Wesley Smith on the latest claims of the Stowers Institute

There are a couple of stories out recently regarding the Governors' summit and Wesley Smith at Secondhand Smoke responds to the claims of William Neaves of the Stowers Institute. The following is one of the topics touched on in Smith's blog post.

William Neaves, head of the Stowers Institute, is perhaps the most disingenuous advocate for human cloning that I have ever encountered. To say that I disrespect the man is to say the sky is blue. Well, he's at it again in this story about human cloning and stem cell research in Missouri.

...

"Those that oppose this research still threaten to overturn the stem cell amendment and the struggle to keep Missouri safe for medical science must continue." A new bill to ban Stowers research is pending in the General Assembly."We remain optimistic that most Missourians will oppose misguided efforts by some politicians to outlaw legitimate biomedical research," Neaves said.

I don't know about any bill in the Assembly and a search did not turn up any. There is a planned initiative to outlaw human cloning. But many believe human cloning is not legitimate medical research, which is why Neaves pitches so much junk biology to pretend that the new planned initiative would outlaw ESCR, which it would not.

Be sure to check out the full post over at Secondhand Smoke.

Wesley Smith Responds to Today's Post-Dispatch Letter

Wesley Smith (at the Secondhand Smoke blog) takes issue with a letter to the editor by a Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures representative that was published in today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Basically, the letter makes the false claim that proponents of a prohibition on human cloning would have somehow prevented the recent "direct reprogramming" breakthrough from becoming reality.

Smith retorts:

What hogwash. First, legislation in Missouri was always aimed at outlawing human cloning, not embryonic stem cell research. Indeed, ESCR would have remained perfectly legal in MO if A. 2 had failed. Second, the potential repeal pending in MO would really outlaw human cloning, and not impede ESCR in the least. Third, cloning had zero to do with the iPSC breakthrough, and indeed the new approach is seen widely as a moral and ethical way to derive pluripotent stem cells without SCNT cloning. Fourth, Bush-approved ES cell lines were and are perfectly suitable for the kind of basic research into pluripotency that scientists say they need to continue to perfect iPSCs. Finally, James Thomson, one of the scientists who demonstrated the viability of the approach, did so with an NIH grant from the dreaded Bush Administration.