Chuck Colson on “Miracle Cells”

Here’s Chuck Colson’s latest – it’s a good one, but is anyone listening?

Miracle Cells

By Chuck Colson
2/18/2009

The Real Success Stories

Many who listened to President Obama’s inaugural address believe he means to spend taxpayer money on research that destroys human embryos. Before he does, I hope somebody brings to his attention the story I’m about to tell.

A few years ago, a Texas teenager named Laura Dominguez lost control of her car when she hit an oil spill on the road. The accident left Laura paralyzed from the neck down. “You’ll never walk again,” doctors told her. Laura refused to accept this prognosis. She and her mother met with experts on spinal cord injuries. They learned about an exciting new treatment being performed in Portugal. The procedure is known as olfactory mucosa transplantation. Surgeons take adult stem cells found in the nasal region and transplant them into the injured area.

Laura underwent this treatment—and her spinal cord began to heal. She gained upper body agility, and, in time, she learned to walk with the use of braces and outside help. Laura is determined to walk unassisted by her 21st birthday.

Miracles like this have been repeated many times as researchers bend their attention to the uses of adult stem cells. Writer Bradley Hughes describes many of them in his article “Real-World Successes of Adult Stem Cell Treatment.” continue

How long, how long must we sing this song?

American Thinker takes on news of the fetal stem cell “cure” fiasco. Of course, anyone paying attention knows that the unfortunate turn (this is happening to a teenager, after all) is not really any kind of new development - it’s an anticipated complication from using embryonic stem cells – one that has plagued the so-called therapies since the beginning.  More funding will not impact this type of outcome, nor the moral wrongness of destroying a human life.

Problems with fetal stem cell ‘cure’

Thomas Lifson
Fetal stem cell research became a craze on the left when it appeared that it could be used to justify “harvesting” of fetuses, thereby reinforcing the notion that human beings in utero are objects to be used for the benefit of others. Those anti-abortion activists who criticized the use of fetal stem cells were pilloried as anti-science, standing in the way of cures for Parkinson’s Disease and much more.The embarrassing reality has been that fetal stem cells have not produced much of value, while adult stem cell research has flourished. Californians, whose state faces a massive financial crisis,  have even borrowed 3 billion dollars to fund stem cell research on the promises of activists. continue

Dental Stem Cells

FoxNews did a nice little feature on stem cells found in teeth. It’s nice to see some media positively reporting on ethical stem cell research for a change: Click here.

At the end the reporter mentions that the United States military is researching the ability of adult stem cells to treat wounded veterans. Last April I posted on my blog about the federal government dedicating $85 million for the creation of the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine where they were to study a type of adult stem cell therapy that would help grow new bone for wounded veterans.

Autologous cells hold the therapeutic advantage in treatment of neural defects

In this case we have scientists first turning to embryonic neural cells (derived from mice) to find and fix defects in the brains of baby mice born to “crack” moms (not really crack, but the mice were exposed to tetragens and heroin). The neural cells worked their magic with a near 100% success rate, but because they were derived from embryos they posed immunological rejection problems. Next step, use cells from the “patient’s” own body. Of course!  And so, our tax dollars which could be used to move this research along will be funnelled off to labs using human embryos, even though – at the end of the day – it is the ethically obtained cells that really work best.