A 30-year-old Baltimore man is now back home recuperating from surgery in Sweden that implanted an artificial trachea made with his own adult stem cells. Christopher Lyles was diagnosed with inoperable tracheal cancer. He found Italian Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, who is a Visiting Professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, who has constructed and transplanted replacement tracheas, using the patient’s own bone marrow adult stem cells to build the new tissue. Lyles traveled to Sweden in November to have the surgery; he returned home this week with his new implanted trachea. In a telephone interview, Lyles said he was “feeling good”, and “just thankful for a second chance at life.” He was looking forward to watching his 4-year-old daughter grow up.

“He went home in very good shape,” said Dr. Macchiarini. Macchiarini said that Mr. Lyles adult stem cells were placed onto the synthetic windpipe scaffold and grown in a bioreactor for two days, then transplanted into his body after removal of his tumorous trachea. The cells continue to grow and differentiate after implantation into the patient. Macchiarini pointed out:

“We’re using the human body as a bioreactor to promote regeneration.”

Because his own adult stem cells were used, there was no need for drugs to prevent his body from rejecting the transplanted windpipe; use of anti-rejection drugs, which have numerous side-effects, is a common problem in transplants using donated organs.

This is the second synthetic trachea transplant. The first transplant occurred in June 2011, and the results of that first synthetic trachea transplant were published in The Lancet. Macchiarini had done eight previous artificial trachea transplants, using cadaveric trachea stripped of cells and then coated with the patient’s own adult stem cells. The synthetic tracheal scaffold was designed and built by a Columbus, Ohio company and the bioreactor used to initiate growth of the adult stem cells on the scaffold for two days was built by a Massachusetts company.

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NIH Director Francis Collins has approved four more human embryonic stem cell lines as eligible for federal taxpayer funding. The latest approval brings the total to 146. The four new lines are all from UCLA. The new lines, designated by the deriving lab as “UCLA 7″, “UCLA 8″, “UCLA 9″, and “UCLA 10″, join six previous UCLA lines approved by NIH for taxpayer funding–UCLA 1-3 approved April 27, 2010 and UCLA 4-6 approved February 3, 2011. All of the lines were apparently derived from human embryos after the new NIH guidelines went into effect in July 2009. NIH doesn’t provide details on the cells themselves or their derivation.

In the meantime, Adult Stem Cells continue to provide the gold standard for patient treatment, and the only stem cell type with published positive results at improving health and saving lives.

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Praise needs to be given to recent work of the Young America’s Foundation.  Ron Meyer and Nathan Harden of the foundation published an insightful op-ed in the Washington Times entitled “Generation Y Asks ‘Why Us’?”.  The article begins by noting that President Obama’s approval among the young has fallen by 30 percent.  The authors believe that “America’s youth are taking an economic beating.”  At FRC, we agree.

It isn’t just that their unemployment rate is higher than that of any other group in the general populace, but the young are being subjected to “record-smashing college debt levels.”  This is taking place while the national debt explodes.  Youth employment stands at 17.4%, and college debt has reached $26,300 for the typical graduate.  The national debt now stands about 100% of GDP – 15 trillion dollars.  More significantly in one sense: the interest payments alone are now equal to $3,000 per taxpayer.

Young America’s Foundation recognizes the economic problems facing the young and has developed a “Youth Misery Index.”  The Index reflects a value for youth unemployment plus college debt levels and per capita national debt.  This is a good idea, and I look forward to the Index’s release each year.

(One suggestion might be to adjust the national debt component to also reflect the finding of Reinhart and Rogoff (This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly) that debt levels above 90% of GDP have a detrimental effect on long-term growth and stability.)

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Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have shown that adult stem cells from muscle of young mice can improve the health and extend the life of aged mice. The research team tested aged mice that are a model of an aging disease called progeria; the condition leads to advanced early aging. The idea was that in aged mice, the adult stem cells may have lost their vitality, with problems in proliferation (growth) as well as differentiation into other tissue types. However, when cultured in the same lab dish as muscle adult stem cells from young mice, the stem cells from aged mice recovered their ability to grow and differentiate. When young adult stem cells were injected into the abdomens of aging mice with progeria, the mice lived two to three times longer than expected and were healthier than aging control mice. Instead of losing muscle mass and moving slowly, the animals grew as large as normal mice. The Pitt researchers found evidence that the young adult stem cells secret a growth factor that delays the aging process.

