Snake Oil Salesmen

"...most politicians have trained themselves to think thoughts that are useful, not thoughts that are necessarily true."

   - David Brooks, syndicated columnist

This past Monday John Edwards was giving a speech in Iowa and made the following promise:

"We will stop juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other debilitating diseases...When John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."

Yes, he did. He really said that.

Republican Bill Frist says statements such as this mislead people who are suffering from tragic diseases and give them false hope. Someone once said, "False hope is better than no hope at all," but when you're the one who is incurably ill and facing your own mortality, having some politician suggest if he is elected he'll make you well is a real stretch.

Investors Business Daily, where the editorial about Edwards's speech was published, says "...the political charge that Bush is the only thing that stands between the sick and miracle cures because he's banned research on stem cells is demonstrably false." IBD then outlines some of the stem cell research that is currently taking place: 

"Federal funding for embryonic stem cell research on existing stem cell lines has grown from zero in 2001 to $28.4 million, with no limits on future funding. Last year, the National Institutes of Health funded $190 million in 'adult' stem cell research on, for example, cells from bone marrow or placental tissue.

At the same time, state governments and the private sector are supporting research outside federal guidelines, with one study estimating that 1,000 scientists at more than 30 firms spent $208 million experimenting on embryonic and adult stem cells in 2002 alone."

They go on to point out that we are nowhere "close to a cure for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's or anything else. In Reader's Digest earlier this year, Reeve himself seemed to acknowledge that fact, saying: 'It appears, though, at the moment, that embryonic stem cells are effective in treating acute injuries and are not able to do much about chronic injuries.' "

Not only does John Edwards seem to be unwilling to acknowledge the lack of progress in embryonic stem cell research, but so does John Kerry.

In the second presidential debate Kerry mentioned that scientists had told him that "we have the option of curing Parkinson's, diabetes, spinal-cord injuries, or any other disease using embryonic stem cells."

Robert P. George, a professor at Princeton University, would like to know who those scientists are:

"...the Bush campaign should defy him to name the names. He won't be able to do it. No scientists--even those most pro-Kerry and aggressively in favor of the federal funding of embryo-destructive research--ever told Kerry any such thing.

...No one knows when--or even whether or not--human embryonic stem cells will be therapeutically useful in treating any major disease or injury. There are profound--perhaps insuperable--problems with the therapeutic use of these cells."

Professor George recalls the question that Elizabeth Long asked Kerry in the St. Louis Town Hall debate:

"Thousands of people have already been cured or treated by the use of adult stem cells or umbilical-cord cells. However, no one has been cured by using embryonic stem cells. Wouldn't it be wise to use stem cells obtained without the destruction of an embryo?"

George says that Kerry answered Ms. Long with a lie, "a lie that will falsely inflate the hopes of countless people who would dearly love to believe that 'we have the option' of curing them."

Maybe I'm being a little harsh on these guys. Maybe they really don't know what's going on. Maybe they're not that informed about this research. But you'd think a former trial lawyer like John Edwards, who earned millions suing doctors and insurance companies would be better informed, wouldn't you? And Kerry, who has spent weeks preparing for the debates by arming himself with facts about every conceivable issue would have the details too, wouldn't you?

Maybe they forgot.

Update: Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer throws his hat in the ring with this piece titled "Anything to Get Elected." My thanks to Townhall.com for the link.