• September
Targeted and Tailored Therapies in Hematology/Oncology
Loyala University Health System
Sept. 10
Renaissance Chicago Hotel
Chicago, Illinois

8th Biennial Oncology, Hematology and Stem Cell Transplantation Conference
Alta Bates Comprehensive Cancer Center
Sept. 15-18
The Ritz-Carlton
Half Moon Bay, California

• October
American Association of Blood Banks (AABB)
58th Annual Meeting
Oct. 15-18
Seattle Convention Center
Seattle, Washington

Aplastic Anemia & MDS International Foundation
with NCI and NIH Office of Rare Diseases
Bone Marrow Failure Scientific Symposium
Oct. 17-19
Loews L’Enfant Plaza Hotel
Washington, D.C.

American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics (ASHI)
31st Annual Meeting
Oct. 17-21
Hilton Washington Hotel
Washington, D.C.

International Society for Interferon and Cytokine Research (ISICR)
Annual Meeting
Oct. 20-24
Shanghai International Everbright Convention Center
Shanghai, China

International Cytokine Society (ICS)
Annual International Cytokine Conference
Oct. 27-31
Lotte Hotel Jamsil
Seoul, Korea

European Society of Gene Therapy (ESGT)
13th Annual Meeting
Oct. 29-Nov. 1
Hotel Hilton Prague
Prague, Czech Republic

• November
National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP)
18th Annual Council Meeting
Nov. 4-6
Hilton Minneapolis Hotel
Minneapolis, Minnesota

• December
American Society of Hematology (ASH)
76th Annual Meeting
Dec. 3-6
Ernest N. Morial Convention Center
New Orleans, Louisiana

American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB)
45th Annual Meeting
Dec. 10-14
Moscone Center
San Francisco, California

2006
BMT Tandem Meetings
(Combined ASBMT and CIBMTR annual meetings)
Feb. 16-20
Hawaii Convention Center
Honolulu, Hawaii

2007
BMT Tandem Meetings
(Combined ASBMT and CIBMTR annual meetings)
Feb. 8-12
Keystone Conference Center
Keystone, Colorado

2008
BMT Tandem Meetings
(Combined ASBMT and CIBMTR annual meetings)
Feb. 13-17
Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel
San Diego, California

A Word from President Nelson Chao, M.D.

The year was 1950, and it was the Democratic senatorial primary in Florida. Rep. George Smathers was challenging Sen. Claude Pepper.

Smathers, the underdog, traveling the rural towns of his state, accused Pepper of unspeakable indecencies:
• that his brother was a practicing homo sapien
• that he had a sister in New York who was a thespian
• that Pepper himself, while in college, had matriculated with young women

The story is an amusing example of word trickery, calculated to pander to the less-educated. But what happens when the victim of tricky words turns out to be well-educated, and the potential consequences are anything but amusing? We had such an incident a few weeks ago.

A courier was bringing stems cells from a donor in Europe, headed for a waiting patient at a transplant center in the United States. The travel was on commercial airlines on regularly scheduled flights. Because there were no direct flights, a plane change was required once the courier touched down in the United States.

After boarding the jet for the final leg of his journey, the courier was informed that he would have to leave the plane. Pilots have the final word on who and what is carried on their planes, and this particular pilot had a strong moral aversion to embryonic stem cell research. After checking the courier’s paperwork, the pilot asked the courier to get off the plane.

Fortunately, there was a next flight in four hours, and the courier was able to complete his trip and deliver the precious package. Potential tragedy averted.

The airline, the pilot and all involved have subsequently profusely apologized for the terrible misunderstanding, so it serves no useful purpose to embarrass people and companies by naming names. In a sense, the victim may have been the pilot, hammered by several years of rhetoric about the “stem cell controversy.”

How many times have we read newspaper headlines and heard broadcasts reporting on “stem cell legislation” and developments in the “stem cell debate?” How frequently in the course of an introduction or mention of your work has the conversation immediately turned to embryonic stem cell research? “You work with stem cells? That’s been getting quite a lot of controversial attention these days, hasn’t it?”

I learned last week of one colleague whose budget was challenged when a university board member heard that her department was working with stem cells. NPR last week reported threats on the life of a scientist who was working with stem cells. Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen when some zealot decides that the world would be better off with one fewer stem cell transplant clinician or investigator.

Most of us have well-formed opinions about human embryonic stem cell research. A while back, ASBMT leaders placed the Society on record supporting federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Yet it is important for us to recognize that opinions do vary among earnest, well-educated and well-intentioned people. Regardless of our personal beliefs, I think we all can agree on the importance of clarifying for the public the difference between the theoretic future benefits of laboratory research with embryonic stem cells and the very real clinical benefits today of stem cell transplantation.

Does ASBMT have a role to play in achieving clarity? Here are some possibilities:

• We could encourage the media to stop the indiscriminate use of terms like “stem cell research” and the “stem cell controversy” when reporting on investigations with human embryos.

• We could revise our own terminology and use phrases other than “stem cell transplants” to describe what we do.

• We could work to raise public awareness about what stem cell transplants achieve and what we clinicians and investigators study and do.

Any of these would be a daunting task. You may have an opinion about which is the most doable.

Of course, there is another path. We could decide that the problem is too large for us to have any impact. We could do nothing, and resign ourselves to ongoing public confusion and misunderstanding.

– Nelson