 79-year-old sidewalk counselor

The National Review has an article by Hans von Spakovsky which discusses the U.S. Justice Department's attempt to prosecute 79-year-old sidewalk counselor Richard Retta. Retta is a sidewalk counselor in the Washington, D.C. area who attempts to persuade women going into a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic to choose life for their unborn children.

Obama’s DOJ claims that Retta’s sidewalk counseling violates the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, enacted by Congress in 1994. In a July 2011 complaint, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division says that Retta violated federal law because he “walks very closely beside patients” as they enter the clinic. It also claims that Retta follows them when they leave.

But FACE permits Retta to walk beside patients, coming or going, on a public sidewalk. And the First Amendment protects his right to speak to them. In fact, the FACE Act (18 U.S.C. § 248) forbids only physical obstruction, intimidation, or the use or threat of force. The FACE Act protects the activity that Retta engaged in: The statute specifically states that it does not “prohibit any expressive conduct (including peaceful picketing or other peaceful demonstration).”

................

Retta was shocked to learn that DOJ had brought charges against him. The department’s doubtful claim is also brought into question by Retta’s history. He doesn’t just counsel women on the sidewalks about the tragic consequences of abortion; he has also taught sidewalk-counseling classes for about a decade.

He prints a homemade, 22-page training manual that teaches volunteers how to conduct themselves. Item number two on his list of “don’ts”: “DO NOT block the woman’s path.”

FULL STORY

Abortion advocates weren't expecting this much prolife legislation

The Christian Science Monitor has a lengthy article on American United for Life's president Charmaine Yoest, the prolife movement and prolife legislation. The article includes some revealing quotes from abortion advocates who weren't expecting as much prolife legislation to pass this year.

Yoest, the president and chief executive officer of Americans United for Life, a group that offers 39 pieces of model legislation for state lawmakers and advocates, is one of the key actors pushing a wave of highly restrictive – the other side would say dangerous and illegal – initiatives limiting access to abortion. AUL's goal is to eat away at the underpinnings of the protections provided by Roe v. Wade – the landmark United States Supreme Court decision that extended the right to privacy to a woman's decision to have an abortion – not necessarily to challenge it outright. At least not yet.

So far this year, AUL and other like-minded groups have caught their adversaries flat-footed; some 22 states have enacted a record 86 new measures in 2011, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which studies sexual and reproductive health and supports abortion rights.

Just two years after the election of a pro-abortion rights Democratic president, it appears the antiabortion movement has been reborn.

"We were expecting a bad year – we weren't expecting this bad of a year," says Elizabeth Nash, a Guttmacher public policy associate.

FULL STORY

West Michigan man chronicles adult stem cell procedure

In her health column, Living with Cancer, Sue Schroder shares Tom Felten's reports on an adult stem cell transplant to treat his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Next: Apheresis. This involved lying still in a hospital bed for several hours with a needle in one arm (sending blood into the machine) and a needle in the other (allowing the blood to return) minus the collected stem cells. I needed two days of collection. By God's grace, we got just enough.

The cells were carefully "cleaned," removing cancer cells, cryogenically frozen and stored.....

After a "day of rest," I received my stem cells back. Intravenously, I was given eight bags of stem cells on the 23rd and 4.5 more bags on the 24th (my big 5-0 birthday!). Due to some serious volume, my transplant came in two phases instead of one.

The process of receiving the cells back is simple. A cart holding what looks like a small garbage can and a hot dog cooker is wheeled in. The "can" holds the bags of frozen stem cells, while the "cooker" thaws them to the right temperature for re-entry into your body. Some patients (become nauseated), but I felt fine.

FULL STORY

To learn more about adult stem cell research and life-affirming stem cell treatments, visit www.stemcellresearchcures.com.

Time is running out - register for RLM's Annual Conference today

Register today for the Right to Life of Michigan 38th Annual Conference and take advantage of $10 in savings until September 15.

This year, Right to life of Michigan is welcoming former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline and Prolife Mom Ellen Salter.

Click now to find out more about these speakers and this year's conference.

Oakland County pregnancy center featured in Detroit News

The Detroit News featured an article about the new Birth Choice pregnancy center in Clarkston, which moved into the same building as an abortion clinic, and their recent dinner with special guest Michael Reagan. The center was a joint effort of many prolifers in Oakland County and has been featured in a recent Real Life story.

Opinion poll results show Americans don’t know Roe

In late July, the Gallup Polling Company released the results of a national poll gauging the public’s position on various kinds of prolife legislation. The poll was taken between July 15‑17, 2011, and asked specific questions about various laws which restrict abortion. Many of the laws have recently been passed in various states while other states are currently considering some of these laws.

