Opinion: A Stem Cell Victory for Patients

(Aug. 25) -- The U.S. District Court injunction that stops federal taxpayer funding of human embryonic stem cell research should make patients happy.

The judge ruled that federal funding for embryonic stem cell research violates a current law, passed annually since the Clinton administration, prohibiting government funding for research that involves the destruction of human embryos.

He added that there is a limited amount of federal funding for stem cells, and funding embryonic stem cells competes with adult stem cells. But only adult stem cells are treating people. The good news is that this ruling should free up more funding for adult stem cell research -- which is legal, uncontroversial and already helping treat thousands of patients.

Here are just a few examples of the published scientific successes of adult stem cells:

• Italian doctors used patients' own adult stem cells to grow new corneal tissue to restore sight to people blinded by chemical burns, including one patient who had been blind for 50 years.
• German doctors reported in June the results of a five-year study on patients with chronic heart failure. The 191 patients treated with their own bone marrow adult stem cells showed significant improvement in heart function, with decreased death and no side effects.
• Another recent Italian success involved growing new windpipes for cancer patients. Doctors used cadaver windpipes stripped of their cells, bathed the cartilage with the patients' bone marrow stem cells and then transplanted the reconstructed windpipes. The two young women were released from the hospital just weeks after their surgery, and are now in good condition.
• In August, University of Minnesota scientists transplanted donor adult stem cells into children with a fatal genetic skin disease and repaired the damage. The scientists said regarding adult stem cell treatments, "Patients who otherwise would have died from their disease can often now be cured. It's a serious treatment for a serious disease."

For sickle cell disease, published medical papers note that donor adult stem cells are the "only curative therapy." Other patients have had hip repairs using their own adult stem cells, and nonhealing bone fractures have been healed. Published medical papers in journals such as the Journal of the American Medical Association and The Lancet document improvements in patients treated with adult stem cells for juvenile diabetes and multiple sclerosis.

It is adult stem cells that are treating people now, people like Laura Dominguez. A quadriplegic after a car accident, Laura was treated for spinal-cord injury with her own nasal adult stem cells, and she has regained movement and sensation in her lower body. Laura continues to work hard at her physical therapy, bluntly stating, "I'm going to walk again." You can see Laura's story and others at Stem Cell Research Facts.

Noncontroversial adult stem cells from bone marrow, umbilical cord blood and other tissues are treating thousands of patients around the globe, with an estimated 50,000 adult stem cell transplants occurring annually worldwide. For some diseases, adult stem cell transplants have become the "standard of care," meaning the treatments are so effective that they are a doctor's best choice for sick patients.

Embryonic stem cells, in contrast, are ethically controversial since obtaining them requires the destruction of human embryos. However, millions in funding has led to no patient treatments. Adult stem cells in contrast are contained throughout the body, raising no ethical concerns.

The federal government has funded much research on adult stem cells, often for bone marrow transplants. But it can do more. Bipartisan legislation called the Patients First Act (H.R. 877), sponsored by Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., and Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., would prioritize federal government funding for stem cell projects that have the greatest chance for near-term benefit for patients, based on the scientific and clinical evidence.

Shouldn't we put patient treatments first? After all, it's not just tax dollars that are wasted on poor science; real lives have been lost.

David Prentice is senior fellow for the Center for Human Life and Bioethics at the Family Research Council.