Michael Fumento Is Making Sense!

Fumento is one of those reporters who combines journalism with the amazing additional skill of knowing what the heck you are talking about. He applies this skill to health journalism and does a nice job of shedding further light on the stem cell controversy. Check out this passage from his latest NRO piece where he discusses ASC's (adult stem cells) and ESC's (embryonic stem cells):

There's no scientific research so promising that it can't be hyped further. Still, the ASCs — which the Democrats won't acknowledge, and which the New York Times recently claimed have proved futile in treating human illness — have actually been helping people in the U.S. since 1968. On one website you'll find a list, far from comprehensive, of almost 80 therapies currently using ASCs. This is treatment — not practice or theory. Incredibly, there are also about 300 clinical trials involving ASCs.

By contrast, the number of treatments using ESCs is zero. The number of clinical trials involving ESCs? Also zero.

The usual response to this is — as we saw with Kerry at the debate — none at all. There is quite literally a nationwide effort to cover up the value, or even the existence, of ASCs. But if there is a response, it's usually that ASC research has had a huge head start, and that ESCs only need time (and, more important, massive federal funding) to catch up.