Senior investigator Dr. Johnny Huard suggested that human muscle-derived stem cells could be stored at an early age and used when people age, allowing some rejuvenation of tissues and slowing the aging process.

The study was published online in Nature Communications.

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“The Wonder of Life” is a beautiful 1-minute video from Youth Defence in Ireland.

Happy Christmas!

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Just in time for Christmas, NIH Director Francis Collins has approved more human embryonic stem cell lines for taxpayer funding, bringing the total number of hESC lines at the federal trough to 142. Today’s approval is not all that surprising–the four new lines, from the University of Queensland, were recommended for approval by the Stem Cell Working Group at the December 9, 2011 meeting of the Director’s Advisory Committee. The Stem Cell Working group had also voted not to approve six lines from China.

The four new hESC linies that have been approved are not for clinical use, however. Subsequent to the meeting and before the latest approvals, NIH also approved two other hESC lines, from Mt. Sinai Hospital in Canada. Those two lines are also restricted:

NIH-funded research with this line may only be conducted at Mount Sinai Hospital and “other Canadian laboratories affiliated with the Canadian Stem Cell Network for further research or potential clinical use.”

In the meantime, the current and future patient benefits of adult stem cells continue to be ignored.

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As the year ends there is more news on the education front.  An article by Ben Wolfgang in the Washington Times (12/15/2011, “Record Numbers Fail to Clear No Child bar”).  At the outset of the article, Wolfgang notes, “The numbers keep getting worse for the nation’s education system.”  In the 2010-11 academic year, the No Child Left Behind statute’s standards were not met by 48% of public schools.

There is a great deal of debate even among conservative education scholars whether the NCLB’s standards have become increasingly unrealistic.  There is disagreement over whether NCLB should continue as a national guide.  Whatever one’s feelings about NCLB, it seems clear that many schools and students are not proficient in reading and math.  Proponents note that the law “require[s] states to publish test-score results in math and reading for each school in grades 3 through 8 and again in grade 10.”  Parents can see how their children’s school is doing, but see this article that argues the federal yardstick  is defective.

The debate will continue next year as the NCLB law needs to be reauthorized by the Congress.  That may not be possible in an election year.  As with many other things much depends on the outcome of the presidential election.

One area in which there seems to be positive news is in “virtual” schooling.  “Virtual” education refers to taking classes online using the internet as the teaching device.  It seems completely obvious that online learning – if packaged properly – will revolutionize education.  See the Khan Academy.  A recent article notes the rapid growth in this new avenue for learning.  I think it is a positive development for a market-based approach to make an appearance in schooling.

The New York Times published a lengthy incredibly negative article on virtual learning recently.  Virtual learning probably has its difficulties, but it also strikes at the core of the modern public school power structures by giving parents more choices.  Lindsey Burke at the Heritage Foundation has some good observations on this debate.  One wonders if the Times is more worried about that than learning.

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In case you missed it, the appeal that was filed in the federal embryonic stem cell lawsuit regarding taxpayer funding, Sherley and Deisher et al. v. Sebelius et al., is moving forward.

The briefing schedule runs through March 12, 2012, and oral arguments are scheduled for April 23, 2012.

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This Christmas season has been very memorable for me and my wife especially now that Audrey, our 2-year-old, is old enough to participate in festivities such as decorating the Christmas tree. Since Thanksgiving, Audrey has danced around the house singing “Jingle Bells” and humming the tunes of Christmas carols that she hears throughout the day. Last Saturday, Audrey almost had the opportunity to experience another Christmas tradition for the first time — caroling. The three of us stood in line along with dozens of other customers at the U.S. Post Office located in the Aspen Hill Shopping Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. We were preparing our packages when Audrey tugged on my sleeve, saying “Daddy, Daddy, look.” I turned to see a bright smile on her face as she pointed to a trio of Christmas carolers entering the post office who looked like they had stepped off the theatre stage of “A Christmas Carol.” The gentleman of the group wore a top hat and the ladies were arrayed with shawls and bonnets. Dickens would be proud. Everyone turned their attention to the carolers in anticipation of that annual tradition that we’ve all experienced.

