Please Don't Read This Article

By Dave Andrusko

Gotcha, didn't I? Just as Dr. Jean Peduzzi Nelson, writing in the September 17th edition of the newspaper, "The Hill," got me. Dr. Nelson had just finished testifying the day before at a Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing which bore the wholly-misleading describer, "Hearing on the Promise of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research," and she was loaded for bear.

"Please don't read this article about adult stem cells or the best-kept secret in the galaxy will get out," Dr. Nelson, an Associate Professor at Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, writes. "Adult stem cells (usually a person's own cells) are helping lots of people with a variety of diseases and injuries."

Dr. Nelson patiently goes through example after example of how adult stem cells--not, as you would think from most media accounts, cells lethally extracted from human embryos--are making a remarkable difference in patients around the world.

She cites as illustrates people making remarkable improvements after complete spinal cord injuries, subsequent to heart failure/heart attacks, and the "112 people with corneal blindness for whom vision was restored in more than 75 percent of the cases."

In addition, with her droll sense of humor, Dr. Nelson "warns" that "the best-kept secret in the galaxy" will get out if the public learns about a number of sites "highlighting outcomes in real patients and providing hope for many with critical diseases," or begins to review articles in places like the Journal of the American Medical Association where "you will see that these patients are not isolated examples."

"What is so great about adult stem cells?" she asks rhetorically. "Some people have mentioned that it is a good way to avoid tumor formation, immune rejection of cells and even moral controversy, but don't let people know this."

One of Dr. Nelson's most important points was to explain why the U.S. is not leading the world in adult stem cell clinical trials. Please go to http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/119503-stem-cell-research-is-the-best-kept-secret-in-the-galaxy and discover the answer.

If we do our part---for example by placing this link on our social networks--we can begin to allow the best-kept secret in the galaxy to become common knowledge on Planet Earth. And, if you have about 20 minutes, please go to http://appropriations.senate.gov/ht-labor.cfm?method=hearings.view&id=0bea2354-dc3d-4623-9905-6dbff89581acw here you can read Dr. Nelson's Senate appropriations subcommittee testimony in full.