The poll found 87 percent of respondents favored laws requiring doctors to tell women about the possible risks of abortion, 71 percent favored parental consent laws, 69 percent favored a 24‑hour waiting period before an abortion, 64 percent favored a ban on partial birth abortion and 50 percent favored a law requiring women seeking abortions to be shown an image of their ultrasound.

The poll also notably found the vast majority of Americans oppose abortion after the first trimester, more than 2/3 of poll takers (71 percent) thought abortion should be illegal in the second three months of pregnancy and nearly 90 percent favored making abortion illegal in the third trimester.

Interestingly enough if Gallup had asked these same poll takers whether they thought Roe v. Wade was a good decision, the majority of them would have probably said “yes.” That’s what a 2010 poll by CBS News found. In those results, 58 percent of Americans thought Roe v. Wade was a good decision.

This is noteworthy because the reason no state has banned abortion in the second trimester is because Roe v. Wade prevents them from doing so. While many state legislatures would likely have the votes to ban abortion after the first 3 months of pregnancy, no such ban has passed because legislators know such legislation would run afoul with Roe v. Wade and would quickly be ruled unconstitutional.

So how can 71 percent of Americans favor a policy which can’t happen because of ruling 58 percent of Americans think was good?

The answer is Americans don’t know Roe. A great follow-up to the question of whether they thought Roe was a good ruling would have been: “What did Roe v. Wade do, exactly?” A high number of responses would start with “Ummm...” and end with “I don’t know.”

This is where prolifers and the importance of educating the public on prolife issues need to come in. The main reason 58 percent of the public supports Roe v. Wade is because vast swaths of citizens have no clue what Roe v. Wade did. If they knew it overturned abortion laws in 50 states and set up a framework which prevents states from banning late-term abortions, support for Roe would plummet.

To learn more about how the public perceives abortion and the ramifications of Roe v. Wade, visit Right to Life of Michigan at www.rtl.org.

Even majority of "pro-choice" Americans think 2nd trimester abortions should be illegal

Following up on recent polls, Gallup points out that on many issues, people agree the current status of abortion on demand through all nine months is wrong. Even 52% of self-described "pro-choice" Americans believe second trimester abortions should be illegal. More than 2,000 abortions take place in Michigan every year after the first trimester.

POLL RESULTS

Prolife candidates win local elections

Candidates endorsed by RLM-PAC won in local elections held in Grand Rapids and Warren on August 2. Walt Gutowski kept his seat as 1st Ward city commissioner in Grand Rapids while 8 of 9 candidates in Warren's local elections moved on to the general election.

WARREN ELECTION RESULTS


RLM-PAC ENDORSED CANDIDATES

Abortion fund report reveals Michigan teen traveled to Colorado for 27+ week abortion, no physical reason given

In June of 2011, the Third Wave Foundation released a report detail regarding the 2010 actions of their Emergency Abortion Fund which provides money to women who can't afford abortion. The report gives "snapshots" into some of the cases in which they provided funding for abortion.

One of the cases involved a 14-year-old girl from Detroit who traveled to Colorado for an abortion after raising funds and keeping her pregnancy a secret from her mother, whom she claimed was suicidal. They claim this case was severe yet there was no physical reason given for the girl's abortion.

This year we funded a 14 year old high school student in Detroit who was keeping the procedure a secret from their mom because their mom was suicidal and dealing with her own mother's recent death. All of their mom's savings went towards their grandmother's funeral and a recent divorce. By the time they were able to get enough funding together for an ultrasound, they were told that they were 27 weeks into the pregnancy. The only clinic they could attend was in Boulder, CO, 1,300 miles away. Without telling their mom, they fundraised after school, got enough money together for a bus ride, and made up a story to tell their mother about where they were going, but they still faced a $10,000 procedure cost. By the time the clinic notified us of this case, the patient only needed $3,000 more dollars. After our pledge of $350, the clinic agreed that they would provide the procedure at a steep discount given the severity of the case and their age.

The report also notes the case of 17-year-old from Detroit who traveled to Ohio for a 22-week abortion after various abortion clinics in Michigan charged her for ultrasounds and then told her she was too far along for their clinic to perform an abortion.

FULL REPORT

Detroit abortion clinic damaged, Right to Life of Michigan committed to non-violence

In July, a suspicious package left outside the Summit Women's Center abortion clinic in Detroit damaged the building.

Peaceful solutions to the violence of abortion is the goal of Right to Life of Michigan. Any vandalism against abortion facilities concerns Right to Life of Michigan. To counter violence with violence is against our principles. Prolife people have consistently worked peacefully through the democratic process in order to reach our goal - the end of violence within clinic walls. We are a peaceful movement.