They were only a few notes into their carol when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I saw a scowling postal manager rushing to confront the carolers. He angrily told them that they had to leave immediately because they were “violating the post office’s policy against solicitation.” Everyone was momentarily frozen in astonishment before customers began booing the manager. Even in the face of protests from his customers, the manager wouldn’t back down.

The carolers explained that they were going to each business within the shopping center to sing a couple of carols — as they have done for many years. However, this was the first time that they had been turned away. The manager said he didn’t care and that they could take it up with the postmaster if they had a problem. “You can’t do this on government property,” he said. “You can’t go into Congress and sing” and so “you can’t do it here either,” he said smugly as the carolers turned sadly to leave. I encouraged them to file a complaint but they had little hope that a complaint would resolve anything and felt they had no choice but to acquiesce.

I later described the incident to a friend of mine who had worked for the post office for 26 years. He couldn’t imagine that there would be any policy that would prevent Christmas caroling at post offices. Indeed, a Google search will show examples of post office caroling during past Christmas seasons.

Over the last several years, we have watched militant secularists team up with federal bureaucrats in the effort to sterilize the public square of anything remotely connected to anything religious. This postal manager has clearly received the memo which has led him to stamp out Christmas caroling. But I have my own memo to all the Christmas carolers out there. Let’s not surrender to the secularist version of Christmas future. Let’s hold onto Christmases of past and do our part to pass that on to our children. As for me, I am taking at least one piece of advice from the postal manager and will send my own comment to the General Postmaster. The U.S. Constitution in no way prevents the government from accommodating Christmas caroling. I invite you to send your own memo (or email in this case) to pmgceo@usps.gov or call 1-800-275-8777.

Ben Franklin, the founder of the U.S. Post Office once said, “So shalt thou always live jollily; for a good conscience is a continual Christmas.” The U.S. Post Office and all of us would do well to heed Franklin’s advice.

UPDATE: Sign FRC’s petition affirming Christmas

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Glenn Harlan Reynolds is a law professor at the Universityof Tennessee.  He is also the founder of the Instapundit blog.  Professor Reynolds has taken a considerable interest in the skyrocketing cost of higher education and the accompanying debt spiral.  He wrote about the topic first in a Washington Examiner column in June 2010 (“Higher Education’s Bubble Is about to Burst”) and then again in an Examiner column in August 2010 (“Further Thoughts on the Higher Education Bubble”).  He also gave a lecture on the topic in the Fall of 2010 at the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism at Clemson University (“The Higher Education Bubble and What Comes Next”).

At its core, Reynolds thesis is simple.  He notes that education costs have risen at multiples of the general level of inflation in the economy.  Roughly speaking over the past thirty years, U.S. inflation was about 106%; health care costs increased 251%; and, college tuition costs increased 439%.  Next, he borrows the economist Herbert Stein’s maxim that things that are unsustainable, won’t be sustained.  These levels of excess cost increases for higher education are so great that they cannot and won’t be sustained over time.

This weekend, Professor Reynolds, had another column on this topic in the Washington Examiner.  Reynold made a couple of additional points.  First, he believes that college loan debt should be subject to elimination in bankruptcy.  That is not possible now.  Related to this he makes the following recommendation:

For higher education, the solution is more value for less money. Student loans, if they are to continue, should be made dischargeable in bankruptcy after five years — but with the school that received the money on the hook for all or part of the unpaid balance.

Up until now, the loan guarantees have meant that colleges, like the writers of subprime mortgages a few years ago, got their money up front, with any problems in payment falling on someone else.

Make defaults expensive to colleges, and they’ll become much more careful about how much they lend and what kinds of programs they offer. China, which has already faced its own higher education bubble, is simply shutting down programs that produce too many unemployable graduates.

