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Science is making great strides in using adult stem cells for healing patients. Below I'll quote and link several articles about this. There's a few basics I want to pass on first.
1) Using adult stem cells means doctors can use the patients own cells, thus removing the risk of rejection.
2) Any kind of cells from any part of the body can be created using adult stem cells, just like embryonic stem cells are supposed to do.
3) While they are having such success with adult stem cells, there is nothing coming forwards from embryonic stem cells. Zip. Nada. Despite ample private funding.
4) There is a big push on for Embryonic research, and almost all of it leads to emotional reactions and low-road fighting. In the midst of this, the facts are being suppressed. Some believe that there is a bigger reason that the adult stem cell successes are being overlooked by the embryonic research people. The suspicion is that, while adult stem cells used from the patient themselves will work fine for healing injuries, it doesn't allow for stem cells from foreign sources to be used in research, nor the possibilities of harvesting. Why is that important? Because there are researches into cloning and human-animal hybrids that will almost certainly require lots of stem cells. I don't know about this, but it does raise an alarm.

Using what they say is a relatively simple method, scientists at Georgetown University Medical Center have extracted stem/progenitor cells from adult testes and have converted them back into pluripotent embryonic-like stem cells. Researchers say that the naïve cells are now potentially capable of morphing into any cell type that a body needs, from brain neurons to pancreatic tissue.

And because they produced these stem cells without the use of additional genes, the technology should be safe for human use, the researchers say in a paper published online in the journal Stem Cells and Development.
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The question of stem cells is currently the dominant subject in the debate over biotechnology and human genetics: Should we use embryonic stem cells or adult stem cells for future medical therapies? Embryonic stem cells are taken from a developing embryo at the blastocyst stage, destroying the embryo, a developing human life. Adult stem cells, on the other hand, are found in all tissues of the growing human being and, according to latest reports, also have the potential to transform themselves into practically all other cell types, or revert to being stem cells with greater reproductive capacity. Embryonic stem cells have not yet been used for even one therapy, while adult stem cells have already been successfully used in numerous patients, including for cardiac infarction (death of some of the heart tissue).
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It is remarkable that in the debate–often carried on with little competence–the potential of embryonic stem cells is exaggerated in a one-sided way, while important moral questions and issues of research strategy are passed over in silence. Generally, advocates of research with embryonic stem cells use as their main argument that such research will enable us to cure all of the diseases that are incurable today–cancer, AIDS, Alzheimers, multiple sclerosis, and so forth. Faced with such a prospect, it is supposed to be "acceptable" to "overlook" a few moral problems.

On closer inspection, however, the much extolled vision of the future turns out to be a case of completely empty promises: Given the elementary state of research today, it is by no means yet foreseeable, whether even one of the hoped-for treatments can be realized. Basically, such promised cures are a deliberate deception, for behind the mirage of a coming medical wonderland, promoted by interested parties, completely other research objectives will be pursued that are to be kept out of public discussion as much as possible.

Perfect candor should rule in stem cell research. This requires that the scientist himself clearly establish the moral limits of his activity and declare what the consequences of research with embryonic stem cells really are. In the process, no one can escape the fact that, should one wish to use embryonic stem cells for "therapeutic purposes," the very techniques will be developed that will also be used for the cloning of human beings, the making of human-animal hybrids, the manipulation of germ lines, and the like–thus for everything other than therapeutic purposes. Any coverup or hypocrisy in this matter will very quickly reflect upon the research as a whole.
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Using a potion of growth factors and other nutrients, scientists at Jefferson Medical College have shown in the laboratory they are able to convert adult human bone marrow stem cells into adult brain cells.
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Researchers at Jefferson Medical College have found a new way to coax bone marrow stem cells into becoming dopamine-producing neurons. If the method proves reliable, the work may ultimately lead to new therapies for neurological diseases such as Parkinson's disease, which is marked by a loss of dopamine-making cells in the brain.
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I can supply loads more if you need.