THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 146, August 4, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE STEM CELL SCAM:
Science Magazine Promotes Taxpayer Funding
for Unproven & Unpromising Research
By Michael Fumento
EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH, FEDERAL FUNDING, & INTEREST GROUP POLITICS: PRACTICING & PROMOTING
PSEUDOSCIENCE & DISSEMINATING POLITICAL PROPAGANDA -- THE SCIENTIFIC & MORAL BANKRUPTCY OF THE ENTIRE
ESC ADVOCACY MOVEMENT
FULL STORY:
Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) receive tremendous media attention, with oft-repeated claims that they have the potential to cure
virtually every disease known. Yet, there are spoilsports, myself included, who point out that they have yet to even make it
into a human clinical trial. This is the case, even as alternatives – adult stem cells (ASCs) from numerous places in the body,
as well as umbilical cord blood and placenta – are curing diseases here and now, and have been doing so for decades. And
that makes ESC advocates very, very angry.
How many diseases ASCs can treat or cure is debatable, with one website claiming almost 80 for umbilical cord blood alone.
Dr. David Prentice of the Family Research Council, using stricter standards of evidence, has constituted a list of 72 for all
types of ASCs. But now three ESC advocates have directly challenged Prentice’s list. They published a letter in Science
magazine, and released it to the news media prior to publication – obviously to influence President Bush’s promised veto of
legislation that would open wide the federal funding spigot for ESC research. The letter claims ASC “treatments fully tested
in all required phases of clinical trials and approved by the U.S Food and Drug Administration are available to treat only nine
of the conditions” on his list.
Well! One answer to that is that it’s nine more than can be claimed for ESCs. Further, there are 1175 clinical trials for ASCs,
including those no longer recruiting patients, with zero for ESCs. But a better response is that the letter authors come from
the Kenneth Lay School for honesty, as do the editors at Science.
In the detailed attachment to their letter, the Science magazine writers aren’t just at odds with Prentice; they also are
at odds with the medical community as a whole. For example, regarding sickle cell anemia, they claim “adult stem cell
transplants from bone marrow or umbilical cord blood can provide some benefit to sickle cell patients” and “hold the
potential to treat sickle cell anemia.”
“Some benefit” and “potential?”
An article from the May, 2006, issue of Current Opinion in Hematology notes that “there is presently no curative
therapy” for sickle cell anemia, other than allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. “Hematopoietic” means from
marrow or blood; “allogeneic” means the cells are from another person. Seminars in Hematology (2004) states,
“. . . curative allogeneic stem cell transplantation therapy” has “been developed for sickle cell anemia.” Meanwhile, “. . .
curative allogeneic stem cell transplantation therapy [has] been developed for” sickle cell anemia, according to Current
Opinions in Molecular Therapy (2003), while “hematopoietic stem cells for allogeneic transplantation” are “currently
the only curative approach for sickle cell anemia,” observes the journal Blood (2002).
What does everybody seem to know that the Science writers and Science editors don’t?
Words like “could” and “potential” are trick phraseology used throughout the letter attachment for ASC curative therapies
that have been used routinely for years. This appears to give them no advantage over ESC therapy, all of which boasts
nothing but potential.
The writers are correct about FDA approval; but that’s also a trick. Some ASC therapies are approved in other countries but
not yet here. More importantly, stem cell therapy is not a drug, and therefore the FDA doesn’t regulate it the same way.
Some have been used successfully for decades, with no one seeking or receiving federal approval.
For that matter, aspirin is a drug, but, by their standards, it only has potential use for aches and pains, since it never went
through the clinical trial process and the FDA has never given it formal approval.
How can Science not know all this? Simple; it does. I’ve written repeatedly about how Science has made itself
a propaganda sheet for ESC research, as well as other political causes. At the least, it should change its name to
Pseudoscience. Sometimes, it prints easily falsifiable studies, such as this, attacking the usefulness of ASCs. Other
times, it falsely promotes ESCs. That culminated in January, 2006, when the journal was forced to retract two groundbreaking
ESC studies that proved to be frauds.
The journal wants to flood unpromising ESC research with taxpayer dollars, because private investors know just how very
unpromising it is. Now, yet again, Science has showcased the scientific and moral bankruptcy of the entire ESC
advocacy movement.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Science, Ethics, & Human Health
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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