Don't cheer too loudly for that skin cell into stem cell discovery

By now you've heard about the Japanese research team's discovery (replicated by various laboratories all over the world) that by infecting skin cells with viruses containing the proper genes, they can be effectively transformed into stem cells with every bit as much potential for mutation into other kinds of tissue as fetal stem cells.

Not that people suffering from the various ills for which fetal stem cells are supposed to be a magic cure are helped by the discovery. In mice, transformed skin cells apparently share the tendency of transplanted fetal stem cells to turn into malignant tumors.

Nobody talks much about that rather significant drawback with fetal stem cells, of course- or about the fact that it will probably take about half a century to overcome the problems with fetal stem cells to the point where they could actually be used to help patients. Not so with umbilical cord stem cells, which are already being used to help sick people.

The skin skin cell discovery isn't the good news it seems on the pro-life front, either. In order to perfect a technique that will transform human skin cells into stem cells, the same process will have to be repeated which led to the success with mice. In other words, research is going to have to be performed on embroyonic human stem cells- research that would the kill the embroyos from which they were taken.

President Bush's upcoming veto of the fetal stem cell bill passed this week by Congress is just as necessary as it would have been without the discovery. But it will take even more courage.