Fact vs. Myth

MYTH: Embryonic stem cell research is illegal in the United States

FACT: In the United States, stem cell research (including embryonic stem cell research) is legal. No federal law prevents researchers from experimenting on stem cells regardless of where those cells come from. The government of the United States even provides a sizeable amount of federal tax dollars for stem cell research, including research on embryonic stem cell lines created before August of 2001. Since 2003, the federal government has spent $122 million on human embryonic stem cell research, and they plan to spend an additional $37 million a year in both 2007 and 2008. The federal government has also spent millions on research using non-human embryonic stem cells, human adult stem cells, non-human adult stem cells and stem cells from umbilical cord blood. In total, the federal government spent $2.32 billion dollars on stem cell research from 2003-2006.

The goal of legislation vetoed by President Bush wasn't to make embryonic stem cell research legal but to expand the federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research.

MYTH: Research into human cloning is strictly regulated in the United States.

FACT: On the federal level, there are also no restrictions on human cloning for research. Human cloning for research is often labeled "therapeutic cloning" by its proponents. These experiments entail attempting to create human embryos through a cloning process known as somatic cell nuclear transfer and then killing the cloned human embryos for their stem cells. No researcher has yet to obtain embryonic stem cells from a cloned human embryo despite numerous attempts. A South Korean researcher named Hwang Woo-Suk made headlines in 2004 and 2005 after claiming to have obtained embryonic stem cells from cloned human embryos in two separate scientific papers. It was eventually discovered in December of 2005 that Woo-Suk's papers were fraudulent and he was unable to create a human embryo by cloning even though he had more than 2,000 human eggs (an astronomical number of human eggs compared to most human cloning attempts) at his disposal.

MYTH: Embryonic stem cell research is banned in Michigan

FACT: This is simply not true. Research with human embryonic stem cells has been occurring at the University of Michigan with the support of federal tax-dollars since 2003. The University of Michigan has also been raising money to conduct research on human embryonic stem cells which aren't approved for funding by the federal government.

Michigan law bans conducting research on human embryos which isn't beneficial to the human embryos. This means, among others things, that killing human embryos for their stem cells is illegal in Michigan. However, this law does not prevent researchers from obtaining embryonic stem cells from other states and experimenting on them in Michigan. Michigan's law also bans human cloning.

MYTH: The technique of creating these induced pluripotent stem cells by transferring genes into skin cells is illegal in Michigan.

FACT: In November of 2007, researchers from Wisconsin and Japan announced they were able to create cells which have the same properties as embryonic stem cells by reprogramming ordinary cells and without killing human embryos. They have labeled these new kind of cells induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Pluripotency is the theoretical ability of a cell to became all of the body’s different cell types. Despite what some deceptive proponents (like the Michigan Citizens for Stem Cell Research and Cures) of killing human embryos for research would have Michigan residents believe, Michigan researchers are free to attempt to create induced pluripotent stem cells. Nothing in Michigan’s laws against human cloning and killing human embryos prevent researchers from reprogramming skin cells by gene transfer to become induced pluripotent stem cells since no human embryos are killed or cloned in the process.

MYTH: Despite being able to create induced pluripotent stem cells, researchers still need to explore all avenues of stem cell research, including attempting to obtain embryonic stem cells from cloned human embryos.

FACT: Before the creation of induced pluripotent stem cells, advocates of embryonic stem cell research claimed they needed to kill human embryos at IVF clinics because they believe embryonic stem cells have more potential (because of their pluripotentency) than adult stem cells. Proponents of creating cloned human embryos and killing them for their stem cells claimed attempts human cloning (also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer) were needed because embryonic stem cells from IVF embryos wouldn’t match the genetic make-up of patients. This could lead the patient’s body to reject these cells. Proponents of human cloning believe creating cloned human embryos would solve this problem.

Now researchers can fairly easily obtain pluripotent stem cells which match a patient’s DNA by removing skin cells and reprogramming them. No human embryos need to be created or killed in the process. Researchers have yet to obtain embryonic stem cells from a cloned human embryos because the process is extremely difficult, incredibly inefficient and the supply of human eggs available for human cloning research is vanishingly small. Why should researchers continue to flush money down the drain on immoral cloning research which has consistently been unable to create a patient-specific human pluripotent stem cell line when an easy ethical alternative exists?

MYTH: Embryonic stem cell research has the potential to cure Alzheimer's disease.

FACT: A top embryonic stem cell researcher named Ronald McKay has called the claim that embryonic stem cell research will cure Alzheimer's a "fairy tale." Yet for some reason groups and individuals in favor of embryonic stem cell research continually use Alzheimer's as an example of a disease which could be cured. Alzheimer's is not a disease which will likely be treated by embryonic stem cell research (or any kind of cell replacement therapy) because Alzheimer's is a "whole brain disease" which affects various types of brain cells as well as the connections between those cells (as opposed to a cellular disease which affects only one kind of cell).

