The Houston Chronicle's Todd Ackerman is the only reporter who sent out an article on yesterday's hearing on stem cells in Houston. It seems that my 20 minutes or so of being grilled by Rep. Cook was seen as a "clash.":
The hearing was marked by a minor clash between Dr. Beverly Nuckols, a New Braunfels bioethicist who opposes embryonic stem cell research, and Rep. Byron Cook, R-Corsicana. He repeatedly challenged her on whether the embryo is a life, why she's out of step with eminent scientists and whether women will sell their eggs for research purposes.
Adult cells
Nuckols and other opponents of embryonic stem cells at the hearing touted adult stem cells.
The versatility of adult stem cells has surprised scientists in experiments in recent years, but it is not thought to have the potential of embryonic stem cells.
The hearing drew about 150 people. Swinford, who visited the Texas Heart Institute earlier in the day to learn about the treatment of diseased hearts with adult stem cells, said the hearing was in Houston because the city is renowned for cutting-edge medical treatment.
A similar hearing by the Senate Health and Human Services Committee was held Sept. 19 in Austin.
Swinford said the committee would produce a report from the testimony but make no recommendation.
todd.ackerman@chron.com
Back in med school, we had a term for repetitive questioning designed to make the one being questioned show off/learn something/be humiliated (depending on the "benign" or "malignant" nature of the one doing the questioning). We called it being "pimped." However, it is necessary for the questioner to know more than the one he's "pimping." Rep. Cook failed, miserably, if his intention was to pimp me.It never works for someone with a lesser knowledge to attempt to pimp someone who actually understands the science and who can quote the latest literature.
As I told the Representative Cook: "Science informs us that human beings begin as the single-celled zygote. Any other point is arbitrary."
1 comment:
Ohh, I didn't know you were a minor celebrity! I wish I could have seen you in action there. While I disagree with some of your views, I do admire the consistancy with which you hold them and the skill with which you defend them - that would have been a hearing worth seeing.
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