Starting With The Hed, Confusion Over Embryos

Those of you who don't get the newspaper just have to trust me: The headline in today's story by Rick Weiss about a new technique reads Stem Cells Created With No Harm To Human Embryos. Look for the story online, however, and you get New Method Makes Embryo-Safe Stem Cells. At least at the moment. Why the change? Probably this:

Lanza and his team started eight months ago with 16 embryos donated by fertility clinic patients. Each embryo consisted of about eight cells. The researchers took not just one cell from each, but as many as they could get -- destroying some of the embryos and ending up with 91 cells.

The story is about a company called Advanced Cell Technology and lead researcher Robert Lanza, who say they have developed a method that can create embryonic stem cells without destroying the embryos. Except some were destroyed this time. Note the very careful lede:

Scientists have for the first time grown colonies of prized human embryonic stem cells using a technique that does not require the destruction of embryos, an advance that could significantly reshape the ethical and political debates that have long entangled the research.

Does not require the destruction of embryos although some were, this time. There's something... insincere about a researcher destroying human life to develop a technique whose main advantage is that it doesn't destroy human life.  And Wesley Smith says the research is being misreported (hat tip Amy Welborn):

      Alright, I have read the Nature article and the breathless stories in the media about how the embryonic stem cell debate is over because ES cell lines can be obtained without destroying embryos. I have three preliminary words in response: Ba Low Nee. What is being reported in the MSM and what is actually written up in Nature appear to be not the same thing at all.

He's calling around and plans an update.

My usual complaint about Weiss's stem-cell coverage applies: There is no mention of adult-stem cell art, which is far more advanced than embryonic technologies and doesn't kill anyone. So when Weiss quotes stem cell research John Gearhart:

"You have to remember that all this talk of protecting embryos is being done against the background of the routine throwing away of embryos" at clinics, Gearhart said.

I want to say you have to remember that all this talk of the wonders of embryonic stem cells is done against the background of non-embryonic techniques techniques that are helping people today, show promise for doing far more and don't include the downer of killing anyone. Meanwhile Gearhart thinks it's just fine to tear apart embryos for research, and that's done against the background of this.

Update: Here's a link at Nature.com to a summary of the full paper (the latter is available to subscribers). The following from that summary seems to contradict Weiss's statement that only some of the embryos were destroyed for this research:

Since then the team has taken cells from 16 spare IVF human embryos, and put them into culture. From a total of 91 cells, the researchers grew two embryonic stem-cell lines that have survived for eight months so far and are able to form different types of tissue. In the experiment, the embryos were dismantled cell by cell; but other embryos should survive the extraction of a single cell, just as they do in preimplantation genetic diagnosis.