Tag: federal budget

Stem Cells Fast Facts | CNN

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CNN
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Here is some background information about stem cells.

Scientists believe that stem cell research can be used to treat medical conditions including Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.

Sources: National Institutes of Health, Mayo Clinic

Stem cell research focuses on embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells.

Stem cells have two characteristics that differentiate them from other types of cells:

– They are unspecialized cells that can replicate themselves through cell division over long periods of time.

– Stem cells can be manipulated, under certain conditions, to become mature cells with special functions, such as the beating cells of the heart muscle or insulin-producing cells of the pancreas.

There are many different types of stem cells, including: pluripotent stem cells and adult stem cells.
– Pluripotent stem cells (ex: embryonic stem cells) can give rise to any type of cell in the body. These cells are like blank slates, and they have the potential to turn into any type of cell.
– Adult stem cells can give rise to multiple types of cells, but are more limited compared with embryonic stem cells. They are more likely to generate within a particular tissue, organ or physiological system. (Ex: blood-forming stem cells/bone marrow cells, sometimes referred to as multipotent stem cells)

Embryonic stem cells are harvested from four to six-day-old embryos. These embryos are either leftover embryos in fertility clinics or embryos created specifically for harvesting stem cells by therapeutic cloning. Only South Korean scientists claim to have successfully created human embryos via therapeutic cloning and have harvested stem cells from them.

Adult stem cells are already designated for a certain organ or tissue. Some adult stem cells can be coaxed into or be reprogrammed into turning into a different type of specialized cell within the tissue type – for example, a heart stem cell can give rise to a functional heart muscle cell, but it is still unclear whether they can give rise to all different cell types of the body.

The primary role of adult stem cells is to maintain and repair the tissue in which they are found.

Regenerative medicine uses cell-based therapies to treat disease.

Scientists who research stem cells are trying to identify how undifferentiated stem cells become differentiated as serious medical conditions, such as cancer and birth defects, are due to abnormal cell division and differentiation.

Scientists believe stem cells can be used to generate cells and tissues that could be used for cell-based therapies as the need for donated organs and tissues outweighs the supply.

Stem cells, directed to differentiate into specific cell types, offer the possibility of a renewable source of replacement cells and tissues to treat diseases, including Alzheimer’s diseases.

Cloning human embryos for stem cells is very controversial.

The goal of therapeutic cloning research is not to make babies, but to make embryonic stem cells, which can be harvested and used for cell-based therapies.

Using fertilized eggs left over at fertility clinics is also controversial because removing the stem cells destroys them.

Questions of ethics arise because embryos are destroyed as the cells are extracted, such as: When does human life begin? What is the moral status of the human embryo?

1998 – President Bill Clinton requests a National Bioethics Advisory Commission to study the question of stem cell research.

1999 – The National Bioethics Advisory Commission recommends that the government allow federal funds to be used to support research on human embryonic stem cells.

2000 – During his campaign, George W. Bush says he opposes any research that involves the destruction of embryos.

2000 – The National Institutes of Health (NIH) issues guidelines for the use of embryonic stem cells in research, specifying that scientists receiving federal funds can use only extra embryos that would otherwise be discarded. President Clinton approves federal funding for stem cell research but Congress does not fund it.

August 9, 2001 – President Bush announces he will allow federal funding for about 60 existing stem cell lines created before this date.

January 18, 2002 – A panel of experts at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) recommends a complete ban on human reproductive cloning, but supports so-called therapeutic cloning for medical purposes.

February 27, 2002 – For the second time in two years, the House passes a ban on all cloning of human embryos.

July 11, 2002 – The President’s Council on Bioethics recommends a four-year ban on cloning for medical research to allow time for debate.

February 2005 – South Korean scientist Hwang Woo Suk publishes a study in Science announcing he has successfully created stem cell lines using therapeutic cloning.

