I remember when President Obama announced his executive order stating that the Federal government would resume funding the highly controversial embryonic stem cell research projects, only to sign a bill a couple days later which contained a provision putting those restrictions back in place. Perhaps he was trying to make a statement distancing himself from Bush but he has to live with reality now – embryonic stem cell research is a thing of the past. I remember back in 2004 Ron Reagan, Christopher Reeve, Michael J. Fox and those types were rambling on about a miracle “cure” to diseases such as paralysis and Parkinson’s Disease. Well, while they were all basing their claims on faulty evidence and emotional, rather than logical reasoning, it seems that there was a cure. But they were dead on wrong about where it was. It’s not with embryonic stem cell research – it’s with adult stem cell research and the new alternative induced pluripotent stem cell research (iPS.)
In the midst of all this controversy and field days for the press, the progress has come mostly from adult stem cell research – where new breakthroughs are coming every day. It seems like that is where we should be putting our efforts. And the benefits of iPS – which involves taking healthy human skin cells and reprogramming them to act like stem cells in whatever way the body needs – has not produced any more cures than its troubling embryonic cousin to date, but has reason to show promise according to Columbia University researchers. And it is much more ethical since it does not involve the destruction of human embryos in their earliest and most vulnerable stage. Read the rest of this entry »
