Actor Michael J. Fox is pushing Congress hard to lift President Bush's restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. "Embryonic stem cell research holds enormous promise," said Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, in remarks prepared for a Capitol Hill news conference on Wednesday. "More federal funding and more lines are needed or progress will stall."Unfortunately, this report has several problems that should be obvious to both ESC proponents and critics.
First, it is well know that there are no restrictions on embryonic stem cell research (although there should be). Instead, federal funding is restricted – that’s all. Yet the article lead credits Fox for asserting that congress lift "Bush's restrictions" on ESC research.
Second, the article, using Fox as a spokesperson, suggests that ESC research has the "most promise" for treating several diseases, including Alzheimer's. However, stem cell researchers appear to disagree with the potential for ESC treatments that celebrities promote and actors sensationalize.
"I think the chance of doing repairs to Alzheimer's brains by putting in stem cells is small," the Washinton Post attributed to stem cell researcher Michael Shelanski, co-director of the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York.
"Many of the technologies we hyped to the general public haven't worked yet," Celgene Corp. president Alan Lewis said at a recent biotechnology trade show in Philadelphia.
James Thomson, the Wisconsin biologist who was the first to isolate embryonic stem cells also admits ESC research has been oversold.
At an international meeting of cloners and stem cell researchers in San Francisco, even the most outspoken proponents of the technology concede they are years away from actual drugs based on stem cells.
Why the hype? "To start with, people need a fairy tale," the Washington Post quoted Ronald D.G. McKay, a stem cell researcher at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke [source]. "Maybe that's unfair, but they need a story line that's relatively simple to understand."
At the same time that ESC receives fairy tale status in the media, adult and umbilical cord stem cell research and therapy continues forward, relatively unnoticed despite many documented treatments (note: there are no ESC treatments to date).
Most importantly, current embryonic stem cell research is unethical. It requires the destruction of a human life to harvest the necessary stem cells. Umbilical cord and adult stem cell therapies have no such requirement or ethical shortfall.
Why not focus on technologies, such as adult stem cells, that are consistent with the sanctity of human life and are providing cures today and promise for tomorrow?
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