December 2005 – Experts from Seoul National University accuse Hwang of faking some of his research. Hwang asks to have his paper withdrawn while his work is being investigated and resigns his post.

January 10, 2006 – An investigative panel from Seoul National University accuses Hwang of faking his research.

July 18, 2006 – The Senate votes 63-37 to loosen President Bush’s limits on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research.

July 19, 2006 – President Bush vetoes the embryonic stem-cell research bill passed by the Senate (the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005), his first veto since taking office.

June 20, 2007 – President Bush vetoes the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007.

January 23, 2009 – The FDA approves a request from Geron Corp. to test embryonic stem cells on eight to 10 patients with severe spinal cord injuries. This will be the world’s first test in humans of a therapy derived from human embryonic stem cells. The tests will use stem cells cultured from embryos left over in fertility clinics.

March 9, 2009 – President Barack Obama signs an executive order overturning an order signed by President Bush in August 2001 that barred the NIH from funding research on embryonic stem cells beyond using 60 cell lines that existed at that time.

August 23, 2010 – US District Judge Royce C. Lamberth issues a preliminary injunction that prohibits the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

September 9, 2010 – A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit grants a request from the Justice Department to lift a temporary injunction that blocked federal funding of stem cell research.

September 28, 2010 – The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit lifts an injunction imposed by a federal judge, thereby allowing federally funded embryonic stem-cell research to continue while the Obama Administration appeals the judge’s original ruling against use of public funds in such research.

October 8, 2010 – The first human is injected with cells from human embryonic stem cells in a clinical trial sponsored by Geron Corp.

November 22, 2010 – William Caldwell, CEO of Advanced Cell Technology, tells CNN that the FDA has granted approval for his company to start a clinical trial using cells grown from human embryonic stem cells. The treatment will be for an inherited degenerative eye disease.

April 29, 2011 – The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia lifts an injunction, imposed last year, banning the Obama administration from funding embryonic stem-cell research.

May 11, 2011 – Stem cell therapy in sports medicine is spotlighted after New York Yankees pitcher Bartolo Colon is revealed to have had fat and bone marrow stem cells injected into his injured elbow and shoulder while in the Dominican Republic.

July 27, 2011 – Judge Lamberth dismisses a lawsuit that tried to block funding of stem cell research on human embryos.

February 13, 2012 – Early research published by scientists at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Johns Hopkins University shows that a patient’s own stem cells can be used to regenerate heart tissue and help undo damage caused by a heart attack. It is the first instance of therapeutic regeneration.

May 2013 – Scientists make the first embryonic stem cell from human skin cells by reprogramming human skin cells back to their embryonic state, according to a study published in the journal, Cell.

April 2014 – For the first time scientists are able to use cloning technologies to generate stem cells that are genetically matched to adult patients,according to a study published in the journal, Cell Stem Cell.

October 2014 – Researchers say that human embryonic stem cells have restored the sight of several nearly blind patients – and that their latest study shows the cells are safe to use long-term. According to a report published in The Lancet, the researchers transplanted stem cells into 18 patients with severe vision loss as a result of two types of macular degeneration.

May 2, 2018 – The science journal Nature reports that scientists have created a structure like a blastocyst – an early embryo – using mouse stem cells instead of the usual sperm and egg.

June 4, 2018 – The University of California reports that the first in utero stem cell transplant trial has led to the live birth of an infant that had been diagnosed in utero with alpha thalassemia, a blood disorder that is usually fatal for fetuses.

January 13, 2020 – In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers announce they have created the world’s first living, self-healing robots using stem cells from frogs. Named xenobots after the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis), the machines are less than a millimeter (0.04 inches) wide, small enough to travel inside human bodies. Less than two years later, scientists announce that these robots can now reproduce.

February 15, 2022 – A US woman becomes the third known person to go into HIV remission, and the first mixed-race woman, thanks to a transplant of stem cells from umbilical cord blood, according to research presented at a scientific conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections.

