Forbes posted an article yesterday, written by Health Day News reporter Steven Reinberg, that stem cells are helping children with the “worst cases of acute lymphoblastic leukemia” better than traditional treatments.
This is great news. But Reinberg neglected to report the most important component of his story. This is that the stem cells in discussion were ADULT stem cells.
Given that the hot topic of the day is embryonic vs. adult stem cell research, omission of this fact can only be seen as purposeful, or the author is woefully ignorant of the topic.
Reinberg used the the terms “stem cells,” “stem cell transplant,” and “stem cell transplantation” nine times (including the story title), with no mention of their origin. The only reference is the term “related donor hemopoietic-cell transplantation” in the article, which would provide no clue to the nonmedically educated reader that this is bone marrow – aka adult stem cells – from a child’s relative.
Because of what was left out of the story, and the word obfuscation that was not clarified, I must conclude the author purposefully intended to confuse the topic of stem cells in readers’ minds.
This is why people polled on the topic of stem cell research think ESCR is a good thing. They don’t understand the difference, nor do the mainstream press or liberals want them to understand.