IT NEVER FAILS. If an embryonic stem cell researcher issues a press release touting a purported research advance, the media trip over each other to give the story full dramatic fanfare. But if an even better adult or umbilical cord blood stem cell advance comes to light–even when the experiments involve humans–you can usually hear the crickets chirping.
The latest examples of this phenomenon involve contrasting coverage about experimental embryonic and adult stem cell therapies to treat paralysis. Last week, a purported breakthrough in embryonic stem cell research for spinal cord injury shot across the media firmament like lightning through an Iowa summer sky. Embryonic stem cell researcher Hans Keirstead claimed to have transformed embryonic stem cells into a cell that “help the brain’s signals traverse the spinal cord.” He then injected these cells into paralyzed rodents and reported that they appear to have “repaired damaged rat spines several weeks after they were injured.”