November 7, 2022 – Scientists announce they have transfused lab-made red blood cells grown from stem cells into a human volunteer in a world-first trial that experts say has major potential for people with hard-to-match blood types or conditions such as sickle cell disease.

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Joe Biden’s 2024 Menu: The Rich.

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President Joe Biden on Thursday rolled out his proposed budget for fiscal 2024, an ambitious plan that would raise taxes on the rich and on corporations while expanding the social safety net. It would cut nearly $3 trillion from the federal deficit over the next decade by imposing a 25 percent minimum tax on the richest Americans. If you want to read the entire 185-page document, have at it!

Of course, it also won’t do a single bit of that, because Republicans won’t pass any of the major parts of the plan, particularly not the tax increases, but also not the social safety net parts like paid family leave, childcare, or Biden’s plan to rescue the Medicare trust fund for at least 25 years.

Not a bit of it will become law except the most routine keep-things-as-they-are parts, which will no doubt end up in yet another omnibus spending bill passed barely in time to avoid a government shutdown. If then. Oh, also, the part that increases defense spending by about 3.2 percent, to over $835 billion, will probably do just fine. But whatever defense budget eventually passes in the fall won’t be accompanied by the tax increases that would make the expenditures slightly less odious.

So why even offer a budget that’s not going to get passed by Congress? For starters, presidents have to submit a budget request in early February (traditionally by the first Monday, but everything moves slow these days) to get the process rolling, and the budget reflects the administration’s priorities, even if the opposition is able to block them. Also, let’s remember that Donald Trump’s budgets, which zeroed out entire federal agencies, were entirely exercises in rightwing fantasy. And yet somehow we still have the National Endowment for the Arts.

So sure, a federal budget is mostly aspirational, and this year, Biden’s budget serves two practical purposes: It sets out markers for where he wants his government to go in a second term (you know, if he runs), and it’s also an opening bid in the negotiations over raising the debt ceiling. Republicans say they want to cut federal spending because the deficits are too high, and Biden’s budget is over here saying “Yeah? You show me how you’d reduce the deficit by $3 trillion in 10 years, ya mooks.”

Former Obama administration official Kenneth Baer, who served in the Office of Management and Budget, explained to the Washington Post,

“As one of the people who has spent many a long night writing and editing a budget, I take umbrage at the people who say it’s a meaningless document. It’s not a meaningless document. […] It sets the terms of the debate. It shows what’s important to you, your commitments and what you really want.”

So let’s take a look at what’s in this thing and what that says about what Joe Biden wants.

The Rich Still Need To Be Eaten

Speaking at a union hall in Philadelphia yesterday, Biden emphasized that his third budget proposal is aimed at “investing in America and all of America,” because “Too many people have been left behind and treated like they’re invisible. Not anymore. I promise I see you.”

To that end, the $6.8 trillion budget plan (over 10 years) includes about $5 trillion in tax increases on the wealthiest individuals and corporations, most of which will go to cover new programs that Biden has previously put forward but that haven’t yet been enacted.

Some specific tax increase proposals may sound familiar because some of them were in the original version of Build Back Better, but were removed after Sen. Kyrsten Sinema said Donald Trump’s 2017 Big Fat Tax Cuts for Rich Fuckwads couldn’t be reversed, not even a little.

  • Raise the corporate income tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent, which would still be lower than the 35 percent rate prior to Trump’s 2017 cuts. It would also raise the tax rate on foreign earnings from 10.5 percent to 21 percent, to reduce the incentive for companies to move operations out of the USA.
  • Repeal Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans by returning the top marginal tax rate to 39.7 percent from the current 37 percent. This would affect taxpayers making $400,000 a year for individuals, or $450,000 married filing jointly.
  • Tax capital gains the same as income for people making over $1 million, and close the carried interest loopholefor chrissakes finally.
  • Increase the surtax on corporate stock buybacks from one percent to four percent
  • A new minimum tax on billionaires, assessing a 25 percent minimum tax on all income of the wealthiest tenth of one percent of Americans. That’s a follow-up to the minimum corporate tax that was included in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act.
  • Raise Medicare taxes on those making more than $400,000 a year, and make more types of income eligible for Medicare taxation. We detailed that plan right here. Medicare would also be able to negotiate prices on more prescription drugs sooner, creating additional savings that would go to the Medicare trust fund.

