Still awake.

One thing I thought of today as I was driving home is the whole stem cell debate that is going on with the upcoming elections. I have some big problems with the radical right's position on the matter. As a country, we have a history of performing attrocities on our own people for the sake of progress. Hell, the U.S. government wiped out how many indigenous people? How many experiments were performed on people, some without even having knowledge that it was being done? How many people died from the smallpox vaccine that they were ORDERED to get because people like Saddam had biological weapons (oops, make that did have but got rid of them but was planning on getting them back someday so we needed to kill off or injure at least a couple thousand American lives and countless innocent Iraqui lives to be sure that he wouldn't get them back)? I mean, come on. I'd be willing to bet right now at some level in the government, there is a someone sitting in an office thinking about dirty bombs and the long term effects and is thinking about finding some people that will get a radioactive pebble shoved up their ass so we can find out what the effects of that type of continuous exposure would be. OUR GOVERNMENT EXPOSED PEOPLE TO NUCLEAR FALLOUT AND PUT TROOPS NEAR THE TEST BLASTS BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO KNOW WHAT WOULD HAPPEN!!!!

For us to suddenly be taking the high road. It is fucking ridiculous. The research is still young, but the promise of the stem cells. We could be looking at an end to Parkinson's, Alzheimers, cancer.... and those are just the big things. Of course, we have a sitting president who is fearful of the research. Don't understand why entirely as I'm confident even a bufoon like W can pronounce "stem cells." Could it be because he's got stock in (and lots of contributions from) the pharmaceutical companies? And isn't it more expensive to treat the disease rather than cure it? Doesn't that mean more money for those companies to make new drugs so that guys can maintain an erection for 48 hours (guess we can infer a little about the personal lives of the people running the companies, huh)? Of course it does.

Quick question. How many people were directly effected by the attacks on 9/11? How many people do you know who died in the terrorist attacks? How many people do you know who lost someone in the attack? How many of you know someone who knows someone who lost someone?

Second question: How many of you have lost someone to cancer? How many people do you know with cancer? With Parkinson's? With Alzheimer's?

I'd wager the answer to the first question was that very few knew someone who suffered a loss by 9/11 and a great many have lost someone or have a loved one with one of those diseases. I know that I have lost a grandmother (and soon a mother) to cancer. Amy lost two of her grandparents to cancer and has a grandmother who has battled breast cancer. My dad had skin cancer.

My point is this: 9/11 was a tragedy, but we are losing more people to the above mentioned diseases and have more people affected by those diseases (cancer alone!) in a year than if we were to have an attack equal to 9/11 every day of the year.

CANCER: Incidence : 1,248,900 annual cases (SEER 2002 estimate)  Lifetime risk for Cancer: about 1 in 3 lifetime risk (Canadian Cancer Statistics, National Cancer Institute of Canada, 2004) Deaths from Cancer: 555,500 annual deaths (SEER 2002 estimate)  Cause of death rank: 2nd top cause of death in 1999 and 2000 (CDC)
PARKINSON'S: Estimated that 2-5 million people have the disease, 14,593 deaths reported in USA 1999 (NVSR Sep 2001)
ALZHEIMER'S: 4.5 million cases in America (Alzheimer’s Association, 2004) Prevalence expected to increase to 11.3-16 million cases in America by 2050 (Alzheimer’s Association, 2004). 19 million people had a family member with Alzheimer's in the US (ADEAR). 53,852 deaths in USA 2001 (CDC); Cause of death rank: 8th leading cause of death in 1999 and 2000 (CDC)

So, let's see. That equals a total of about 7.75 million people having one of these diseases and an estimated total of 623800 dying of one of the diseases. Over 8.3 million people. The last tally of # confirmed dead on 9/11 was around 3000 people. It would take 207 9/11's to occur to match that number of people killed.

So, we spend how many bilions of dollars to fight terrorists - don't actually wipe out their leader when there is a chance, but shift focus to a region with what we want (especially if we are Texas oil men) - oil.

We don't have the right priorities in the country. I'm not saying the embryonic stem cell research is the way to go, far from it. I just find it laughable that the people shouting that research down are also some of the same people who grouped around televisions while our country bombed the hell out of another country and wiped out some innocent people.

We have so much ill will being directed toward us now from other countries. Gee, do you think that maybe wiping out a couple of debilitating diseases might lift our country in the eyes of others? Maybe? I'd think it more difficult to find people to attack the country that just wiped those diseases from the face of this earth. More difficult than to go after the people that invaded another country and tried to push their morals, ethics, and beliefs upon the people of that country (hey, didn't we kick Iraq's ass the first time around because they dared to do the very same thing we are doing now?).

Okay. That's my rant.