On April 2, I posted about how some folks over in the UK had formed stem cells into heart tissue to form valves to replace defective ones. Now, also out of the UK, we find that another advancement has been made, this time in the treatment of diabetes:

Diabetics using stem-cell therapy have been able to stop taking insulin injections for the first time, after their bodies started to produce the hormone naturally again.

In a breakthrough trial, 15 young patients with newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes were given drugs to suppress their immune systems followed by transfusions of stem cells drawn from their own blood.

The results show that insulin-dependent diabetics can be freed from reliance on needles by an injection of their own stem cells. The therapy could signal a revolution in the treatment of the condition, which affects more than 300,000 Britons.

People with type 1 diabetes have to give themselves regular injections to control blood-sugar levels, as their ability to create the hormone naturally is destroyed by an immune disorder.
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All but two of the volunteers in the trial, details of which are published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), do not need daily insulin injections up to three years after stopping their treatment regimes.

The findings were released to reporters yesterday as the future of US stem-cell research was being debated in Washington.

So while the government debates how best to turn human embryos into cell farms, the folks over in the UK are passing us in stem cell advancement in a way that is both profound and embarassing. The funniest part, of course, is that the fact that they’re kicking our asses can’t be blamed on the fact that we don’t fund the research. In fact, non-embryonic stem cell research is not only 100% legal, it’s funded by the government.

The way we’re going about research is best compared to the following.

We want to design cars in this country, but we’re obsessed with the paint being yellow and won’t build a car unless it can be yellow. In the UK, they don’t care what color the car is. They’re more worried about the tires, the engine, and the materials to build the body.

We’re so focused on the paint (embryonic stem cells) that other countries are out there building rockets.

If we focused as much energy on working on the stem cells we have and can legally use as we did on how we can turn embryos into gardens, we’d be right there. Instead, we talk. And people die. And we point fingers.

Adult stem cells have potential, but they aren’t politically sexy and thus are not being worked on.

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