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Christian scientists and conservative groups today were "severely disappointed" after Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist announced this morning his support for a bill providing increased funding for embryonic stem-cell research. In a speech before the Senate, the majority leader said, "I believe today—as I believed and stated in 2001, prior to the establishment of current policy—that the federal government should fund embryonic stem-cell research."

"We're very disappointed on this," said Carrie Gordon Earll, senior bioethics policy analyst for Focus on the Family, "primarily because his statement distorts the pro-life position."

Frist told the Senate. "I am pro-life. I believe human life begins at conception. … An embryo is nascent human life." However, Frist also said, "We should federally fund research only on embryonic stem cells derived from blastocysts [a 4-day-old human embryo] leftover from fertility therapy, which will not be implanted or adopted but instead are otherwise destined by the parents with absolute certainty to be discarded and destroyed."

"I don't know how to combine those two statements," said Bob Scheidt, chairman of the ethics commission for the Christian Medical and Dental Association. "We're shocked, because we as Christian physicians thought Frist was one of us.

"We feel this is terrible mistake," Scheidt said. "In our opinion, it is doing evil that good may come."

Frist, like other supporters of stem-cell research, says the cells have a unique potential to cure a host of currently incurable diseases, such as juvenile diabetes and Parkinson's disease. "Unlike other stem cells, embryonic stem cells are 'pluripotent,'" Frist said. "That means they have the capacity to become any type of tissue in the human body. Moreover, they are capable of renewing themselves and replicating themselves over and over again—indefinitely."

However, some Christian scientists disagree with the facts Frist presented. "There is research that some adult stem cells hold the same pluripotent capacity that embryonic do. He did not give an accurate read of the science," said Earll.

Some scientists also question whether embryonic stem cells have as much potential as supporters claim. "I worked for 20 years as professor at Indiana State University, been involved in this debate, even did some adult stem-cell research," says David Prentice, senior fellow for life science at the Family Research Council and adjunct professor at Georgetown Medical School. "The science is not really there for the embryonic stem cells," he says. "They've been working with mouse embryonic stem cells for over 20 years, but still have not a single treatment for humans and pretty poor results in mice."

Stem cells derived from adults and umbilical cord blood have already produced results, Prentice says. "We have thousands of patients successfully treated with adult and cord blood stem cells, including more than 200 heart patients, which Senator Frist might take notice of as a heart surgeon. If we really cared about patients, we'd be focusing our efforts and our federal taxpayer dollars on the adult stem cells and the cord blood."

At least 10 published papers have shown that adult stem cells are able to make virtually any tissue, Prentice says. "Just yesterday a group at Massachusetts General Hospital showed that they could turn adult stem cells from bone marrow into eggs in the ovary, an amazing announcement. It's showing that where the science is favors the adult stem cells."

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July (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49