I was doing my hourly Drudge perusal when I came across this headline (in red font nonetheless):

Scientists grow human heart valve from stem cells…

A British research team led by the world’s leading heart surgeon has grown part of a human heart from stem cells for the first time. If animal trials scheduled for later this year prove successful, replacement tissue could be used in transplants for the hundreds of thousands of people suffering from heart disease within three years.

Sir Magdi Yacoub, a professor of cardiac surgery at Imperial College London, has worked on ways to tackle the shortage of donated hearts for transplant for more than a decade. His team at the heart science centre at Harefield hospital have grown tissue that works in the same way as the valves in human hearts, a significant step towards the goal of growing whole replacement hearts from stem cells.

According to the World Health Organisation, 15 million people died of cardiovascular disease in 2005; by 2010, it is estimated that 600,000 people around the world will need replacement heart valves. “You can see the common pathway of death and suffering is heart failure,” said Prof Yacoub. “Reversing heart failure could have a major impact.”

Growing replacement tissue from stem cells is one of the principal goals of biology. If a damaged part of the body can be replaced by tissue that is genetically matched to the patient, there is no chance of rejection. So far, scientists have grown tendons, cartilages and bladders, but none of these has the complexity of organs, which are three-dimensional structures of dozens of different types of cells.

Although this is a very important achievement, and indeed a well written article insomuch as it is actually interesting to read… do you notice any key details missing from the headline and the leading paragraphs? I don’t know, perhaps some reference to what kind of stem cells were being used?

Well, apparently neither Drudge nor the Guardian consider it an important detail because the type of stem cell (embryonic vs. non-embryonic) isn’t revealed until paragraph 10 of 14:

By using chemical and physical nudges, the scientists first coaxed stem cells extracted from bone marrow to grow into heart valve cells.

In other words, this is yet another success in the field of adult stem cell research. One of those successes that you never hear about when the left and even the compromising right are screaming for embryonic stem cell research - which does not have even a fraction of the level of success that non-embryonic stem cell research has. Just to be clear, I couldn’t care less if embryonic stem cell research had a 1000% success rate in every area of research. It would still not justify the killing of unborn children. However, that doesn’t even matter since embryonic stem cell research is not successful and adult stem cell research is. The pro-life movement wins no matter how you approach the issue.

I am somewhat surprised that Drudge didn’t see it necessary to emphasize that this success was not from embryonic stem cells. For someone so strongly pro-life, it doesn’t make much sense.