Post-embryonic stem cell treatments currently available

[Minnesota Christian Chronicle, March 10, 2010] Within two months of taking office last year, President Barack Obama lifted the ban on federal funding of new lines of embryonic stem cell research. It was a policy put in place in 2001 by former President George W. Bush.

While the debate about the ethics of destroying an embryo to obtain stem cells for research rages on in political and media circles—producing much talk of potential breakthroughs but little so far in terms of actual therapies—many people like Dennis Brown of Edina, Minn., are receiving treatment using post-embryonic stem cells. In the case of Brown, he was treated with stem cells taken from his own blood.

Brown's treatment took place at Abbott Northwestern Hospital. His physician, oncologist Tom Flynn, M.D., was interviewed for this story.