So, there will be an initiative in Missouri in November to create a state constitutional right to conduct embryonic stem cell research and human cloning research via SCNT. There is a real push back from cloning opponents in that state. As a consequence, even though the pro cloning campaign has already spent some $16 million propagandizing the state, the outcome remains in doubt.
So, yesterday there was apparently a rally against the initiative. This quote comes from a representative of the pro cloning campaign. From the AP account:
“Donn Rubin, chairman of the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures, said his group has support from more than 100 organizations, including research centers, patient groups and health care groups. He said opponents are ‘inventing wild claims to distract the public from what we’re really voting on: the right of Missourians to obtain the same medical treatments available in other states.” (My emphasis.)
The italicized assertion is pure cow manure. There are no states in this country, and no country in the world of which I am aware, in which embryonic stem cells are being used to treat human patients. There have been no successful experiments conducted in which embryonic stem cells were removed from cloned human embryos. The one experiment in which this was claimed to have been done proved to be a total fraud.
How can we trust these people to conduct ethical research when they apparently can’t tell the simple truth?