More Hope for Paralyzed Patients From Adult Stem Cells

A researcher in the UK is going to begin treating spinal cord injury patients with their own nasal stem cells, and has gotten a big story in the Telegraph and the Guardian. This technique has proved very hopeful in animals and in Portugal, where Dr. Carlos Lima has treated some three dozen human patients in recent years with their own tissues, as I reported last year. Patients have had some feeling and movement restored from this procedure. Umbilical cord blood stem cells seem also to offer promise for paralyzed patients.

And embryonic stem cells and therapeutic cloning? They are being left in the dust. But politicized scientists continue to insist they offer the best chance for treatments. If that is their story, they should stick to it. But when and if the people see it as false, the great cloning and stem cell debate will be won.