Stem cells letter in The Herald

Following on from my angry post about stem cells, where I mentioned in particular the specious list of “65 adult stem cell–based treatments”, that very list was invoked in yesterday’s Herald by the Archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti.

So I got out my quill pen and finest sealing wax, and sent my servant off on the fastest horse to the presses in the West.

Mario Conti (Letters, 27 July) would do well to stick to hard facts if he hopes to convince anyone of his point of view. We know that any explanation he gives against stem cell research is just a post hoc rationalisation but the least he could do is not distort the evidence in the process.

Recently I’ve been taking an interest in the various arguments which are used by right-wing Christian fundamentalists in the US. It is quite remarkable how many of these arguments eventually make it across the pond even after they’ve been soundly refuted. The most recent argument of that type is Mr Conti’s claim that “No treatments exist using early embryonic stem cells, in contrast to no less than 65 treatments already in existence using adult stem cells”. This is utter nonsense.

The 65 treatments mentioned first appear on a list compiled by David Prentice of the Family Research Council. Reading the list (available at http://www.stemcellresearch.org/facts/treatments.htm) you would be forgiven for thinking we didn’t have any serious diseases left. But all the “treatments” mentioned are nothing of the sort:

1. There are some uses of stem cells and bone marrow which can ameliorate intensive chemical or radiation treatment. These are not new treatments but ways to speed up recovery after conventional treatment.

2. The list contains many examples of “potential” treatments, where adult stem cells have shown “promise”. The same criteria are not applied to embryonic stem cells: they also show much potential but are ignored for the sake of the list compiler’s desired conclusions.

3. Adult stem cells have been the topic of research for over 50 years, but there are still arguments over whether embryonic stem cells should be researched at all. Is it any wonder that there appear to be fewer potential treatments?

I recently noted that the arguments used by the Christian right seemed to pander to a 1950s B-movie understanding of science — full of the horror of genetic mutation and clone armies. At the time I was happy that things were a bit more sensible in this country but it appears that I was too quick to judge. The tactics of deception are the same the world over.

You can see I managed to write more succinctly than in my blog post. I also didn’t feel the need to tread softly. Surprisingly they hardly edited anything. (In the past they have removed whole paragraphs from some letters, so that they make a lot less sense.) The only difference that I could see was omission of the word ‘utter’ from the second paragraph.