Editor's note. Have a great weekend. I hope to hear from you. Write to daveandrusko@hotmail.com.

I'd like to end the week with a very encouraging video and associated backup information. The site is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX4lgz0-R5I.

What will you see? Visual proof of the immense remedial possibilities of stem cells. Not the kind of stem cells lethally ripped from human embryos but "adult" stem cells removed from a patient's own body--specifically blood- or bone-marrow derived stem cells.

The three patients successfully treated were Barry Goudy (for Multiple Sclerosis), Amy Daniels (for a rare autoimmune disease that affects connective tissue in the body), and Jill Rosen (for a lupus-like disorder).

The trio had been brought to Washington, D.C, by the Family Research Council (FRC) for a March 13 press briefing. Joining them was Dr. Richard Burt.

As was explained at the briefing, Dr. Burt's "Clinical Applications of Blood-Derived and Marrow-Derived Stem Cells for Nonmalignant Diseases" (Journal of the American Medical Association, 2/27/2008), examined hundreds of studies that were conducted between January 1997 and December 2007. The JAMA review found that therapies using blood- or bone-marrow derived stem cells can successfully and safely treat heart disease and autoimmune disorders.

In 2007, as reported in JAMA, 4/11/07, Dr. Burt, of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, along with a team of Brazilian doctors, led a groundbreaking study that used adult stem cells to reverse Type 1 (juvenile) diabetes in patients.

You can read the three patients' full testimony at http://stemcellresearch.org/testimony/capitalhill_briefing.html. Let me make just one additional comment.

Reporters, like all of us, use "tools" to simplify life's incredible complexity, a kind of intellectual short hand, if you will. The problem is that in transcribing their notes, they either misread what they wrote or jot down only part of the dialogue.

In this case it means certain "truths," which are not true at all--embryonic stem cells are showing promise day by day, for example-- crowd out genuine, empirically-based truths--that stem cells from dozens of other unobjectionable sources are making differences in people's lives every day.

I would not kid you, it will take a while, maybe even a long while, to persuade reporters that what they "know" isn't really true.

But more briefings like that held March 13 ; more studies such as the February 27 JAMA review; and more videos such as that found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX4lgz0-R5I are helping to turn the tide.

Be sure to pass this encouraging information along to family, friends, and colleagues.