Nice Things We Need

The budget also includes some domestic programs that were good ideas when they were proposed in Build Back Better, and were still good ideas when Joe Manchin demanded they be removed from Build Back Better. A few have been downsized for the budget plan, which also adds some items that weren’t in BBB.

  • Restore the enhanced child tax credit and make it permanent. Hell yes. It markedly reduced child poverty in the US, and it’s damn near criminal that it was allowed to lapse. Also way better for America’s children than allowing them to work in meatpacking plants.
  • College affordability. The budget calls for higher maximum awards for Pell grants and for a $500 million grant program to make two years of community college free — not quite the full free community college program Biden originally ran on.
  • Universal Pre-K and affordable child care. Not quite the full programs proposed in Build Back Better, but as CNN summarizes, this would fund “a new federal-state partnership program that would provide universal, free preschool. The spending plan would also increase funding for existing federal early care and education programs.”
  • Paid family and medical leave — another big priority that still needs doing. 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave; for fuckssake let’s get this done. Yeah, in 2025 after we retake the House and expand the Senate majority.
  • More free school meals. During the pandemic, we gave every kid eat. The Biden budget would provide $15 billion to enable wider free lunches, though hey, since it’s a wish list, why not just say we want universal free school lunch? Kids learn better if they’re not hungry.
  • Make the IRA’s Obamacare subsidies permanent. The enhanced premium subsidies, which started out as part of the American Rescue Plan, have helped reduce the percentage of Americans without healthcare coverage to record lows. But they’re set to expire in 2025.
  • Reduce maternal mortality. It’s still a crisis, with far greater rates of maternal mortality for Black women than for white women. The budget calls for $471 million in funding to expand maternal health care, particularly in rural areas. It would also require all states to provide Medicaid postpartum care for 12 months instead of the current 60 days.
  • $35 per month insulin for all Americans. It was included in the IRA for folks on Social Security, so let’s make that the standard for those on private insurance or who have no insurance at all. It’s literally a matter of life or death.
  • Lower prescription drug prices for seniors. The IRA put a $2000 cap annual on out-of-pocket costs for Medicare beneficiaries (going into effect in 2025). Biden wants to further limit copays for generic prescription drugs for chronic conditions to $2.

Yes, We Still Need Climate Spending

While the Inflation Reduction Act was the biggest American investment ever in fighting the climate emergency, Biden’s budget proposal also recognizes that there’s a lot more that needs doing, so it calls for still more funding to move America closer to reaching our Paris climate agreement goals. We want to wrap this sucker up, but take a look at this CNBC piece for more details on how the budget would expand our transition to clean power and cutting carbon emissions. Among the basics:

• $24 billion for climate resilience and conservation

• $16.5 billion for climate science and clean energy innovation

• $6.5 billion for energy storage and transmission projects

• $4.5 billion for jobs building clean energy infrastructure

• $3 billion for advancing adaptation finance

• $1.8 billion for environmental justice initiatives

• $1.2 billion for the Energy Department’s industrial decarbonization activities

Want even more info? I’m leaving a tab open with the White House fact sheet on the budget’s climate priorities, because this is what the agenda for keeping the planet habitable should look like.

So those are some darn good priorities — and a blueprint for the 2024 campaign, too.

And now, back to two years of hearings on Twitter and Hunter’s laptop. Total waste of time, but they may help make a very strong case for not letting Republicans anywhere near power again.

[2024 Budget of the US Government / WaPo / CNBC / NYT / CNBC]

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