Adult Stem Cell Update!

It's one of our mantras here at "A Shepherd's Voice": Are California voters having second thoughts yet about shelling out $3 billion + for immoral & unproven embryonic stem cell research, which has yet to show a single cure, while adult stem cells are curing people left and right?

The latest, from Catholic News Agency:

Pfizer to invest in adult stem-cell treatment for eyes

"The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has announced that it is funding a new adult stem-cell treatment that could treat diabetes-induced retinal damage, a leading cause of blindness.

Forbes Magazine says that Pfizer is funding the creation of a San Diego biotech company named EyeCyte to develop stem-cell treatments for eye diseases. The company will base its work upon Scripps Research Institute ophthalmologist Martin Friedlander’s research involving stem-cells from blood and bone marrow. EyeCyte will receive about $3 million from Pfizer, which in return has the right of first refusal regarding the new company’s products . . .

In animal experiments, adult stem-cells have shown a remarkable ability to target and repair damaged blood vessels in the eye, which are a key problem in diabetic eye disease and macular degeneration.

"It is unbelievable. These cells know where to go and they target the site of injury," said Friedlander, according to Forbes. He said that in his lab he has cured mice “10 times over,” but noted it is unknown whether the treatment will help people."

Now, those guys over at Pfizer aren't investing $3 million as charity. There doing it because they think this process has serious potential to help cure blindness in human beings, and thus enable their investment to be profitable. Nothing wrong with that. Pray God the treatment works! But when's the last time you heard of ANY breakthrough from embryonic stem-cells that would induce investors to shell out their own money? What happened was the backers of Proposition 71 sold the voters pie-in-the-sky stories about ESCR, then they got $3 billion of your money, taxpayer's money, to do heaven knows what.

The breakthroughs in adult & cord blood stem cells are coming so fast that it seems that even the scientists can't keep up with them. Make sure to check out the website of Mr. Don Margolis. He seems to be right on top of the various new treatments. Just in the last two days he has posted about adult stem-cell treatments for cerebral palsy and epilepsy, pulmonary hypertension, and sickle-cell anemia.