How Trump Could Slow Medical Progress

In March, a 20-year-old California man named Kris Boesen was driving on a slick road when his car slammed into a telephone pole, breaking three of his vertebrae. Doctors told Boesen’s parents he would likely be permanently paralyzed from the neck down.

Boesen’s parents enlisted him in a clinical trial the University of Southern California, where a team of doctors injected embryonic stem cells into his back. There, they hoped, the cells would mend the damage, allowing signals from his brain to transmit again. Five months later, as KQED reported, Boesen could hold a phone and twist the cap off a bottle of soda. A photo released by shows Boesen triumphantly hoisting a barbell over his head.