MYTH: Nuclear transfer creates embryonic stem cells

FACT: Somatic cell nuclear transfer (also known as cloning) doesn't create embryonic stem cells. It attempts to create embryos which would then need to be killed for their stem cells. Though tens of millions of dollars have been spent on human cloning for research, researchers have yet to extract embryonic stem cells from a cloned human embryo.

MYTH: Michigan citizens overwhelmingly want to legalize the killing of human embryos for research.

FACT: People respond to polls in various ways depending on how questions are asked. Proponents of embryonic stem cell research in Michigan claim "65% of Michigan voters said they'd support a ballot proposal to allow research using embryonic stem cells."

Forget for a second that research using embryonic stem cells is allowed in Michigan even though the killing of human embryos for research and human cloning is illegal. The problem is that the survey in question (a MIRS/Rossman poll conducted in February of 2007) never mentioned "embryonic stem cells." The poll uses unspecific language which didn't give the respondents a good idea of what they were being questioned about. The poll asked if those being surveyed "would allow scientists to conduct research on stem cells and establish strict reporting and oversight on any stem cell research in their state." The word "embryonic" is nowhere to be found.

Another poll, conducted by Public Opinion Strategies, found the residents of Michigan are overwhelmingly opposed to measures that would legalize the killing of human embryos for their stem cells and the cloning of human embryos. Of those surveyed, 70 percent didn't "support stem cell research that kills the human embryo so the stem cells can be removed," and 65 percent said they would vote no "on a proposal that would eliminate Michigan's ban on the cloning of human embryos."

MYTH: Embryonic stem cell research and human cloning will boost Michigan's economy.

FACT: Other states which are supposedly leading the way in embryonic stem cell research are providing millions upon millions of state tax dollars (which Michigan doesn't have with its current budget crisis). In other words, embryonic stem cell research doesn't bring in money; it typically asks taxpayers to foot the bill. For years, proponents of embryonic stem cell research have been promising cures to nearly every human malady, and they've received more than $100 million dollars from our federal government to conduct their research.Yet no human disease is anywhere near being treated with embryonic stem cells. Now they're promising an economic "boost" without explaining how killing human embryos for research is going to benefit our state economically. Be wary of those who promise much but provide little.

MYTH: There are 400,000 human embryos available to be killed for embryonic stem cell research.

FACT: In 2003, the RAND Institute published an article in the journal Fertility and Sterility. This study found there were approximately 400,000 human embryos frozen at in-vitro fertilization clinics across the country. The survey also found that 88.2% of these human embryos were being stored by their parents for future attempts at initiating a pregnancy. Only 2.8% (about 11,000) were slated for use in research. The study also gives what they say is "probably an overestimate" that 275 embryonic stem cell lines could be created from these 11,000 human embryos.

MYTH: Therapeutic cloning has the potential to save millions of lives.

FACT: Cloning human embryos for research will never save millions of lives. In order for this research to cure millions of people, scientists who attempt to clone and kill human embryos would need to get their hands on hundreds of millions of human eggs which would require tens of millions of women to agree to go through the process of donating eggs. Scientists haven't even been able to remove embryonic stem cells from a cloned human embryo even though tens of millions of dollars have been spent on this research.

The process of creating cloned human embryos, killing them for their stem cells and then using these cells to try to treat a patient would be incredibly inefficient and costly. Numerous experts in embryonic stem cell research have noted how unlikely it is this process could ever be used to treat disease. Below is a list of quotes compiled by Richard Doerflinger, the deputy director of pro-life activities at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"The efficiency of making a stem cell line from an embryo made by nuclear transfer [cloning] is vanishingly small, and you're going back to the case-by-case, individualized-therapy story again with enormous costs. The whole idea is to make this therapy internationally available, broadly. Nuclear-transfer procedures just are never going to get us there." [Thomas Okarma, president of Geron, a leading biotech firm involved in cloning research, in Technology Review, June 2003]

"Although [cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT)] might, in theory, solve the rejection-biological access problem, it can do so only one person at a time. The amount of time and money needed to create these uniquely cloned solutions makes it unlikely that SCNT will provide a practical, widespread solution to the biological access problem." [Ruth Faden, John Gearhart, and eighteen other ethicists and scientists favoring ESC research, in the Hastings Center Report, November-December 2003]

"My view is there are at least three or four other alternatives that are more attractive already.... I can't see why, then, you would argue for therapeutic cloning in the long term because it is so difficult to get eggs and you've got this issue of (destroying) embryos as well." [Australian stem cell researcher Alan Trounson, in The Age, July 29, 2002]