Humans, like other animals, begin their existence as a zygote or fertilized egg. This cell has the genetic potential to produce the billions of specialized cells that constitute the individual after nine months of development. During the process of development, for example in cells that will be a part of the Nervous System, certain genes are activated while others are not. Once this process of activation/deactivation has occurred, the cell cannot go back, i.e., it will become a cell of the Nervous System. So is the case for all cells that are to assume a specialized function.

While all these cells have the same genes of the beginning zygote, specific genes have lost the ability to function. Only those genes related to the specialized function are active. The only exception to the general rule of specialized functional development is the STEM CELL. The STEM CELL retains the ability to develop into any cell of the body. They constitute about 0.05% of all bone marrow samples, less than that in peripheral blood, and about 1% of blood cells of the umbilical cord. However, they are found in high frequency in young embryos.

Because the STEM CELL is pluripotent, i.e., has the capacity to develop into any cell of the body, it has tremendous therapeutic potential. Where cells of the Nervous System have been destroyed by accident or disease, they may be replaced by new Nervous System cells that may develop from transplanted STEM CELLS; where cells of Pancreas have been destroyed so as to result in diabetes, they too may be replaced by transplanted STEM CELLS. Such is the therapeutic potential of STEM CELLS for these and other conditions that are the result of either accident or disease.

Yet, because of Religious Precepts, the Federal Government, under the “leadership” Mr. Bush II has essentially prevented STEM CELL research. There has been the ineluctable erosion of the historic separation of Church and State in this country that has permeated every aspect of our Society; from Education, to Foreign Policy, to Science; a retrenchment from the basic notion that free discussion of ideas and untrammeled scientific enquiry constitute the sinew of our society that has been the underpinning of our technological and political leadership in the world.