Embryonic-stem cells will cure polio—finally.

CORRECTION/UPDATE: There, of course, is not a cure for polio–only a vaccine. I read that blogger’s post way too quickly and apologize for that. A reader writes:

Not to be picky with the defense of trendy cause interested celebrities, but there’s not a cure for polio. There’s a vaccine for polio. Once the body is attacked the degenerative effects of the polio virus are devastating, both in the immediate and in the long term with the significant issues of post-polio syndrome. Having a treatment which could fix the nerve damage would be a cure, as a cure is something which heals after the disease has attacked. There is no such treatment, there is only prevention. The blogger you linked comes off more ignorant than Scarlett Johansson.
As far as I can tell, the debate over stem cell research is about a cure and about prevention, whether it be alzheimer’s, polio, or the other various degenerative diseases. Those who are already victims want their own bodies to be healed. I am still not a supporter of embryonic stem-cell use, but a treatment which would cure my mother of the ravages of polio would certainly be a miracle… and is certainly not available now, let alone fifty years ago.

So many of us pray for cures to devastating disease–many of which have hit our own families. And, mercifully, good men and women are at work on cures everyday. But, re: the public-policy debate–and especially about federal funding–the panacea talk about embryonic-stem-cell research is not a reason to skip over the moral questions involved in stem-cell research. And when ethics and science can be reconciled, as with adult-stem-cell research, cord-blood research, etc., why not focus there?