Yesterday NIH Director Francis Collins approved three more human embryonic stem cell lines for taxpayer funding, bringing the total to 135.
It’s been about a month since the last approvals, and just over three months since the rush to approve a large number of lines. Two of the three new lines from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center appear to have chromosomal abnormalities, as well as to be from destruction of full siblings.
The Obama administration last approved more federal funding for embryonic stem cell research on August 19, when Collins approved four more human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines for the embryonic stem cell registry.
Those four newest approvals are sold by the company BioTime, Inc., which had two other hESC lines approved June 2, 2011. Details of the embryo destruction and hESC derivation (including from siblings) were published by ESI and Sydney IVF workers in 2007, around the time that ESI abandoned its schemes for therapies based on hESC. BioTime subsequenctly acquired ESI in 2010.
The total number of approved hESC lines is now 132, after a push of approvals earlier this year at NIH.
While NIH continues to waste more taxpayer funds on destructive embryo research, adult stem cells are the only stem cell treating patients, with more and more published evidence accumulating every week. Published scientific evidence over the last few months shows effectiveness of adult stem cells in helping patients with angina pain, aggressive multiple sclerosis, enlarged hearts, systemic sclerosis, and creating new windpipes, to name just a few examples of adult stem cell successes.
Adult stem cells remain the gold standard for actual patient treatments.