Second, Reynolds argues that it may be time for skilled trades to make a return along with a return of vocational education.  (As he writes, “We need people who can make things, and it’s harder to outsource a plumbing or welding job to somebody in Bangalore.”)

Ultimately, he argues correctly that the skill that is most needed for young workers now is adaptability.  That seems to be clearly correct.

Check out the articles and the lecture, they are worth your time if you have an interest in this topic.

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Click here to listen to Part 1 of the interview

Click here to to listen to Part 2 of the interview

This week on American Family Radio, Ohio Congresswoman Jean Schmidt discussed the recent case in Ohio, where case workers removed a 200 pound third grader from his home. Congresswoman Schmidt argued that in many cases, obesity is the result of emotional stress, and that taking the child away from his mother might actually worsen the problem.

“Think about an eight-year-old child. Only knowing its mother, and the loving arms of its mother. Every morning that child runs to its mommy for a hug and a kiss, it’s part of its security…In most cases, people who are obese are obese because they use food as a cover for their emotions. So now you’ve put him in a new setting…where there’s all kinds of emotional trauma going on, and what is this child going to reach for? Or want to reach for? The cookie”

“Why didn’t the state step in and really help her and that child? Not just marginally, but really stepped in and helped them in the home. That’s where it should have occurred. All of the help should have occurred inside the home”

Congresswoman Schmidt is an avid marathon runner, and works with Congress on issues including child nutrition and women’s health.

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I recently saw a picture of an Occupy Wall Street poster that read, “The Game of Capitalism Breeds Dishonest Men.” Over the past three months, the “Occupy” movement has seemed to push a sentiment of anti-capitalism that has blocked city streets, cost local NYC businesses nearly half a million dollars, and created an atmosphere of hostility in various OWS protests across the country. It’s a bit troubling to see such a movement that seems to go against every economic principle that has directed this country.

The more and more I see my Twitter feed full of the term “#OWS” or “#OccupyDC”, I become a little more disheartened. However, I’ve recently come across a few articles that have made me feel a little bit better about my beliefs and show what economic principles this country runs on: capitalistic ones. In article on Mark Levin’s website, Gary Wolfram shows that, through the ages, capitalism seems to be the economic structure of choice. He points back to his experience as an educator. He would ask his students where they would like to be born, if they had the ability to chose. Never did students state that they would want to have grown up in North Korea, Zimbabwe, or Cuba. Time and time again, his students chose countries whose governments are based on free market principles that allow choice, competition, and growth.

Continue reading »

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The United States just agree to place 2,500 Marines in Australia as a signal to the Chinese that even the Obama Administration recognizes, perhaps dimly, that something is amiss in Asia and the Pacific.  (See the informative AP story that seems to be doing some chest thumping for the Administration.)  In any case, China is in the news, and, as we know, it’s “One Child Policy” is a brutal offense to human rights whose enforcement requires the sort of intrusive police state that seems to get little attention in the American press.  That is merely one type of oppression which the Chinese people face.  The Washington Times has been running a series of articles from a new book, Bowing to Beijing: How Barack Obama is Hastening America’s Decline and Ushering A Century of Chinese Domination, by Brett Decker and William Triplett II.  If you are doing some Christmas book shopping for someone who has an interest in China, take a look at Brett Decker’s useful list of “Ten Books You Need to Read about the Chinese Threat.”

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I have read several more education articles in the past couple days.  Each is worth a look and some consideration:

The first, a news story in the Washington Times, discusses “the latest installment of [President Obama’s] ‘we can’t wait’ campaign against Congress” in which the president issued new executive orders dealing with the Head Start program;

The second article by Michael G. Morris, CEO of American Electric Power, makes note of a looming worker shortage needed to fill millions of skilled jobs being vacated by retiring baby boomers that, in many cases, might not require debt-inflicting college degrees;

Finally, Michael Barone has a thought-provoking column about student debt and an Occupy Wall Street protester who acquired $35,000 in debt to study puppetry.  Yes, puppetry.  Barone defends his choice and considers him to be something of an entrepreneur.  Read it.

