Adult stem cells are where it's at

This is in response to Froma Harrop's editorial on the subject of bizarre United States bans. She's wrong about stem cell research.

George W. Bush did not ban stem cell research; he banned the funding of embryonic stem cell research using U.S. tax dollars. Were a project to show real promise, it will receive funding from someone who's looking for a good investment. Advocates for embryonic stem cell research were always claiming it was a miracle cure. If it's truly as good as they say, it would have investors flocking to it.

The reason they're not, and why we shouldn't waste our tax dollars on it, is that it is a washout.

Embryonic stem cell research has not resulted in the treatment of any disease. Not one. Researchers themselves admit that they are about 20 years from human trials. When embryonic stem cells are injected into a test animal, invariably cell growth is rapid, uncontrollable and eventually tumorous.

Adult stem cells, at this present time, are being used in the treatment of up to 80 diseases. They have been used to repair heart muscles, to replace the aorta of a heart, with stem cells and an artificial material used as a substrate. Adult stem cells may be acquired from bone marrow, the placenta, the skin - I heard of one case in which adult stem cells were obtained from the olfactory bulb inside the patient's nose (these cells were close in kind to the nerve cells they were intended to replace.) This was to treat a woman's paralysis. The cells (after being cultured in a lab) were injected into the woman's spinal column. Her mobility was restored to something like 60 percent. Adult stem cell research is the miracle cure that embryonic stem cell research was boasted of being.

Steven S. Robnett

Elgin