YOUR HEALTH

Behold the light!

Soon, blindness due to macular degeneration, diabetes, etc. or defective light sensing cells from birth will be reversible as scientists in the United Kingdom have discovered how to use stem cells to regenerate photoreceptors and vision.

This great news is reported in Maclean’s, August 12, 2013 issue, p. 10 --  buried among other “Goods News’ tidbits and ending with the tacky line “Which means even more people may be able to see the [newborn] royal baby [son of William and Kate]”.

So far, I have not read or hear more about this fantastic and major breakthrough in North American media.

Too bad, because it is more important and beneficial to millions around the world – present and future – than much of the Hollywood, scandal and Panda bear drivel that fills our news.

For a full report – with colour diagram - you have to go to the British newspaper The Guardian (http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jul/21/embryonic-stem-cells-sight-blind-retinas) or the original publication in Nature.  The underlined, key facts were not mentioned by Maclean’s; only The Guardian.

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Good for science and, by the way, say thanks to former president George W Bush.  He banned using aborted fetus material for scientific research and cloning studies.  So scientists went to an alternative approach – stem cells: from our own skin and bodies, and thereby eliminating as well rejection issues.