No Cause for "Cell-ebration"

RE: “Cell-ebration” editorial, March 10

To the Editors:

It is no surprise that The Crimson would welcome President Obama’s executive order increasing federal funding for stem cell research. After all, Harvard will receive a huge portion of this funding.

The college-industrial complex periodically promotes some “highly promising” research, which will illicit massive funding. In the ‘70s , investigators said they were within “striking distance” of understanding cancer cells, in 1984 AIDS specialists predicted a vaccine within three years, and in 2000 the genome project was going to revolutionize medicine. While few stem cell promoters would promise, as did former Senator John Edwards, that persons in wheelchairs would be walking, researchers do encourage the expectation that cures for everything from diabetes to Alzheimer’s are in the offing.

A front page photograph in The Boston Globe, March 10, shows members of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute eating, among other things, chocolate eggs, as they celebrate the president’s decision. Decades from now, after billions are spent, stem cell researchers will still be touting cures that lie just over the horizon.

STEPHEN HELFER
Cambridge, Mass.
March 19, 2009