Lies and Exaggerations Fill Stem Cell Debate

The debate over embryonic stem cell research has slowly and steadily become one of the more charged discussions in modern politics, crystallizing the different positions of key figures within both major parties and providing a key battleground in the culture war of scientific progress against religion. But given the complexity and the level of difficulty of the material being discussed, what seems to be happening more and more often is that political points are being won and lost based not on factual evidence or even well considered opinion, but inaccuracies and lies. With a Senate bill coming up for a vote soon that would overturn Bush's 2001 executive order that virtually tied the hands of any biologist or practitioner seeking to study embryonic stem cells to investigate their innate biology or therapeutic potential the debate has picked up steam once again. The problem with those who would oppose the bill is that some have been misrepresenting the facts.

Yesterday, in one of the more incendiary volleys, the journal Science published a letter by three researchers documenting apparently significant misstatements made by a leader in the movement to block the bill.
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The letter to the journal focused on David A. Prentice, a scientist with the conservative Family Research Council. Prentice has been an adviser to Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) -- a leader in the charge to maintain tight restrictions on the research -- and an "expert source" often cited by opponents of embryonic stem cell research.

Prentice has repeatedly claimed that adult stem cells, which can be retrieved harmlessly from adults, have at least as much medical potential as embryonic cells. He often carries a binder filled with references to scientific papers that he says prove the value of adult stem cells as treatments for at least 65 diseases.

In the letter to Science, however, three researchers went through Prentice's footnoted documentation and concluded that most of his examples are wrong.

"Prentice not only misrepresents existing adult stem cell treatments but also frequently distorts the nature and content of the references he cites," wrote Shane Smith of the Children's Neurobiological Solutions Foundation in Santa Barbara, Calif.; William B. Neaves of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City, Mo.; and Steven Teitelbaum of Washington University in St. Louis.

For example, they wrote, a study cited by Prentice as evidence that adult stem cells can help patients with testicular cancer is in fact a study that evaluates methods of isolating adult stem cells.

Similarly, a published report that Prentice cites as evidence that adult stem cells can help patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma does not address the medical value of those cells but rather describes the best way to isolate cells from lymphoma patients and grow them in laboratory dishes, the letter said.

And Prentice's reference to the usefulness of adult stem cells for patients with Sandhoff disease -- a rare nerve disorder -- is "a layperson's statement in a newspaper article," the scientists reported.
So Prentice's "scientific" argument essentially boiled down to a trick that many learn to abandon after getting D's on their third grade research reports; finding a bunch of sources tangentially related to the subject at hand and referencing them to buttress an argument, one that the sources do not support. Fortunately the scientific community is founded on the principle of peer review, and now that his peers have reviewed the scientific citations used in making his argument in favor of stem cells derived from adult tissue over embryonically derived stem cells, it's clear that he is significantly exaggerating his case.

There is definitely some therapeutic potential in using stem cells derived from adult, rather than embryonic tissue to treat illnesses. But not nearly as much as Prentice and his backers, the Family Research Council, would have the Senate and the President believe. And certainly not enough to decide that it's time to close the book on the possibilities that embryonic stem cells may hold in treating those same, and other illnesses. It's true that embryonic stem cell advocates spend most of their time talking about the huge possibilities inherent in treatments derived from ES cells rather than their actual value in current clinical settings. What isn't known, however, is whether that is because they really won't ever pan out as the panacea some hope they will be, or because the government has tied the hands of those who are best capable of determining their utility. Until that question can be decided based on available scientific evidence, the opposition to stem cell research would seem to boil down a moral question instead. And seeing as how newly developed ES cell lines are generated from leftover embryos that won't be used to create a person anyway, those who are wringing their hands over this "moral quandary" seem to be splitting hairs.

All scientists are asking for is the ability to test and see just how effective ES cells can be in comparison with adult derived stem cells. Until the answer to that question is known, suspending research on ES cells is abandoning what could become a vital tool in helping people become well.

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