The promise of stem cell research

The evidence that stem cells can cure the worst diseases that afflict humanity are starting to come in. When will the US be able to join in the research race? Not before Bush leaves office, that's for sure.

Diabetics using stem-cell therapy have been able to stop taking insulin injections for the first time, after their bodies started to produce the hormone naturally again.
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All but two of the volunteers in the trial, details of which are published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), do not need daily insulin injections up to three years after stopping their treatment regimes.
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Richard Burt, a co-author of the study from Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, said that 14 of the 15 patients were insulin-free for some time following the treatment. Eleven of those were able to dispense with supplemental insulin immediately following the infusion of stem cells and have not had recourse to synthetic insulin since then, he said.

No matter how those who oppose the use of stem cells for research frame the issue, I'm sure that anyone afflicted by any of the potentially curable ailments sees it differently. For them, it can be a life or death decision. But even if you don't have one of these terrible diseases, even just the possibility that someday you might is enough to make you hope for a cure to exist.

Thankfully, with or without the US, the research goes on, and results will be obtained, but the US, with its economic and technological resources, is the workhorse of scientific research, so its efforts are clearly necessary in this field.