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John Edwards said yesterday, "When John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk. Get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."
Rush responses with an email from a listener:
I have an e-mail from a 24/7 subscriber. Dear, Rush: I'm a pharmacologist working for a major drug company currently working on spinal cord injury and I can tell you from my own perspective, stem cells are not the hot issue in nerve regeneration. When the spine is mechanically severed, like all tissue, the healing process form a scar in order to allow inflammation response cells such as macrophages to deal with the inflammation. These scar tissue express proteins that inhibit neuronal regeneration by a variety of biomedical means. Unfortunately the scar tissue does not break down. Hence, reconnection does not readily occur. The current area of research is in overcoming these inhibitory molecules and the physical barrier of the scar. Stem cells are not really the big deal in spinal cord. Rather, they are in brain injury, most particularly in Parkinson's disease and stroke, not Alzheimer's.Posted by Ted at October 12, 2004 3:20 PM"To be honest the only reason Christopher Reeve championed this cause is because he was being manipulated by scientists, most of whom are left-wing and will do anything to hit on Bush."