This Los Angeles Times Story about Woo-suk Hwang promising a 12-year old paralyzed boy that he would walk again even though he knew his research was fraudulent, tells us all we need to know about the world’s most infamous scientist. What a creep.
This was a good story worth recounting. But it is maddening that the Times failed to also report that there is growing hope for such boys with umbilical cord blood stem cells and olfactory stem cells— both of which have been reported to restore some feeling and mobility to spinal cord injury patients. (The umbilical cord blood success has been reported in a peer reviewed journal. Olfactory successes in mice have also been written up, which is far more than we can say about ES cells. Dr. Carlos Lima has helped about three dozen patients with olfactory tissues. I am told this research will be reported this year.)
Is it too much for the mainstream media to report such facts when relevant, as it clearly was to this story? Apparently it is. But if it were embryonic stem cells demonstrating such promise, you wouldn’t be able to fit the headlines on the front page.
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