Some six years ago, a bright scientist at the University of Wisconsin introduced his work to the public through the prestigious journal Science. He reported the first case of isolating human embryonic stem cells. The ground breaking announcement made the scientific, and particularly the medical community, sit up and take notice; the possibilities appeared astonishing.

Biologist James Thompson’s work entailed isolating human cells during the earliest stages of human development. Cells could be cultured in laboratories to grow into any one of the 220 types of tissues and cells in the human body. Effectively, creating a potential replacement parts for any damaged organ in the body, and more importantly, offering the cure for many untreatable cell-based illnesses, such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes and many others; it is even offering human-organ models for scientific research, and potentially for transplants.

Expectations ran high.

From a scientific point of view, stem cell research offers priceless and limitless possibilities; however, it is not the last advancement humanity needs to wipe out all of its problems. Naturally, scientific research takes time; more often than not, researchers learn many ways in which they cannot do some thing, before they learn one way to do it. Hence, if stem cell research runs ideally, it will be a few years before it cures some of the illnesses we are hoping it would.

The prolonged research and investigation process does not top the list of the problems restraining the advancement of stem cells. In recent memory, not a single issue in science has become subject to Washington politics more than stem cells. Religious leaders have maintained their strong and vocal opposition to it on the grounds that the research destroys human lives in the process; human life in this case is defined as the cluster of cells originated days earlier in a test tube.

When stem cells are isolated, perhaps fewer than those peeling off your skin when you scratch it, they are yet to be manipulated into becoming a brain, a heart, skin or even a nerve, to speak of feelings.

The White House’s ruling on the issue of stem cells was to appease both sides, as if it were a partisan matter. President Bush declared the administration would allocate federal funding, however minimal, towards the use of already existing lines of stem cells. Since that decision in 2001, the National Institute of Health has spent some $170 Million on stem cell research, but only $10 Million were spent on human embryonic cells.

Politics have effectively brought the research near to a screeching halt, with the exception of some protracted developments in the last couple of years. Given the vast enthusiasm and interest the idea was greeted with around the world, it could have been the most advancing new technology in a long time.

Conservative elements in the supposedly secular administration have dominated the country’s economic, political, social and evidently the academic discourse for the last four years, eliminating many personal freedoms and imposing religious directives on all of the population, in violation of their basic constitutional rights.

The hypocrisy in this matter is in dismissing stem cells for it destroying human life. Those politicians concerned with a cluster of cells, fewer than those in a nail-clip, are standing motionless while millions of children and adults around the worlds are dying of war, famine, pollution and other causes. Yet more troubling is the fact that thousands of innocent individuals around the world, as the case in Iraq and Afghanistan, are dying because of the direct acts of those individuals, staunchly opposing their development.

It is more fitting to deny funding for the development of new weapons, as they do destroy human life. As a matter of fact, they seem to have no other purpose.

The benefits of the research carrying on are indisputable. Many suffering from terminal disease are patiently awaiting a solution promised by stem cells. Scientists all over the globe are awaiting the offerings of the technology to proceed with their research at new levels. They are awaiting the opportunity to perform tests on lab-grown heart muscles, arteries, skin, bones and other organs, instead of extracting them from human bodies, and holding the research hostage to their supply. They are awaiting the opportunity to simulate human disease in lab tubes, test drugs and treatments promptly, and simultaneously make cures available and knowledge widespread.

Stem cell technology is for humanity, not to be tampered with by select political agendas, not even those with religious packaging.

Fayyad Sbaihat ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in chemical engineering.