President Bush's veto of expanded federal funding of destructive embryonic stem cell research
I happened to see part of the evening BBC World News the other day. In it, among other stories, was a piece about President Bush's veto of the bill that was to have expanded federal funding of embryonic stem cell research involving the destruction of human embryos. The story was clearly slanted against the President's position, and concluded (my quotation may not be completely correct as it has been a few days since I saw the program), "For President Bush and his supporters, this was a matter of faith; however, for the President's oppenents, it was a matter of the principle of common sense." Had I been in a bad mood, I might have become irritated by such horribly biased and misleading coverage; as it happened, however, I felt rather amused by their unwarranted arrogance and high-handedness.
I read a National Review Online article yesterday which seems a good "primer" for correcting common (and reinforced by much "big media" reporting) misconceptions regarding the issue of stem cells:
July 18, 2006, 5:27 p.m.
Science’s Stem-Cell Scam
It should change its name to Pseudoscience.
By Michael Fumento
Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) receive tremendous media attention, with oft-repeated claims that they have the potential to cure virtually every disease known. Yet there are spoilsports, self included, who point out that they have yet to even make it into a human clinical trial. This is even as alternatives - adult stem cells (ASCs) from numerous places in the body as well as umbilical cord blood and placenta - are curing diseases here and now and have been doing so for decades. And that makes ESC advocates very, very angry.
[full article]