The media is taking a closer look at the star clinical trial with human embryonic stem cells – a privately-funded project by the biotechnology company Geron for curing spinal cord injury. In July the US Food and Drug Administration notified the company that a Phase 1 trial can begin. If the trials fail, private investors would be spooked at a time when private funding is essential. Apparently no one has been enrolled in the trial yet.

"There's a lot of angst around these trials," Evan Y. Snyder, of the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in San Diego, told the Washington Post. "There's going to be this perception that if the cells do not perform well, the entire field will be illegitimate." This is particularly true now that a federal court judge has banned federal funding for the controversial field.

Bioethicists also worry about whether a recently paralysed young motorcyclist can really give informed consent to an experimental procedure. He might agree to anything which promises to save him from a lifetime of paralysis. However, says Hank Greely, a Stanford lawyer and bioethicist, "If human embryonic stem cells are going to be useful in treating humans, someone has to be the first one to try it. They need to have their fingers crossed and hold their lucky rabbit's foot and be really careful in their preparations, because before you try something in humans you never know what's going to happen." ~ Washington Post, Aug 29