Clones. Brain implants. Genetically engineered sports cheats. Members of the President’s Council on Bioethics have chewed on a steady diet of science fiction favorites in the panel’s first four years.

In pondering technologies not expected to bear fruit for years, the council, led by American Enterprise Institute fellow Leon Kass, has defined its mission as being a search for a “richer” bioethics, concerned with preserving human dignity amid the advance of biotechnology. [more]

As a practicing physician and two-time cancer survivor, I have both a personal and professional interest in developing cures for diseases. However, I believe the American people need a second opinion on the potential benefits of destructive embryonic-stem-cell research. The bill pending in the Senate would, for the first time, direct the federal government to use taxpayer dollars to destroy human embryos.

This proposal is likely based on a false hope. Not a single treatment has been developed from embryonic stem cells, yet 65 treatments have been developed from stem cells in umbilical-cord blood and adult tissues. [more]

Despite efforts by some to quell reality, one of the best-kept secrets in medicine today is that umbilical-cord-blood stem cells and adult stem cells are curing people from terrible conditions and diseases.

These miracle treatments have the potential to cure millions and could quickly be made available to tens of thousands of patients in need with Senate passage of a bill that I authored, H.R. 2520 — the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act of 2005 — which passed the House in May by a vote of 431-1. [more]