by Bill Stone

Created on: March 10, 2009

There is a great deal of controversy surrounding embryonic stem cells, and a good deal of the controversy stems from a lack of knowledge about the subject.

People claim that only embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are "pluripotent," or have the ability to change into cells from all three "germ layers" within the body. In contrast, they claim that adult stem cells (ASCs) are not pluripotent, or to a lesser degree.

People also equate government funding of new lines of stem cells to the ability for researchers to test ESC therapies using existing stem cell lines.

Unfortunately, both of these claims are false.

To help clarify some of the confusion, let's review some definitions. Adult stem cells would be more correctly known as "non-embryonic" stem cells, meaning they are not destructively harvested from an embryo. For example, cord blood stem cells (harvested from the umbilical cord of a newborn baby) are considered to be adult stem cells. Any stem cells which are derived from other-than-embryonic sources are called adult stem cells. Adult stem cells are just as pluripotent as embryonic stem cells. They can change into cells from any of the three germ layers within the body, which means that adult stem cells can become any cell within the body. What's more, adult stem cells currently (meaning today) effectively treat over 70 diseases and conditions.

Embryonic stem cells, as the name suggests, are harvested from a developing embryo. Unfortunately, the process of harvesting stem cells from an embryo is always destructive to the embryo. What's more, embryonic stem cells have not treated a single disease effectively.

"Well, that's just because the government has banned embryonic stem cell testing!" This statement is another common misconception. The government, as implied by the title of this article, had only withheld federal funding from new lines of embryonic stem cells, meaning federal funding would not be given to test embryonic stem cells derived from newly aborted fetuses. Existing ESCs exist in other places, such as in embryos frozen by women hoping to implant them someday in in-vitro fertilization procedures. Testing against existing lines of EBCs such as these has continually received federal funding, and testing has been ongoing. In fact, existing lines of ESCs have been extensively tested by both government and private sector scientists, and they have yet to produce a single positive breakthrough.

"But with just a little more money (read: a lot more money) and a little

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