The discovery that it is possible to create equivalents to embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos has the potential to reshape -- and perhaps defuse -- the acrimonious political debate that has raged ever since human embryonic stem cells were discovered in 1998.
Even before the research was officially published yesterday, White House officials began making the case that the studies vindicated the president's unwavering six-year opposition to funding for embryo-cell research and his long-standing position that scientific progress is possible without offending the morality of millions of Americans.
One of the researchers involved in yesterday's reports said the Bush restrictions may have slowed discovery of the new method, since scientists first had to study embryonic cells to find out how to accomplish the same thing without embryos.
"My feeling is that the political controversy set the field back four or five years," said James Thomson, who led a team at the University of Wisconsin and who discovered human embryonic stem cells in 1998.
This breakthrough has been predicted for many years, but until it happened there was just no way to determine how stem cells might be used to repair failing organs or damaged spinal cords.
So while this ridiculous debate raged, which would not have been necessary if the religious right could have just understood the difference between a cell and a baby, people like Michael J. Fox and Christopher Reeve have had to suffer with debilitating challenges.
I just wish Christopher Reeve could have lived to see this.
And naturally the Bush people would try to act like they are now vindicated. I can still see his shifting eyebrows as he proclaimed with a straight face, "it is always wise to err on the side of life." duh ... only test-tube cells & pre-born life; after passage through the birth canal, you're on your own, kid!
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