Stem Cell Research Needs Support

I think it's time for our government to actively support stem cell research. One of the pioneers in the field, James Thomson, sees a lot of promise at the end of a lot of hard work. Here's his prediction for the future of embryonic stem cells.

It will be a pervasive research tool that anybody interested in understanding the human body will use. And that will lead to knowledge, for the development of new drugs or whatever, that has absolutely nothing to do with transplantation. This will change human medicine in ways that don’t make the front pages. And people will not even realize it’s happened.

It is time for Bush-Rove to quit playing politics with emerging science. If they really believed what they say about fertility clinic cytoblasts, they would shut down the clinics rather than see excess cells destroyed or grow old in storage. Stem cell research would seem a more humane option (at least an option with prospects of helping humanity) for the culture of (some) life crowd.

Of course I know they don't believe it, it's just another carrot they have to keep dangling in front of the religious right.