If you looked at USA Today on May 19, 2005, you read, “South Korean researchers Thursday announced the creation of 11 custom-made cloned stem cell lines, made for the first time from the skin cells of child and adult patients.  The advance is considered a significant refinement of the controversial stem cell technology that opens the door wider for future treatment of such diseases as juvenile diabetes and Parkinson’s.”  

By the time you finished the story, you might have concluded that cells taken from certain induviduals with specific ailments were intended to be used to develop cures for those same patients.  In fact, selection of those individuals was purely symbolic, and was most likely intended to generate more optimism than was warranted. 

The Korean team cloned human embryos using cells taken from patients with specific diseases.  The contents of a cell from each of these patients was used to replace the contents of a human egg taken from a female donor.  Stimulating growth resulted in human embryos with genetic make-up that was supposed to match the patients who need the cures. 

These cloned human beings will not be used to produce stem cells for the patients who provided their cells because there would be too much risk that such treatments would fail, most likely making the patients worse off rather than better.  Even leading South Korean researcher Hwang Woo-suk admitted “we have to open so many doors before human trials.’’  

Nearly at the same time, other Korean researchers were actually treating human patients using adult stem cells and achieving significant improvements for 64 out of 74 patients so far.  Where was the media coverage of that positive result using adult stem cells? 

Beyond the medical facts when comparing results between adult and cloned embryonic stem cells, surveys with fair questions show the public is against cloning to produce human embryos for medical research.  A 52% majority of Americans oppose Federal funding of embryonic stem cell research while just 36% support it, according to a new poll commissioned by the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).  

When respondents were told that scientists disagree on whether embryonic stem cells, or stem cells from adult tissues and umbilical cord blood, may end up being most successful in treating diseases, 60% favored funding only the research avenues that raise no moral problem, while 22% favored funding all stem cell research including the kind that involves destroying embryos. 

The questions were part of a national survey conducted by International Communications Research, which polled over 1,000 American adults by telephone May 6-11.  A comparison of the results with an identical poll from last year shows a clear trend against funding stem cell research that requires destroying early human embryos. 

Both actual results and public support favor use of stem cells from adults and umbilical cord blood, but it will be difficult to discover this through major media sources.