Getting full-body irradiation and a bone marrow transplant is an incredibly dangerous procedure, one that's only attempted in really desperate cases. It's really, really hard to find marrow donors who are a perfect match, and finding one with this HIV resistance gene is...insanely unlikely. The whole procedure, in general, can be as likely to kill as cure you, and it is not an easy death.
The cured patient received this treatment because he had leukemia and no other choices; the fact that it worked is awesome but hardly an indicator that the procedure should be repeated in any but the most desperate of cases. What's needed is a better way to make the patient produce blood cells with the HIV-resistance gene in them.
That said, a few more notes:
-These stem cells don't come from embryos; they come from placental or cord tissue, bone marrow, or - most likely - the blood of a donor. So this doesn't need to be a political issue.
-Because HLA-typing is way more variable than plain blood typing, people with leukemia, multiple myeloma, lymphoma, and other diseases die for lack of a matching marrow donor all the time. So join the marrow registry, please - these days the procedure for donation is often apheresis, so there's no need to fear a needle going into your pelvis. And even if you do donate the old-fashioned way, you'll be under general anesthesia, and it's worth it to save someone's life.
(Slightly off-topic, I know. Sorry about that.)
National Bone Marrow Donor Program
