Stem cells were the topic for the full hour of the Charlie Rose show on PBS Wednesday night. Part 5 of his Science Series. (You can view the full video at this link.) His guests were: Sir Paul Nurse, George Daley, Doug Melton, Larry Goldstein, Story Landis.

It was fascinating, informative, and thought-provoking. There was no controversy here: all five guests are scientists: one at Rockefeller University, two at Harvard, one at U.C. San Diego, and the sole female, a senior administrator at NIH.  All agree that stem cell research is permanently exciting because of its potential, that an embryo in a petri dish is not a baby, that the federal - and some state - restrictions have slowed down the course of the research, that the inevitable, but as yet unknowable date of great discoveries has been pushed farther away because of the current federal policy, that many younger researchers have been discouraged from entering the field because of these roadblocks, that embryonic stem cells are the gold standard, and that nuclear transfer (aka therapeutic cloning - and not yet accomplished with human cells) holds unique promise for treating disease.

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Voters are increasingly dissatisfied with President Bush’s performance, and it has become untenable for republicans in congress to persist in the kind of Bush loyalty that has impelled them in the past to vote against funding the science of embryonic stem cell research.

Wasting taxpayer dollars on spurious science that tries to replicate the capabilities of embryonic stem cells with adult stem cell research, has been the way the public has been fooled into believing the stem cell research issue is being addressed.  But those diversionary tactics have become annoyingly obvious. Proper funding of embryonic stem cell research has been held hostage for seven years now by a false sense of superior morality that feels conflicted about recycling microscopic medical waste from fertlity clinics.

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