As we look forward to a day of feasting on turkey and a table full of delicious food, many of us also will enjoy a day of football and rooting for our favorite team.
This year, as I enjoy pumpkin pie and a good football game, I will remember the worst blowout in the history of the National Football League. In 1940, the Chicago Bears dominated the Washington Redskins in a way no other team has done before or since. The final score was 73-0.
That score — 73-0 — has particular significance to me because that also happens to be the score in the competition between adult and embryonic stem cells.
Yes, that's right — there are 73 adult stem-cell therapies and zero embryonic ones.
Adult stem cells are the Chicago Bears of the stem-cell research game. They can do anything the Redskins can do, and they can do it better.
Just as the Chicago Bears left no doubt they were the best in the world of professional football, adult stem cells are leaving no doubt they are the best in the world of medical treatments.
By taking promising research and moving it forward, they are scoring tangible therapies and yielding big points for those suffering from disease.
Patients with diseases such as cancer, leukemia, anemia, inherited genetic disorder, heart disease, spinal cord injuries and diabetes have a winning team in adult stem-cell treatments.
Contrast that with the performance of embryonic stem cells:
No clinical trials.
No diseases being treated.
No patients talking about how embryonic stem cells changed their lives.
Zero.
In the world of sports, we sometimes root for a team regardless of its win-loss record because it's our team, but we shouldn't approach medicine and our health in the same way. We need to be putting our resources into proven therapies.
And with a score of 73-0, we have a winner in adult stem cells.
