Stem cells. With so much else going on right now, it’s easy to gloss over the fact that more than a dozen lines of embryonic stem cells have been cleared for use in publicly funded research.
Yes, the federal government does outlaw publicly funded institutions from creating embryonic stem cell lines, but it permits federal funds to be used for research that uses stem cell lines that were developed with private money in private institutions.

You can see the loophole and the potentially lucrative underpinnings already, right? If embryonic stem cell lines prove as productive as is hoped, inevitably private companies will form with the sole purpose of creating these lines, to be sold to the federal government at what I can only assume will be a gigantic price. Why? Because the public sector can then use them in grant-funded research and treatment development, right?

And now a whole new tweak in the stem cell debate comes to mind- will federal funds in the form of a public option go toward any kind of research or products or treatments that result from stem cell research? What about something specific- like, would the public option cover a severe burn victim to receive skin grown from cell lines derived from an embryonic stem cell?

It’s a question that we may have to deal with faster than you think- According to Reuters, French scientists have discovered a way to grow human skin rapidly from stem cells.  

Severe burn victims often need major amounts of skin to be replaced- right now, skin grafts from the patient him/her self are used, and growing enough skin can take weeks. The new discovery, though, allows the process of regrowing skin to start as soon as a victim comes into the hospital.

In essence, doctors with a  patient could call the factory and… “immediately, they will get a square meter of epidermis which will be a temporary way to cover the burns,” according to I -Stem research director Marc Peschanski.

Impressive- and as I said, certain to be controversial. But if the claims are true, and they most likely are, it would mean that severe burn victims can get fast, critical care that has never been available- and it also opens the way for speculation and research around what else can grow quickly from stem cells. It could be a whole new world.

"What our findings can provide is a way to cover the burns during those three weeks with skin epidermis ... produced in that factory and sent to the physician at the moment they receive a severely burned patient," said Peschanski.

What if he could say that about someone with cancer found in one of their organs?

What if he could say that about someone who had major trauma wounds that need a lot of varied work very quickly?

Not only does it get the mind spinning as far as the possibilities, but it gets the mind turning about all of the possible ways that this can be appropriated by and argued about in Congress…

Photo Credit: euthman (via Flickr through CCL)