FULL STORY

RIGHT TO LIFE OF MICHIGAN'S POLICY AGAINST VIOLENCE

Texas governor had experimental adult stem cell procedure

The Texas Tribune reports that adult stem cells were infused into Texas Governor Rick Perry's back when he had surgery in July. Governor Perry has called the procedure a success.

Dr. Stanley Jones, a Houston orthopedic surgeon and personal friend of Perry's, has been a staunch advocate for the healing properties of adult stem cells since last year, when he says he was effectively cured of his debilitating arthritis after being injected with his own stem cells in Japan. Like the governor, Jones, who is an associate professor at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston and the founder a Houston medical day spa, staunchly opposes research into embryonic stem cells.

Reached by cell phone in Vail, Colo., late Wednesday, Jones said that Perry believes adult stem cell therapy is the next big breakthrough in medicine, and that the governor had done so much research that he had no qualms about the procedure.

"He said, ‘You know I don't mind being the first. I like it,'" Jones said......

When it came time for Perry's procedure — the first Jones, a longtime orthopedic surgeon, had performed — Jones took two teaspoons of fatty tissue from the governor's hip and put it into culture, then waited several weeks as the stem cells expanded in the Sugar Land RNL BIO lab. During the subsequent surgery, Jones injected the governor's stem cells into his spine and also into his blood stream, with the intention of speeding the healing process. (Perry, who spent two nights in the hospital, has called the procedure a success.)

FULL STORY

Prolife law saves 100 babies

The Michigan Department of Community Health reported 100 children have been saved because of Michigan's Safe Delivery of Newborns Law. Since the passage of the law, 100 newborn babies have been surrendered in a safe, legal and anonymous manner. Commonsense prolife laws make a difference and save lives!

Learn more about the Safe Delivery of Newborns Law

Current pending prolife legislation

Expecting label added by Facebook

Facebook now has the option of making your unborn child a part of your family on your profile.

Facebook is now letting parents-to-be list their unborn children on their personal profiles.

Among options that include daughter, son, wife and husband, the "Friends and Family" section under "Edit Profile" now allows the option "Expected: Child." Parents can add a due date and the baby's name.

"We're always testing new features," a Facebook spokesperson said via e-mail. "Earlier this year, Facebook started providing the option to add an 'Expected: Child' as a way for users to more accurately express their identity."

FULL STORY

Florida abortionist ordered to pay $36 million

Late-term abortionist and abortion clinic owner James Pendergraft has a long history of run-ins with the law. His medical license has been suspended four times. He served time in a federal jail after being convicted of extortion. Now, a jury in Florida has ordered Pendergraft to pay $36 million after one of his clinics began a late term abortion on a woman who eventually gave birth. The child was born alive and faces serious medical issues because of her premature birth.

The mainstream media has not reported on this verdict, but other sources say that attorneys on behalf of a young girl who survived one of Pendergraft's abortions filed a lawsuit seeking a lifetime of medical care for the child, and they have won a $36 million verdict. In 2001, the plaintiff's mother, Carol Howard, apparently paid one of Pendergraft's clinics $1,300 to abort her baby at 22 weeks gestation. She was given multiple doses of RU-486, according to a source, and after 12 hours of labor left the clinic upset and in pain, later to deliver the baby girl in a hospital. The child weighed 1 lb 6 oz at birth, and suffers from cerebral palsy, lack of function on one side of her body, strokes and brain damage, physical, emotional and cognitive delays, lung damage, chronic lung disease, and seizure disorders. According to pro-life witnesses inside the courtroom, the Florida jury verdict orders Pendergraft to pay Howard $18,255,000 in punitive damages, $18,000,000 in compensatory damages, and over $400,000 in court costs.

FULL STORY

European clinical trial will see if adult stem cells can successfully treat MS

Later this year, European researchers will begin injecting multiple sclerosis patients with their own adult stem cells in the hope that these cells will repair damaged cause by the disease. They plan on enrolling 150 patients in this phase II clinical trial.

Dr Paolo Muraro from Imperial College London said: "There is very strong pre-clinical evidence that stem cells might be an effective treatment."

Researchers will collect stem cells from the bone marrow of patients, grow them in the laboratory and then re-inject them into their blood.

The stem cells will make their way to the brain where it is hoped that they will repair the damage caused by MS......

The international team will begin so-called phase two clinical trials in six months' time designed to determine whether the treatment is safe and effective.

It will take five years to carry out and assess the results of the trials after which large phase three trials may be required.

FULL STORY

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT STEM CELL RESEARCH