Does him proud

Dear Editors,

Jerome Biegler's spirited defense of adult stem cells does him proud ["Citing sources" (http://www.mccookgazette.com/story/1090746.html)].

However, his side is doing all the attacking. I know of not one single scientist who advocates eliminating adult stem cells, although they definitely have problems, such as an unfortunate tendency toward what is called fusion, where the cells do not divide cleanly, but instead cling on to other cells in their neighborhood, so something en-tirely undesirable may occur, such as growing a toe in the spinal cord.

Dr. Irv Weissman and Dr. Katherine Verfaille, arguably among the greatest adult stem cell specialists in the world, agree that both embryonic and adult stem cell research should go forward.

Long cited by the religious right as a champion of adult stem cell research, Dr. Verfaille is now returning to her native Belgium, where she will be researching BOTH adult and embryonic stem cells.

Don C. Reed

Californians for Cures

via e-mail