Homework for Congressional Democrats

For all those who are rushing to vote on funding embryonic stem cell research (see post below), please do some reading up on the truth behind it before Thursday’s showdown. It’s readily available, but since they’ll no doubt be short on time with tonight’s State of the Union address by the President, I want to help by providing one powerful resource with all the information they need.

And also what the public needs, because they’ve been duped long enough by false reporting. I was on Relevant Radio’s Morning Air program this morning talking about this with Sean and Wendy, and a caller wondered how much research has actually been done on embryonic stem cells, and what those results were. The folks want to know, and the government leaders have to.

This article from First Things is the most thorough and illuminating report I’ve seen lately on the comprehensive stem cell debate, and nearly all the answers are in it. It’s heady reading. No….mind boggling.

A recent query of the grant database maintained by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) indicates that more than eighty research projects investigating human embryonic stem cells have been funded over the past five years. A research effort of this size represents millions of dollars in public money invested in the medical promise of embryonic stem cells…Since 2002, approximately nine hundred research papers have been published on investigations of human embryonic stem cells, with more than a thousand additional papers investigating the properties of embryonic stem cells derived from animals.

So Maureen Condic establishes up front that yes, the research has certainly had a run of opportunity and money, and turned up….what?

It was unambiguously clear five years ago that embryonic stem cells robustly form tumors (teratomas) when transplanted into adult tissues, and this remains the case today. Teratomas are benign tumors that contain a variety of differentiated cell types (hair, teeth, muscle, etc.). These tumors can often prove fatal because of their rapid growth…

Embryonic stem cell advocates were well aware of the tumor-forming potential of these cells. (Indeed, teratoma formation following injection of embryonic stem cells into adult mice is still today the test of whether a researcher has successfully generated a bona fide embryonic stem cell line.) Embryonic stem cell advocates dismiss the threat of these tumors, however…

It’s an inconvenient truth.

Even more alarming than formation of benign (albeit, fatal) tumors, several studies over the past five years have raised concerns that the longer embryonic stem cells are maintained in the laboratory (or, presumably, in the tissues of adult human patients), the more likely they are to convert to malignant cancer cells.

And yet, the drumbeat of public disinformation has continued.

The assertion that embryonic stem cells in the laboratory can be induced to form all the cells comprising the mature human body has been repeated so often that it seems incontrovertibly true. What is missing from this assertion remains the simple fact that there is essentially no scientific evidence supporting it.

Staggering, isn’t it? This needs attention. Some, like Condic, have been sounding this alert for years. Listen closely to what she’s saying here.

In light of the serious problems associated with embryonic stem cells,” I noted in 2002, “there is no compelling scientific argument for the public support of research on human embryos.” Serious scientific challenges are, by definition, problems that have stubbornly resisted the best attempts of science to resolve them. Over the past thirty years, hundreds of billions of dollars and countless hours of research by dedicated professionals worldwide have been devoted to solving the problems of immune rejection and tumor formation, yet these issues remain serious scientific and medical challenges.

And the bizarre reality is that Congressional leadership, together with big name celebrities and media elites, want to push it forward. And they want the government to pay for it, with our tax money.

The hubris of scientists in the field of embryonic stem cell research who confidently asserted “Give us a few years of unrestricted funding and we will solve these serious scientific problems and deliver miraculous stem cell cures” was evident in 2002, and it is even more evident today. For the past five years, researchers have had completely unrestricted funding to conduct research on animal embryonic stem cells, and yet the serious scientific problems remain. They have had every conceivable tool of modern molecular research available to them for use in animal models, and yet the serious scientific problems remain. Millions of dollars have been consumed, and hundreds of scientific papers published, and yet the problems still remain. The promised miraculous cures have not materialized even for mice, much less for men.

Remember that, when the U.S. House of Representatives votes on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research on Thursday. And remember the name of each representative voting for it.

Chances are, they’re thinking something like this:

In June 2004, Ron McKay at the National Institutes of Health acknowledged in a Washington Post interview that scientists have not been quick to correct exaggerated claims of the medical potential of embryonic stem cells, yet McKay justified this dishonesty by stating: “To start with, people need a fairy tale. Maybe that’s unfair, but they need a story line that’s relatively simple to understand.”

Isn’t it time Americans recognize the promise of obtaining medical miracles from embryonic stem cells for the fairy tale it really is?

Yes, it’s time. Pass this on.