Stand by; Bob is ready for launch.

Good news for all of us from the Obama shop is that he is expected to lift restrictions, in place for 7½ years, on government funding for human embryonic stem cell research.

Expect Bob to go into low polar orbit over this on Monday, and be assured he will, as he so often does, deliberately and deceptively tell only part of the story – the part that matches his narrow view world.

The truth, cleverly told, it has been said, is the biggest lie of all.

Again and again Bob says, “Just how many people have been successfully treated with embryonic stem cell remedies? Come on now, give me the number.” “The number is,” he explains with a half-muted sneer, “one that rhymes with ‘zero’.” Treatment with adult stem cells are frequent, dramatic and growing he will gleefully add.
What he will surely fail to explain is embryonic stem cells themselves are relatively new in the research field – so new that given the complexities involved, it is too early to expect them to be a viable treatment alternative. Stem cell transplants, also known as bone marrow transplants, have been performed in the United States since the late 1960s. These transplants use adult stem cells.

By contrast, Isolation of human embryonic stem cells were first announced by James Thomson late 1998, and their development has been penalized by those who share Bob’s mind-set -- penalized largely as a result of Bush’s restrictions of August 2001, less than three years after their discovery at the University of Wisconsin. Accordingly, in 2006 the National Institutes of Health provided $39 million for human embryonic stem cell research and about $560 million for animal and adult stem cell work.

The short time since their discovery, coupled with the lack of resources devoted to their development, are major determinants accounting for the lack of their clinical use today and not because of a flawed technology as Bob would have his poorly informed listeners believe.