When Is A Cure NOT A Cure?

Scott Fischbach from Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life has an op-ed in the Star Tribune taking Rep. Phyllis Kahn to task for her advocacy of a bill that funds embryonic stem cell research in Minnesota. I wrote a little bit about the floor debate on Rep. Kahn's bill when the conference bill passed the House at the end of the session. What propmted Scott to write was a June 2 op-ed by Rep. Kahn herself, taking the governor to task for vetoing the bill. Rep. Kahn continues to insist many things about her stem cell bill but Mr. Fischbach obliterates the most disingenuous of Rep. Kahn's claims.

Kahn says her legislation "outlawed human cloning," but the bill explicitly authorizes "somatic cell nuclear transplantation" (SCNT), which is the technique by which cloning occurs. The National Institutes of Health calls SCNT "the scientific term for cloning."

Rep. Kahn suffered another blow to her argument for HESC research earlier this month. The Star Tribune reported on a mother whose drive and devotion to her sons led to the development of a cure for their very rare skin disorder.

Last fall doctors at the University of Minnesota did a bone marrow transplant on a 2-year-old boy in a risky attempt to treat his devastating genetic skin disease with stem cells. Until then, the technique had only been used in mice.

It worked.

The boy's doctors said Monday they think they have found a cure for the painful disease that, though rare, causes the skin to fall off at the slightest touch and inevitably leads to cancer. Most children who have it do not survive to adulthood.

It takes the Strib a while to get to it, but they finally do tell you where these stem cells come from....and it was not frozen embryos.

Researchers at the university, which specializes in adult stem cells, began experimenting with a variety of stem cells found in bone marrow and blood from umbilical cords. Dr. Jakub Tolar, a blood specialist at the university, said he tried 10 to 15 different classes of cells in the genetically engineered mice in the hopes that one would provide the missing protein.

Finally, one did.

This is just one more cure to add to the already long list of cures and potential cures that have come from adult and umbilical cord stem cells. We are still waiting for the first to come from embryonic stem cells. Perhaps Rep. Kahn should go back to school to learn a little more about the process. It should be awfully convenient for her...after all - the University IS in her district after all...