Last month a leading American research company abandoned the world’s first clinical stem cell pilot program. Officials claim money troubles have forced the first company doing a government-approved test of embryonic stem cell therapy to discontinue further human stem cell programs and lay off much of its staff. Nov. 14 Geron Corp., the world’s leading embryo research company, announced it is eliminating 66 full-time jobs, or 38 percent of its staff.

The Menlo Park, California-based company blamed the pull out on the high costs and bureaucracy of stem cell research and ‘uncertain economic conditions’. Some never believed the treatment really was actually going to produce the marvels promised.

“We are encouraged that neither voters nor investors think research that destroys human embryos is worth funding,” said David E. Smith Executive Director of the Illinois Family Institute, “and hope that companies will turn their energies to the much more productive field of adult stem cell research and therapy.”

New Jersey voters overwhelmingly turned down a ballot initiative to fund human embryonic stem-cell research on the taxpayer’s dime. In 2007 voters in the Granite State rejected borrowing $450 million to pay for stem cell research grants in the state for 10 years. The last time New Jersey voters defeated a statewide ballot question was 1990.

“Deciding to move out of the stem cell business was a very difficult decision to make,” said chief executive Dr. John A. Scarlett.

Illinois Family Institute (IFI) says it has long opposed the research on and the cloning of human embryos for the purposes of research since a life is destroyed in the process. In addition, IFI has trumpeted the many advances made through adult stem cell research and called on researchers and scientists to continue their work in finding an alternative to using human embryos.

“The news from Geron Corp. demonstrates that human embryonic stem cell research has failed to produce the medical miracles promised by proponents,” said IFI executive director David E. Smith. “If taxpayers are going to be forced to pay for research, it should be research that is not only ethical but also successful. While much of the rest of the world has rejected human embryonic stem cell research as a hopeless waste of money, in the United States our politicians continue to try to raid the empty public trough to prop up failing research. It’s another bailout that simply must stop.”

Geron officials note the company is working to find partners to take over its stem cell research and focus more of its energies into cancer research.

“Geron ‘s decision to abandoned embryonic stem cell research is just another example of what pro-life and pro-family organizations have been saying for years — there are no benefits to patients with human embryonic stem cell research,” said Ralph Rivera, IFI lobbyist and longtime pro-life advocate. “If venture capitalists were convinced that they could make money doing human embryonic research, there would be many billions of their dollars invested. Only one or two have been ‘fooled’ into thinking this was a good investment. That is why so-called “researchers” have sought to ‘fool’ States like Illinois into giving our tax dollars for embryonic stem cell research.”

IFI will continue to oppose human embryonic stem cell research and taxpayer funding of this research while pointing to the success ofadult stem cell research.

A U.S. district court issued a preliminary injunction on Monday, stopping the federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research in the Obama administration’s new guidelines.

The court ruled in favor of a suit filed by Dr. James L. Sherley, a former MIT professor and scientist, and other researchers who said human embryonic stem cell research involves the destruction of human embryos. They also made the very sensible argument that funds plowed into useless ESC research are depriving life-saving research and cures with adult stem cells.

Judge Royce Lamberth granted the injunction after finding that the lawsuit would likely succeed because the guidelines violated current law banning the use of federal funds to destroy human embryos.

The lawsuit says the guidelines violate the Dickey-Wicker appropriations provision regarding embryo research that prohibits federal funding of the creation of human embryos by any method, explicitly including humancloning, or any “research in which” human embryos are harmed in any way.

The National Institutes of Health received 50,000 comments almost all of which were opposed to funding this research on human embryos, and by its own admission, NIH totally ignored these comments.

Human embryonic stem cell research has yet to help a single patient, unlike adult stem cell research — which has helped patients with more than 100 diseases and medical conditions and which President George W. Bush supported with hundreds of millions in federal funding.

The Obama administration could appeal the decision or try to rewrite the guidelines to comply with U.S. law. Since the judge implied they would not win on appeal, they might go to Congress. They will have to pass something before the end of this session.

It was following California’s passage of Proposition 71 that Illinois felt the need to start funding embryonic stem cell research with taxpayer money. However, after five years, California’s budget-busting $3 billion embryonic stem cell research project has yielded no cures, no therapies and little progress, explains Investors.com.

The backers of Prop 71 are now admitting failure. “The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the state agency created to, as some have put it, restore science to its rightful place, is diverting funds from ESCR to research that has produced actual therapies and treatments: adult stem cell research. It not only has treated real people with real results; it also does not come with the moral baggage ESCR does.”

The article accuses the backers of Prop 71 of using a classic bait-and-switch tactic by trying to take credit for discoveries and advances achieved by research that they once cavalierly dismissed. The Institute is attempting to do this by funding adult stem cell research. Nearly $230 million was handed out this past October to 14 teams, but notably, only four of those projects involved embryonic stem cells.

The article concludes:

Real promise is held in what are called induced pluripotent stem cells. In 2006, researchers led by Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Japan’s Kyoto University were first able to “reprogram” human skin cells to behave like embryonic stem cells. They can do everything stem cells from destroyed embryos can do.

The National Institute of Health has said that this type of stem cell offers the prospect of having a renewable source of replacement cells and tissues to treat diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, to name a few.

It is ESCR researchers who have politicized science and stood in the way of real progress. We are pleased to see California researchers beginning to put science in its rightful place.

Source: California’s Proposition 71 Failure (Investors.com)