With the election of a new president, there will certainly be change. Recently in the Washington Post & CBS news, it was reported that Barack Obama intends to reverse the Bush policy on stem cell research. It is believed amongst the scientific community that stem cells offer abundant potential for challenging conditions including parkinson's disease and osteoarthritis among others. However, adult rather than embryonic stem cells are available with current technology and have little controversy associated with their use. The only problem is that harvesting them requires inserting a metal rod into the bone marrow to extract it. Hopefully, soon we will be able to draw adult stem cells from peripheral blood (drawing blood from the arm & processing stem cells). Clearly the orthobiologic field is growing, and we will learn more about the promise of stem cells in the near future whether adult or embryonic cells are utilized.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/09/politics/washingtonpost/main4586410.shtml
