If at First You Don't Succeed, TRY WHAT WORKS: California Quietly Shifts Fruitless Embryo Research Funds to Adult Stem Cells: Investors Criticize the Past Waste on Useless Research

NEW! Embryonic Stem Cell Research is in Trouble. Why? It Doesn't Work

NEW! Geron Stocks Poised to Plunge

NEW! Maryland May Follow California in Switching Focus to Adult Stem Cell Research...

California Quietly Shifts Fruitless Embryo Research Funds to Adult Stem Cells: Investors Criticize the Past Waste on Useless Research
California's Institute for Regenerative Medicine came into being five years ago, fueled by a conviction that the Bush administration's restriction on embryo-destructive research in the National Institutes of Health was stifling the progress of science. 

But after years of fruitless work, the Institute has now quietly diverted funds from embryonic stem cell research (ESCr) to adult stem cell research - which has already produced dozens of treatments and all-out cures for maladies ranging from spinal cord injury, to Alzheimer's, to type I diabetes.

The California government - which is again teetering on the brink of bankruptcy - in 2004 passed the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative, or Proposition 71.  The initiative pumped $3 billion into research seeking some medical use for stem cells harvested from human embryos, which are killed in the process. 

But an editorial in the Los Angeles-based Investor's Business Daily (IBD) magazine January 12 pointed out the abysmal failure of the state's massive investment in research that has procured no effective treatments to date. 

"Five years after a budget-busting $3 billion was allocated to embryonic stem cell research, there have been no cures, no therapies and little progress," notes the IBD editors. 

"ESCR has failed to deliver and backers of Prop 71 are admitting failure."

The editors also called out the Institute for dissembling on the real source of progress among stem cell research.  "Over the years ... when funding was needed, the phrase 'embryonic stem cells' was used. When actual progress was discussed, the word 'embryonic' was dropped because ESCR never got out of the lab," they write.

"This is a classic bait-and-switch, an attempt to snatch success from the jaws of failure and take credit for discoveries and advances achieved by research Prop. 71 supporters once cavalierly dismissed."

Although scientists and pro-life advocates have denounced the dead-end science of embryo research for years, the political and ethical furor surrounding embryonic research appears to have obscured the undeniable superiority of adult stem cells' track record. 

Not only have adult cells already produced dozens of treatments, but embryonic stem cells have been found prone to multiply out of control, causing tumors, and are less easily cultivated into specific types of tissue than their adult counterparts. 

Meanwhile, due to advances in induced pluripotent stem cells, adult cells are now capable of transforming into various types of cells – an ability once thought to be held only by embryonic cells.

Dr. Bernadine Healy, the director of the National Institutes of Health under the Bush administration, wrote in a March 2009 U.S. News & World Report column that "embryonic stem cells, once thought to hold the cure for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and diabetes, are obsolete." 

The same month, however, President Obama reversed the Bush administration ban on taxpayer funding of embryo research, saying that "our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values." 

The IBD editors concluded that "it is ESCR researchers who have politicized science and stood in the way of real progress.

"We are pleased to see California researchers beginning to put science in its rightful place."
 

Related:

Pentagon Invests $250 Million in Adult Stem Cell Research http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/sep/08091006. html  

Obama Unleashes Taxpayer Funds for Embryo-Destructive Research
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09030910 .html

[29January2010, Kathleen Gilbert, Los Angeles, CA, www.LifeSiteNews.com, http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jan/10012908.html]

2-Star Stocks Poised to Plunge: Geron?
Embryonic stem cell research, regardless of the current presidential/congressional support, is in trouble. They have not figured out how to fix the problems (e.g. cancerous tumors), yet "adult" stem cells (e.g., from dental pulp, bone marrow, and fatty deposits) are consistently meeting or exceeding expectations. ... Combine funding cuts with research setbacks and Geron is in a LOT of trouble. [http://www.fool.com/retirement/general/2010/02/17/2-star-stocks-poised-to-plunge-geron.aspx, The Motley Fool; ALL Pro-Life Today, 20Feb10]

Maryland May Follow California in Switching Focus to Adult Stem Cell Research
Maryland is following the lead of California in acknowledging that adult stem cell research has shown much promise, while embryonic stem cell research has destroyed countless lives with no results.

One official says success in unfunded adult stem cell efforts suggests that a focus on embryonic stem cells has led to “funding the wrong research.” The legislation in the state’s House of Delegates is sponsored by Delegate Shirley Nathan-Pulliam, a Baltimore County Democrat. It would devote five percent of the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund to adult stem cell research for sickle cell disease. [Ed. Note: Only 5%? It's a shame to continue to waste the other 95% on embryo-destructive stem cell research; but it's a start...]

Del. Nathan-Pulliam’s proposal comes two months after the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) published the results of a clinical trial that used the research to reverse sickle cell disease in 90 percent of adult patients.In the past, the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund had twice rejected applications for funding adult stem cell research in sickle cell disease. [8March10, Annapolis, MD, www.LifeNews.com, #4843]