The Neolib Attack on Adult Stem Cells.

Editor's note. This article is reprinted with the author's permission.

Among the magazines even die-hard right-wingers should sometimes read are the neo-liberal ones The New Republic and the Washington Monthly. They often contain thoughtful articles with stimulating fresh thinking. Alas, that makes it all the worse when they publish something moldier than a slab of Roquefort cheese. So it is with their current combined attack on adult stem cell research, designed to support the alternative of embryonic stem cells.

Adult stem cells come from all over the body, plus umbilical cords and placentas. Embryonic stem cells come from pulling apart human embryos, and thus have aroused ethical concerns. The result, says Chris Mooney in the Washington Monthly, is that "conservatives have latched onto fringe science in order to advance moral arguments" by embracing adult stem cell research. We are presented with the illogical argument that since some people prefer adult stem cells for non-scientific reasons, they must therefore have little scientific value.

Yet adult stem cells have actually been used therapeutically in the United States since 1968. At one website you'll find a list, far from comprehensive, of almost 80 therapies using them. This is treatment, not practice or theory. Amazingly, there are also more than 300 adult stem cell clinical trials.

In contrast, the number of treatments using embryonic stem cells is zero. The number of clinical trials involving embryonic stem cells? Zero.

Embryonic stem cell propagandists will tell you adult stem cell research had a huge head start and embryonic stem cells only need time (and more importantly, massive government funding) to catch up.

Yet as a new book called The Proteus Effect points out, both types of stem cell research date back half a century. You might think the author of The New Republic piece, Harvard Professor of Medicine Jerome Groopman, would know this, since ostensibly his contribution is a review of the book. Research with embryonic stem cells has progressed at snail's pace simply because they are so terribly difficult to work with.