n a move the Food and Drug Administration denies has anything to do with the new presidency, the federal agency granted permission this week to begin the country's first embryonic stem cell treatments on human subjects.
The FDA approved an application from Geron Corporation, based in Menlo Park, Calif., to inject stem cells derived from human embryos into 10 people paralyzed from the chest down by spinal cord injuries.
"This marks the beginning of what is potentially a new chapter in medical therapeutics," said the company's president, Tom Okarma, in a statement, "one that reaches beyond pills to a new level of healing: the restoration of organ and tissue function achieved by the injection of healthy replacement cells."...