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From:
Meir Weiss <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
St. John's University Cerebral Palsy List
Date:
Mon, 23 May 2005 11:53:24 -0400
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-----Original Message-----
From: Meir Weiss [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 11:53
Subject: STEM CELL DEBATE Emailing:Contemporary Conundrums Addressed at
Conference on Judaism and Medicine



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Shortcut to:
http://www.lubavitch.com/Article.asp?Section=60&Article=624#
Dr. Angelo Aquista, former director of NYC Office of Emergency
Management (photo: O. Litzman)

Contemporary Conundrums Addressed at Conference on Judaism and Medicine
NEW YORK, NY - Tuesday, May 17, 2005

        Terminal Care and the Terri Schiavo Case; Embryonic Death and
the Creation of Human Embryonic Stem Cells; Nuclear, Biological and
Chemical Terrorism and Sexuality and Judaism were just a number of the
themes explored at the National Association of Judaism and Medicine
(NAJM), last Sunday, at the Hilton Hotel in New York City.

The all-day event, jointly sponsored by SUNY Downstate Medical Center
and Chabad Lubavitch of Midtown Manhattan, drew 250 guests, among them
many health professionals who chose from a smorgasbord of workshops,
seminars, and open-panel discussions on a broad range of issues that
concern the relationship between modern medicine and Jewish law.

In the hotly debated area of stem cell research, Rabbi Yizchok
Breitowitz, JD, Professor of Law, University of Maryland and a noted
scholar, stated unequivocally that from a Jewish perspective, stem cell
research is permitted by Jewish law, and even required because of its
life-saving potential. He endorsed the removal of most current
restrictions on harvesting stem cells to make the technology more widely
available.
Ironically, 27 years later, current stem cell research makes this vision
of the Rebbe into a realistic possibility. In an interesting aside, the
founder of NAJM, and conference chairman Moshe (Michael) Akerman, MD,
Associate Professor of Medicine at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center
told the audience about a conversation that took place in 1978 between
the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of blessed memory
and his cardiologist, Dr. L. Teicholtz.

The doctor was explaining to the Rebbe that after a heart attack, heart
muscle dies and new cells, called fibroblasts, grow into the dead area
and replace the muscle as scar tissue, leaving the heart muscle less
effective in pumping blood. The Rebbe, who understood the implications
perfectly, told Dr. Teicholz that these same fibroblast cells in the
embryo grow into normal heart muscle. It therefore follows, said the
Rebbe, that medicine should be able to figure out a way to cause these
fibroblast cells to grow back as healthy heart muscle instead of scar
tissue. "Ironically, 27 years later, current stem cell research makes
this vision of the Rebbe into a realistic possibility," said Dr.
Akerman.

In a plenary session called "Faith and Recovery," Bernie S. Siegel, MD,
Founder of EcaP,, Exceptional Cancer Patients and Richard Sloan, PhD,
Professor of Behavioral Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia
University debated whether there was any scientific evidence to support
prayer as a recovery tool in patients and whether doctors should be
involved in promoting manifestations of a spiritual nature. Panelist
Rabbi J. Immanuel Schochet, PhD, Professor of Philosophy from Toronto,
presented sources in Jewish law and Kaballah that discuss prayer, faith
and the role of G-d in healing. All agreed that personal faith is
important both for spiritual and physical recovery; but the role of the
physician in this process was left to be debated at a future conference.

The keynote address was delivered by Rabbi Dr. Moshe D. Tendler PhD, who
made an impassioned plea to rabbis to give clear halachic guidance to
doctors and patients in the burgeoning arena of unprecedented medical
technology. Rabbi Tendler, who was accorded a standing ovation, insisted
that halacha is immutable and can inform all past and future medical
discoveries.

The featured presenters at the conference were culled from the leading
medical, scientific and rabbinic authorities in the U.S. Canada and
Israel and included: Robert Jacobs, MD, CEO and Senior Vice President,
SUNY Downstate Medical Center; Amy Friedman, MD, Associate Professor of
Surgery and Co-Director, Division of Transplantation, Yale University
School of Medicine; Angelo Aquista, MD, former Director, NYC Office of
Emergency Mangement; Avraham Steinberg, MD Professor and Director of The
Center for Medical Ethics, Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School,
Jerusalem; and Susan Lobel, MD , Director of the In Vitro Fertilization
Program at the Maimonides Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York.

Rabbi Yehoshua Metzger, director of Chabad of Midtown Manhattan, has
also become a partner in the work of the conference, using his outreach
skills to help expose greater numbers to the conference. ""This
conference is a wonderful complement to the the scope of the educational
programs of Chabad of Midtown," he said. "It was especially heartwarming
to see the enthusiasm of the hundreds of participants who took off an
entire Sunday to study Torah, Halacha and its impact on medical ethics."

The International Conference on Judaism and Contemporary Medicine was
founded in 1988 by Dr. Akerman, with guidance and direction from the
Lubavitcher Rebbe.

For more information on the Conference, or to obtain tapes or videos,
see (www.NAJMedicine.org).



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