Stem cells

One interesting survey question would be, "Since President Bush took office, Federal funding for stem cell research has (a)increased or (b)decreased."

The New York Times has a "Fact Check" column on the subject of stem cell research.

Mr. Kerry said that "100 million Americans suffer from one disease or another that's chronically debilitating."

The Kerry campaign said it got the 100 million figure from the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, an organization that advocates therapeutic cloning for the purpose of scientific study. The organization says this is the number of people who “suffer from cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, Parkinson’s, spinal cord injuries, heart disease, A.L.S. and other devastating conditions for which treatments must still be found.”

Mr. Bush said, as he often has during the campaign: "I'm the first president ever to allow funding, federal funding, for embryonic stem cell research."

Mr. Bush is literally accurate but not telling the whole truth when he says he was the first president to allow federal financing for stem cell research. The Republican Congress blocked President Bill Clinton when he tried to use government money for this kind of research. What Mr. Bush permitted was federal money for research only on the relatively small number of stem cell colonies that existed in August 2001 when his policy was announced. Scientists view this as putting a brake on research, not accelerating it.

OK, Kerry claims that approximately one in three Americans suffer from some debilitating disease. Well, I suppose that's possible. Some of these, like heart disease and cancer seem to be diseases everyone will get if they live long enough. Alzheimers also shows up, when it does, later in life.

And then there's that wonderful catch-all, "other devastating conditions".

Bush gets graded down on passing stem cell funding because his predecessor tried to pass funding. So Republican success must be judged in the light of Democratic intentions.

I'd love to know, by the way, which "scientists" regard increased funding as "putting a brake on research" and why they think so. I can see a case to be made for increased funding putting a brake on research, if the funds go into an option they don't expect to be productive, at the expense of those with more promise. But an unattributed statement about the beliefs of nebulous "scientists" doesn't leave much to explore.

Is it reasonable to believe some scientists might consider embryonic stem cells a dead end?

Scientists say embryonic stem cell research is a promising avenue that could lead to the treatment and possibly cure of dread diseases. But it is unlikely that anyone with these diseases today will be helped. So far, there has not even been successful treatment in mice, and no specific help for humans is on the horizon.

OK, it's promising, but that promise is nowhere near being realized. Maybe it's not all that promising. And frankly, there are limits to how much research in any one area can be accelerated by throwing money at it.