Stem Cells, Progenitor Cells, Ah, What's the Difference Anyway

Sick of me waxing wistful about Chicago? Very well--back to the usual grumbling this morning. What have we from two days ago? It's in here somewhere. Ah, yes:

Bush Vetoes Embryonic Stem Cell Bill.

Homer already pointed out the rattling cognitive dissonance created when W proclaims "Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical," as the carnage in Mesopotamia rolls on unabated. That on its own would be annoying enough. But the entire paragraph in the Washington Post story says this:

"Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical, and it is not the only option before us," said Bush, who appeared on stage with Kaitlyne McNamara of Middletown, Conn., who was born with spina bifida, and is benefiting from what he called "ethical stem cell research."

Except that she's not. Unless "ethical stem cell research" means "not based on stem cells."

The 18-year-old in question was born with spina bifida and is indeed benefiting from research that has led to the quite amazing breakthrough of regenerating a small range of organs--in this case, the bladder--from existing cells in the patient's own defective organs. But they aren't stem cells:

Over the past decade, researchers began fashioning better scaffold-like platforms that hold growing cells and dissolve inside the body. The study of stem cells, which can mature into all the body's other tissues, has also supercharged progress in regenerative medicine.

The researchers at Children's Hospital in Boston used a more mature cell type known as a progenitor. They first operated on the patients to remove bad tissue that made up more than half their bladders. They fished out muscle and bladder wall cells, seeded them on cup-like bladder-shaped scaffolds of collagen, then let the cells reproduce in the lab for seven weeks. Starting with tens of thousands, they ended up with about 1.5 billion cells. The cell-bearing molds were then surgically sewn back to the remnants of the patients' original and partly working bladders, where the lab-nurtured cells kept maturing.

Supporting effective regenerative therapy research is a very good thing. Making the public aware of the possibilities created by such research and throwing tax money at it is a good thing. Hauling a person who was helped by the narrow range of applications in which the research is successful up onto the stage as a poster child is fine. But misrepresenting that work as "stem cell research" and using the person as a visual aid to prove that fetal stem cell research is unnecessary? That's deliberately deceptive and dishonest and the very definition of "unethical," Mr. President.

And what can rely on the alleged left-wing-biased-liberal media to do? Why, we can rely on them to repeat Bush's assertion uncritically. What caption went out on Yahoo with the Reuters photo below?

President Bush hugs stem cell patient Kaitlyne McNamara after speaking about embryonic stem cell research from the East Room of the White House, June 20, 2007. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Maybe I'm splitting hairs. But, to me, this is akin to saying because I managed to fix up this cut on my arm with a butterfly bandage, no sutures are allowed for a cut on anyone else, no matter how deep it is, and I'm going to call band-aids "stitches" from now on.