Wednesday, December 20, 2006

False information propagated by stem cell news reports

What's new, right?

In an article spread by the Associated Press, "Public misinformed about stem cell issue," (found in the Houston Chronicle, USA Today, and others, there is a blatant factual error.

A July 2006 article in the journal Science refuted claims that there were 65 treatments that utilize adult stem cells. In truth, the article stated, there are seven.


The Science "article" was actually a letter, and opened with the statement concerning treatments that were "fully tested in all required phases of clinical trials and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration."

This letter led columnist Michael Fumento to dub the Journal, "PseudoScience."

For more information, see the editorial by Robert P. George and Eric Cohen at Ethics and Public Policy, "Science gets duped again," Or see my blurbs here and here.

In fact, there are more than 70 diseases in which stem cells are "utilized," many in FDA approved and NIH funded studies.

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