Are Journal Sentinel editors even reading the paper any longer?
An article in today’s Journal Sentinel Crossroads section identifies the number one news story of the year as the development by a team of scientists “led by James Thomson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a separate team in Japan” that skin cells have been reprogrammed by “to act like embryonic stem cells without using human embryos.”
This development is number one, supposedly, because it signals an end to stem cell research using human embryos.
That’s not just inaccurate, it’s also contrary to what Thomson believes, as he wrote in a recent Journal Sentinel op-ed piece:
A new way to trick skin cells into acting like embryos changes both everything and nothing at all.
Being able to reprogram skin cells into multipurpose stem cells without harming embryos launches an exciting new line of research. It's important to remember, though, that we're at square one, uncertain at this early stage whether souped-up skin cells hold the same promise as their embryonic cousins do.
Far from vindicating the current U.S. policy of withholding federal funds from many of those working to develop potentially lifesaving embryonic stem cells, recent papers in the journals Science and Cell described a breakthrough achieved despite political restrictions.
In fact, work by U.S. and Japanese teams that reprogrammed skin cells depended entirely on previous embryonic stem cell research.
At a time when nearly 60% of Americans support human embryonic stem cell research, U.S. stem cell policy runs counter to both scientific and public opinion. President Bush's repeated veto of the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, which has twice passed the House and Senate with votes from Republicans and Democrats alike, further ignores the will of the American people.
The Journal Sentinel, and many other new outlets, got the actual implications of this story wrong when it was first announced and continue to do so. The description used by Journal Sentinel editors in the story today continue to obfuscate this issue to the detriment of their readers.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
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5 comments:
Yamanaka's research did not "[depend] entirely on previous embryonic stem cell research." Yamanaka started with a skin cell, and ended with a multipotent stem cell.
By his own admission, Yamanaka only used existing ESCs in order to verify the ESC-like behavior of his reprogrammed cells.
(Source)
As for Thomson's insistence that non-embryo-sourced multipotent stem cells are at "square one" of research potential, the fact remains that, given the lack of advances with ESC research, this new avenue is already on equal grounds with respect to its potential, just by its very existence.
And quite contrary to Thomson's apparent objective, it is Yamanaka's express intent to advance this line of research to the point that embryo-destructive research is no longer needed, and that researchers can "avoid using them."
Okay, I'll believe some guy named Chip, no scientific credentials stated, over the award-winning researcher who actually did the work.
Uh huh, that's what I'll do.
That's Dr. Chip to you, buddy!
...says the commenter named "Anonymous."
Actually, I sourced my comments. You don't need to "trust" me; you can read Dr. Yamanaka's comments for yourself. (I'm sorry; I didn't realize that "scientific credentials" were required for reading comprehension.)
Now, do you have anything substantive to add, or will this be nothing more than an ad hominem comment thread?
Yamanka's work was made possible because of how the basic science surrounding stem cells have advanced in the last several years--and much of that work done by Thompson and others who have been doing work with embryonic stem cells. Regardless, the point I was trying to raise was that Thompson believes that work with ES needs to continue. The media coverage has been misleading on this point. The Journal Sentinel just got this one wrong--probably because of the presence of some members of the paper's editorial board that oppose the research altogether.
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