Boston Globe Misses Real Reason Faustman Criticized

This is a nice profile of Denise Fuastman, who cured diabetic mice with a combination of substances, including spleen stem cells. As the story notes, she was severely criticized, but look at the nonsense reason the paper gives for those attacks:

In 2001, Faustman said it was possible to cure type 1 diabetes in mice with a two-step treatment that blocked their immune systems from destroying their insulin-making beta cells; new beta cells then grew back, and the mice were no longer diabetic. After her announcement, many in the medical community—including some of her own Harvard colleagues—lashed out at her findings, and accused her of cruelly raising the expectations of those suffering from the disease.

Oh please get real. Remember the unbelievable hype at that time over the CURES! CURES! CURES! coming from embryonic stem cell research crowd without receiving harsh criticism from “the scientists?” Right, I missed those attacks, too.

The reason “the scientists” attacked Faustman had to do with the potential that the cure could involve adult stem cells. As things turned out, the treatment apparently doesn’t require stem cells at all. But the worry about giving “false hope” was never in the minds of her critics. They were worried that she provided true hope with the “wrong” kind of stem cells and that her research would provide political ammunition for those who supported President Bush’s embryonic stem cell funding policy.