What is Embryonic Stem Cell Research?
In 1998, scientists utilizing tissue from aborted babies discovered that embryo’s early cells, under the right conditions, could turn into any type of human tissue. These stem cells could be developed into muscle, neurons, heart tissue, skin and, theoretically, any tissue so desired. Just think of it. If medical practitioners could harness enough stem cells, they could transplant them into damaged heart tissue and those stem cells could be stimulated to form new heart muscle and the damage would slowly disappear.

Is Embryonic Stem Cell Treatment Practical?
If an embryo is a living human being, how many babies would it take to save people of their current ailments? Using data from the National Academy of Sciences, the National Research Council and the University of Wisconsin, it is estimated that to treat ten percent of all potential patients, 13.4 million genetically thatched human embryos would have to be created and destroyed (a one-week old human embryo produces about 250 stem cells). Doing the math, if all potential patients were to be treated, it would require 134 million human embryos.

Is Embryonic Stem Cell Treatment Effective?
To date, there have been no clinical trials and no therapies produced by embryonic stem cell research. In theory, it should work. In practice, it hasn’t thus far. According to the Investor’s Business Daily, “Any potential therapy [using embryonic stem cells] is years away from being tested on humans."

Is there an alternative to Embryonic Stem Cell therapy?
According to Chuck Colson, in the May 23 edition of the Investor’s Business Daily, the publication noted that there have been more than 250 clinical trials using adult stem cells. These trials have produced eighty therapies. One of these enabled a Korean woman who had been paralyzed for twenty years to get out of her wheelchair and take a few steps. This was after only six weeks of treatment.

How effective is Adult Embryonic Stem Cell therapy?
Let me quote a speech delivered by Richard Greco, Jr. who is a White House Fellow: “Every single human being at any stage of development past the embryo—even the disposable human umbilical cord—has an abundant supply of stem cells that can be used in the same way as embryonic stem cells. Therapy using stem cells from one’s own body completely avoids the problem of rejection, and the ethical dilemma of destroying human embryos disappears. In the four years that that research on adult stem cells began in earnest, it has moved ahead rapidly and successfully.

We are now discovering that adult stem cells are common, plentiful, powerful, and potent. We have isolated them from nearly every single type of human tissue. Fat stem cells have been changed into cartilage, blood, and bone. Bone marrow cells have been transformed into heart muscle. The Journal of Neuroscience reported, ‘Adult spinal cord stem cells [can] generate neurons after transplantation,’ the very first instance of spinal cord regeneration using stem cells.

In Los Angeles, the transplantation of stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood saved the lives of three young boys with defective immune systems. They underwent stem cell therapy with their own stem cells so successfully that the doctors at UCLA Medical Center publicly pronounced the boys cured."

So why the venture in Embryonic Stem Cell research? Stay tuned.

Blessings
Pastor Cory