Controversy over stem cell research has heretofore focused primarily on the ethics of destroying living embryos to supply embryonic stem cell research with biomaterial. This paper will examine the separate but related issue of the efficacy of embryonic stem cell research. The research question to be addressed is: Are embryonic stem cells actually a more effective research medium than adult stem cells for scientific research and medical breakthrough? Inherent in this question is the issue of stem cell plasticity-the relative ability of a stem cell to become whatever type of cell is needed.
The research paper proposed that will clarify and detail the properties of both types of stem cells and differentiate between the theoretical and actual capabilities of each. In addition, the paper will contrast the ample number of existing and already implemented solutions derived from adult stem cells with the relatively small number of solutions derived from embryonic stem cells. Most importantly, the paper will examine the argument that only embryonic stem cells are capable of providing medical breakthroughs for ailments such as Parkinson's disease, cancer, and diabetes, contending that the optimum solutions to many such conditions actually lie outside the realm of stem cell research altogether, while those that would benefit from stem cell breakthroughs do not depend upon embryonic stem cell research.
The investigation of these issues will include research in two prominent domains-accepted U.S. medical journals such as Stem Cells and The Oncologist and both medical and nonmedical resources outside the American medical community, where discoveries and breakthroughs are occurring at a rapid rate. There have been rumors for decades, for example, that clinics in foreign countries have successfully treated cancer patients but that their treatments have not been accepted in the American medical community. Italian
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