Topic: CNSNews.com
From a Feb. 21 CNSNews.com article by Nathan Burchfiel:
Dr. David Prentice, a senior fellow for life sciences at the conservative Family Research Council, told the handful of aides in attendance that peer-reviewed research on adult stem cells has resulted in 72 treatments - not cures - for ailments from cancer to heart disease to Parkinson's. Embryonic stem cells have yielded no such treatments to date, he said.
"It's the adult stem cells that are the ones that are actually making good on all these promises," Prentice said. "Patient health has been improved in over 70 different conditions."
In fact, Prentice's list of ailments treatable by adult stem cells has been discredited by researchers Shane Smith, William Neaves, and Steven Teitelbaum. In a letter to the American Association for the Advancement of Science for publication in the association's magazine, Science, the researchers state that FDA-approved adult stem cell treatments are available for only nine diseases, adding: "Prentice not only misrepresents existing adult stem cell treatments but also frequently distorts the nature and content of the references he cites."
