Embryonic Stem Cell Research Picking Up
The International Herald-Tribune notes one manifestation of a return by funding organizations and scientists to building an embryonic stem cell research infrastructure. "Scientists at two universities - the University of California at San Francisco and Harvard - will try to develop embryonic stem cells from the adult cells of patients suffering from certain diseases. Their purpose in creating the cell lines, which require making an early human embryo, is to study how the diseases develop, and to see if replacement cells can be generated to repair the patient's own degenerating tissues." Five or more years of damage have been done by anti-research politics and the unfortunate consequences of a centralized, powerful, meddling system of governance - the benefits of this research to those suffering and dying from age-related diseases will be similarly postponed. This is what happens when freedom of research is blocked and curtailed: the suffering and death continues unabated.