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Over the past several days some interesting articles have been published on specific education topics.  Each is worth reading:

• The first, an editorial in the Washington Examiner, focuses on the impact charter schools are having on education in theDistrict of Columbia.

• The second article focuses on the difficulties being experienced in reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind law. (Rightly or wrongly, the author believes that: “Failure to update the 2001 No Child Left Behind law, despite considerable support from both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, would have the practical effect of giving President Obama a much freer hand in setting federal education policy and pushing his favored reforms.”)

• The third article, by former congresswoman Melissa Hart, describes some unusual circumstances surrounding a federal False Claims Act lawsuit against Education Management Corporation (a for-profit) that was joined by the Dep’t of Justice in May 2011.  (Here is a New York Times piece with some background information and a different point of view.)

All in all, these articles lead one to conclude that the size of the D.C.-based education-industrial-complex is so massive that it needs to be drastically reduced or eliminated.

Coincidentally, in a speech given today at the Family Research Council, Representative Michelle Bachmann, stated that, if elected president, she would repeal all federal education laws (i.e., policy authority).  She added that she would eliminate the Department of Education.  The key step, however, would be eliminating the education laws because erasing the Dep’t of Education alone would do nothing to end the programs, activities, and spending that are required under all these federal statutes.  Only statutory repeal will do that.  It was interesting to hear Rep. Bachmann make this distinction.

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Doug Schoen, the former pollster for President Bill Clinton, has written an interesting article for the Wall Street Journal on the world view of the “Occupy Wall Street” protesters now sitting in Manhattan’s Zucotti Park.  A senior researcher at his polling firm, Arielle Alter Confino, interviewed nearly 200 of the OWS occupiers on October 10^th and 11^th.   She found that they “have a distinct ideology and are bound by a deep commitment to radical left-wing policies.”

Schoen describes their thinking in more detail:

Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn’t represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, virtually all (98%) say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda.

He adds that the OWS is bound by a “a deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas.”  Schoen goes on to express his opinion that alignment with those who hold such opinions would be electorally destructive.

That said, Repair_Man_Jack on RedState has a nice blog post discussing the skyrocketing cost of college tuition and its impact on young adults.  Stories had run indicating that some of the OWSers were protesting about the burden of student loans.  Given Schoen’s interview results this might have been a story line intended to make the protesters more sympathetic.  On the other hand, a bunch of Marxists might just want their debts repudiated.

Whatever they believe the RedState article recognizes this dissatisfaction.  The underlying problem is real and FRChas expressed its concern with the existence of the higher education racket.  (Paul Peterson of Harvard accurately called it the “Education Industrial Complex“ in 2008.)  American education is defective at the primary and secondary levels, but higher education is also deeply in need of reform.  Price competition and alternative forms of professional credentialing are needed badly.  An astute politician could garner great support from young voters merely by recognizing that a problem exists.

(Stephanie Guttman also discusses the OWS/education link on October 7 in a post on NRO’s Corner.  However, she attributes “E-I-C” to Michael Medved and raises the desirability of a return to vocational schools.)

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Peggy Noonan’s most recent column in the Wall Street Journal (Friday, October 14), “It’s No Time for Moderation,” had some keen insights on recent developments in public opinion.  She is thinking about the coming of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement and other manifestations of discontent and asks:

Why is this happening now, and not two years ago? Because at some point in the past year or six months, people started to realize: The economy really isn’t going to get better for a long time. Everyone seems to know in their gut that unemployment is going to stay bad or get worse. Everyone knows the jobless rate is higher than the government says, because they look around and see that more than 9% of their friends and family are un- or underemployed. People put on the news and hear aboutEuropeand bankruptcy, and worry that it’s going to spread here. Eighteen months ago smart people could talk on TV about how we’re on a growth path and recovery will begin by fall of 2010. Nobody talks like that now.

And people have a sense that nothing’s going to get better unless something big is done, some fundamental change is made in our financial structures. It won’t be small-time rejiggering—a 5% cut in this tax, a 3% reduction in that program—that will get us out of this.

