Medical-research insiders know that embryonic-stem-cell technology is proving a dead end -- Dr. Bernadine Healy, a former director of the National Institutes of Health and once an ES-cell-research enthusiast, calls it "obsolete." But the Obama administration has opened wide the federal funding floodgates -- the triumph of a big special-interest PR and lobbying campaign.
Researchers originally found promise in ES cells mainly because they thought only ES cells could be converted into all types of mature cells. But since 2002, dozens of published studies have shown the same can be done with a vast array of AS cells.
Then, two years ago, scientists discovered how to make "induced pluripotent stem cells" from human-skin cells. These are just as flexible as embryonic ones -- but, as with AS cells, have neither the health drawbacks nor the moral problems associated with the embryonic variety.
In short, other lines of inquiry are unquestionably far more promising than ES cells
But the funding is going to the politically connected embryonic stem cell researchers, with their valuable patents. They want the money even if the research is unlikely to pay off.
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