You are correct. Junk science! Adult stem cell research has made leaps and bounds. Embryonic stem cell research has produced disasters and questionable methods. The testing that was done a couple years ago on Parkinson's patients involving fetal cell injections produced results that were worse than a horror movie. That research was promptly stopped, and the reports quickly hushed.
In fact, it might be useful to use the phrase 'fetal stem cells' instead of embryonic stem cells since the disasters so far trying to use stem cells from embryos have formed uncontrolled growth that has kill at least one patient I've found discussed in the literature.
Put perhaps too simply, adult stem cells work by undergoing transformation initiated by the environment of the adult body (and that applies to the formed fetus as well). Our bodies carry stem cells derived from our fetal construction project, and these stem cells course throughout our bodies in our blood, repairing and replacing other more differentiated cells throughout our lifetime.
Embryo stem cells just beginning the fetal construction project have the plasticity to become all the tissues and organs of the fetal body, during a miraculous program of stem cell differentiation into more than two hundred tissues of the body. Once the form is in place, function allows the body to 'influence' the differentiation of stem cells made for repairs and maintenance. The research on stem cells ripped from embryos is designed to figure out the processes, and perhaps grow organs, someday. But this step will use 'therapeutic cloning' since the immune reaction of more developed tissues necessitates either anti-rejection meds or an identical twin (though even the clone of an individual will not be an exact duplicate).
Whew! Sorry to go on and on so.
**The testing that was done a couple years ago on Parkinson's patients involving fetal cell injections produced results that were worse than a horror movie.**
But why hasn't this been publicized? Or have I just missed it?