She also comments perceptively on the demise of President Obama’s job’s proposal and why it lacked any momentum:

President Obama’s jobs bill failed in the Senate this week, and the headline is not that it lost, it’s that it lost and nobody noticed. Polls actually showed support for various parts of it. You know why it failed? Because he was for it. Because he said, “Pass this bill.” So weak is public faith in his economic leadership that people figure if he’s behind it, it must be a bad idea.

In conclusion, it appears that the political energy that characterized 2010 lies ready to be tapped by candidates with good, BIG ideas in 2012.

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Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post has written a powerful article  (“The Forgotten Christians of the East”) describing the growing danger to Christians living in Muslim countries – and most recently in Egypt:

On Sunday night, Egyptian Copts staged what was supposed to be a peaceful vigil at Egypt’s state television headquarters in Cairo. The 1,000 Christians represented the ancient Christian community of some 8 million whose presence in Egypt predates the establishment of Islam by several centuries. They gathered in Cairo to protest the recent burning of two churches by Islamic mobs and the rapid escalation of state-supported violent attacks on Christians by Muslim groups since the overthrow of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in February.

According to Coptic sources, the protesters Sunday night were beset by Islamic attackers who were rapidly backed up by military forces. Between 19 and 40 Copts were killed by soldiers and Muslim attackers. They were run over by military vehicles, beaten, shot and dragged through the streets of Cairo.

Maggie Michael of Associated Press wrote an analysis piece from Cairo that was carried in the Washington Times.  Michael noted that Mubarak’s fall and the subsequent “fading of authoritarian rule [in Egypt] empowered Islamist fundamentalists, known here as Salafis, who have special resentment for Christians.”  This appears to be the general pattern in the countries that have experienced the “Arab Spring.”  As old power structures toppled, the political replacement in contemporary Arab politics tends toward Islamist extremism.  It is a dangerous trend for religious minorities that needs to be opposed by the United States government.

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NIH Director Francis Collins has approved another human embryonic stem cell line for federal taxpayer funding. The line, HUES PGD 14, was added to the NIH registry today, bringing the total number of approved hESC lines to 136. The line was created by Harvard University from a female embryo, and according to the information provided on the NIH website: “The embryo from which this hESC line was derived was determined through preimplantation genetic diagnosis to be affected with Spinal Muscular Atrophy.” This highlights the point made by Dr. James Sherley and Dr. Theresa Deisher in the ongoing Sherley et al. v. Sebelius et al. case, that there is a continued demand for more embryo destruction and more hESC lines, and the current NIH guidelines continue to provide an incentive for more human embryo destruction.

Meanwhile, adult stem cells remain the gold standard for patient treatments. You can see some examples at Stem Cell Research Facts.

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Bill Gertz has an alarming story in his “Inside the Ring” column in today’s (10/6/2011; p. A9) Washington Times entitled “Anti-Terror Trainers Blocked.  According to Gertz, theCIA and the Department of Homeland security “abruptly canceled” an August conference on “homegrown U.S. radical extremism in what officials close to the issue say was an effort to block two conservative anti-terrorism experts from presenting their views.”

Gertz claims the event was canceled “after Muslim advocacy groups contact the Department of Homeland Security and the White House about scheduled speakers, who included Stephen Caughlin and Steven Emerson, both specialists on the Islamist terror threat.” According to Gertz, “Mr. Caughlin, a former Pentagon Joint Staff analyst, is one of the most knowledgeable counterterrorism experts specializing in the relationship between Islamic law and terrorism.”  Emerson heads “the Investigative Project on Terrorism” and “is a leading expert on Islamic violent extremism, financing and operations.”

Apparently stopping the conference wasn’t enough for the White House.  Gertz was told by one official “that to prevent the two experts from taking part in future conferences,  the administration is drafting new guidelines designed to prohibit all U.S.government personnel from teaching classes on Islamic history or doctrine.”  These rules will also “seek to prohibit the use of federal funds to pay contractors for such training.”

These actions bears closer examination, but they fit within the growing pattern of attacks from the Left on those – also including Frank Gaffney – who oppose Islamist extremism.

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