PrintAdult stem cells and Bill Clinton
Michale Fumento has a column up today on Tech Central Station Central, about the use of adult stem cell technology to regenerate heart and blood vessel tissues. In the future, this may obviate the need for traumatic bypass surgery of the sort from which ex—President Clinton is now recovering.
Toward the bottom, Fumento discredits recent assertions of New York Times science writer Gina Kolata:
Because ES [embryonic stem cell — Ed.] and AS [adult stem cell — Ed.] cell research battles for the same limited funds, the ES backers brand as a religious fanatic anyone with a kind word to say about AS cells, or even pretend that AS cells don't even exist (as Ron Reagan did). They may also claim they are as unproven as ES cells, which have yet to even make it into a human trial. As ace New York Times reporter Gina Kolata wrote last month, "The problem [with AS cells] is in putting them to work to treat diseases. So far, no one has succeeded."
So MacroPore and those German, Brazilian, and American researchers are all delusional?
In fact, as Ms. Kolata cannot but know, AS cells have been used therapeutically since the 1950s. Already more than 80 different AS cell treatments are in use, with new applications coming so quickly they can't even be tracked. But as ES research continues to poke along and the number of people treated and cured with AS cells continues to grow, AS research will become impossible to ignore. Ya just gotta have heart.
CBS is not the only big media company to disgrace itself on issues of truth.
Thomas 9 13 04
