Scripps Howard Spikes Stem Cell Story

Those who harbor any doubts that the American media have adopted a single attitude in favor of embryonic stem cell research (see my American Spectator column on the subject here), which is enforced ruthlessly, the latest Scripps-Howard column by science writer Michael Fumento should help dispel them. You probably haven't read the column, because the syndicator refused to run it.

Fumento has made the column available on his excellent and informative website.

The column was spiked, as the journalists' lingo has it, because it pointed out some surprising and rather dismaying facts about the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, "the world's largest juvenile diabetes philanthropy," as Fumento notes. Fumento points out that the foundation distributed "over $85 million in grants last year. Yet it supports no efforts that could lead to a cure any time soon for this blinding and crippling disease that afflicts as many as 1.7 million Americans. Instead it's become a lobby for controversial embryonic stem cell research and refuses to help fund the only study that could soon bring a cure."

"The top item on JDRF's 'issue information' page," Fumento notes, "is 'Embryonic Stem Cell Research,' with subcategories like Progress with Embryonic Stem Cell Research. It also bashes what many see as an alternative that's both medically superior and carries no moral baggage – adult stem cells. Its 'Limitations of Adult Stem Cell Research' link is packed with such disinformation as 'Adult stem cells cannot be induced to develop into any cell type.' In fact, since 2002 at least four different labs have published results indicating they can."

Most indefensible of all, Fumento reports, is that JDRF has twice rejected Harvard researcher Dr. Denise Faustman, who Fumento notes "was the first to cure diabetes in mice and now seeks funds for a clinical trial to replicate her fantastic results in humans. Thrice she has applied to JDRF; thrice they have rejected her. Never mind her impeccable credentials and that she even reviewed grants for JDRF.

"Her transgression," Fumento argues, "seems to be that her treatment involves restoring dead insulin-producing cells in the pancreas with ASCs already present in the body. Despite what the JDRF would have you think, there have already been tremendous breakthroughs in ASC therapy, with over 80 treatments and almost 300 human clinical trials underway – versus zero treatments or trials for ESCs. Still, nothing would belie the false claims of ESC lobbyists more than curing diabetes with ASCs."

JDRF refused to talk with Fumento while he was working on his article, well aware of his previous writings in support of research into adult stem cells. Then, despite the damning evidence Fumento had adduced and the obvious importance of the issue (millions of dollars of charity being diverted to a different use), Scripps Howard refused to run the column, giving no explanation to newspaper editors who receive the syndicate's materials. Fumento states emphatically that when the JDRF found out that he was doing an article about them, through his request for an interview, they called his editor at Scripps Howard and convinced her that the column had to be killed.

Those who wish to contact Fumento's Scripps Howard editor and her superiors about the matter can find the contact info here. In deciding on the right response, please remember that emails are easy to ignore but telephone calls make a very big impression.