THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 50, March 10, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
CBS'S STEM CELL SHENANIGANS
By Michael Fumento
THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA & HUMAN HEALTH: PROPAGANDA & MISINFORMATION IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA'S
COVERAGE OF EVENTS & DEVELOPMENTS IN SCIENCE & HEALTH-RELATED FIELDS -- MEDIA DECISIONS AS TO WHAT THE
GENERAL PUBLIC SHOULD OR SHOULD NOT KNOW -- AN EXAMPLE: PROVIDING DISTORTED & INACCURATE INFORMATION
ABOUT ADULT STEM CELLS & EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS -- WHAT ELSE IS THE MEDIA DECIDING THE PUBLIC SHOULD KNOW
THAT IS FALSE, OR SHOULD NOT KNOW, EVEN THOUGH IT IS TRUE?
FULL STORY:
A year ago I wrote an article titled “Why the Media Misses the Stem Cell Story.” It discussed the almost total disregard of
adult stem cells (ASCs) and the glorification of “miraculous” human embryonic stem cells (ESCs), notwithstanding the fact
that the adult stem cells treat over 80 human diseases, while embryonic stem cells haven’t even made it to human testing.
For a wonderful example of this triumph of hype and politics over reality, look no further than two CBS News 60 Minutes
segments that aired towards the end of February, 2006. One was “Scientist Hopes for Stem Cell Success,” hosted by Ed
Bradley (who also hosted the 1989 show that began the Alar “poison apple” scare). The other was “Surplus of Embryos,”
hosted by Leslie Stahl. Both presented ESCs as potentially curing every disease known; both omitted any reference to ASCs.
Bradley, in his opening words, informed viewers that ESCs comprise “a field that shows enormous promise, but has been
restricted by a ban on federal funding for research because it involves the destruction of human embryos.”
Sorry Mr. Ed, but there is no ban on federal funding for ESC research, as even your colleague Stahl pointed out a week before.
The ban covers only cell lines developed after August, 2001. Further, if ESC research were so “enormously promising,” why is
progress so agonizingly slow?
Apologists say it’s because the first human line of ESCs wasn’t established until 1998. What they don’t say is that this is
because, while ESCs were discovered in the 1950s at the same time as ASCs, ESCs are so terribly complicated to work with it
that took almost half a century to establish that line. Further, they remain terribly hard to work with.
That’s why, despite all the cures and treatments we have with ASCs and the nearly 1000 clinical trials currently using them,
there have been no ESC clinical trials. Nor will there be until ESC researchers work out “minor” difficulties with their alleged
miracle workers.
For one, ESCs tend to be rejected by the recipient, while ASCs are rarely rejected and naturally are never so when culled from
the recipient himself. Moreover, ESCs have a nasty tendency to form cancerous teratomas (“monster tumors”) in recipients.
Until these problems are solved, ESCs are going nowhere fast. Yet neither Bradley nor Stahl mentioned them.
Instead, Bradley focused on an experiment in which ESCs allowed paralyzed rats to walk again. Forget that scientists using
ASCs had the same success almost a decade ago, or that, recently, South Korean scientists used ASCs to enable a paraplegic
woman (not a female rat) to walk again.
Stahl told viewers, “The reason embryonic stem cells are so prized is because they have the unique ability to grow into all
different kinds of cells in the body, like kidney cells, brain cells, and even heart cells.”
Unique? Do tell!
Less than a minute on the online medical journal database PubMed would have told Stahl she was wrong about all
three of these. Regarding kidneys, she’d find observations like this from last June’s issue of Nephrology: “There has
been considerable focus on the ability of bone marrow-derived cells to differentiate into [other types of] cells of various
tissue lineages, including cells of the kidney.”
Since 2002, it’s been known that stem cells repair damaged human brains. These stem cells can be plucked from the brain
itself, but also from a much more easily accessed source – bone marrow. Repaired cells include both neurons and glial cells.
As to fixing broken hearts, that’s old hat with adult stem cells. Marrow cells are now easily and painlessly extracted from the
blood, cultivated, and injected back into the bloodstream, where they zero in on the damage and repair it. They also grow
new blood vessels, bypassing the need for heart bypass surgery.
CBS either knew or should have known about all of these developments, yet it mentioned none. Like most of the media, it
remains obsessed with promoting a will o’ the wisp science, while ignoring an alternative that’s been saving lives for
decades and also avoids ethical concerns.
The network needs to have somebody in charge who can restore a higher level of honesty. You know, like Dan Rather.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Science, Ethics, & Human Health
The News Media & Political Bias
Republished with Permission of
Michael Fumento
www.fumento.com
Michael Fumento is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, an associate of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a columnist
syndicated by Scripps-Howard, and the author of numerous books, including BioEvolution: How Biotechnology Is
Changing the World.
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