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Bill Olson wrote: > Christopher Reeve testified to Congress that adult stem cells are > no longer able to develop into a wide variety of tissues, yet > Reeve's own foundation did work proving the opposite which was > submitted for publication on March 31, a month before the hearing. Christopher Reeve's testimony on April 26 is at http://www.senate.gov/~appropriations/labor/testimony/reeve.htm He said "Treatment with stem cells has already begun. They have been taken from umbilical cords and become healthy red cells used to cure sickle-cell anemia. Stem cell therapy is also being used against certain types of cancer. But those are cells that have significantly differentiated; that is, they are no longer pluripotent, or capable of transforming into other cell types. For the true biological miracles that researchers have only begun to foresee, medical science must turn to undifferentiated stem cells. We need to clear the path for them as rapidly as possible." The research in question is reported in "Adult rat and human bone marrow stromal cells differentiate into neurons", Dale Woodbury, Emily J. Schwarz, Darwin J. Prockop, Ira B. Black. Journal of Neuroscience Research. Volume: 61, Issue: 4, Date: 15 August 2000, Pages: 364-370. This is available on-line at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi- bin/fulltext?ID=72514189&PLACEBO=IE.pdf The article contains the sentence "A subclass of bone marrow stem cells is one prototype, capable of differentiating into osteogenic, chondrogenic, adipogenic, and other mesenchymal lineages in vitro... They have been termed marrow stromal cells...." A news report "Scientists Produce Nerve Cells from Bone Marrow Stem Cells" at http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/stemcells 000815.html contains: "The research, conducted at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and MCP Hahnemann University in Philadelphia, was funded in part by the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation." Another news report of the research "Researcher grow brain stem cells from bone marrow stem cells" at http://europe.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/08/15/brain.stemcell/ contains: "If successful, [Dr. Ira] Black's research could mean that patients with damaged cells could get replacement cells from their own bodies, rather than from another person or from cells grown in a lab. That eliminates the danger that the patient's body would reject the outside cells. "Black admits his research is very preliminary, and he says it is essential that all clinical trials continue. "'We are not going to get the critical answers, the answers that are so central to recovery of function for patients, unless we proceed across all of these fronts,' said Black." Regarding whether Reeve knew about this research at the time of his testimony, one thing is clear. Reeve's foundation did not DO the research work. It partly FUNDED the work. We do not know how much the foundation knew of this work. We have no information about communication between the foundation and the researchers at that time. Did the researchers keep their work secret until the official report was available in print? The implication that the Reeve foundation was suppressing or distorting information is not justified based on what we know. Well, I'll be "shoveling off". Phil Tompkins