Pure Common Sense

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.

The stem cell controversy took off in 2004 based on a speculative cure that wasn’t there based on something they MIGHT be able do.  Such a cure, which tempted all too many Americans, offered to end a host of diseases and many were quick to sign on without Common Sense or an examining of the facts.  The whole ordeal turned out to be a huge sham – but it did garner certain politicians and celebrities a chance for publicity.  Now that real cures are being found in real places, it’s time for the truth to come out.  This embryonic stem cell nonsense has been a complete failure and despite all its problems – has delivered nothing.

What a lot of people misunderstood is that embryonic stem cell research has been going on consistently – like it or not – and that a little more funding doesn’t quite match up with their black-white situation dichotomy.  This is the ignorant view of a good many people – some vocal and influential.  It looks like the research will not continue much longer – there is a cure, and Michael J. Fox may get better in his illness, but it will be without political statements or publicity stunts.  When Fox appeared on Oprah, he said in the last “eight years” there was “no forward progress” while Dr. Oz, a specialist, shared the real situation, which has not received as much media sympathy.  It is time to leave embryonic stem cell research behind.  The political issue turned out to be a quick joke.  However, we can learn some lessons from it.  Those of us who stood the moral high ground against the false prophet of embryonic stem cell research can continue to keep it.  Perhaps it is this crowd to listen to on the next similar issue since we have the ethics and the historical credibility to back it up.