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This is about embryonic stem cells taken from the amniotic fluid after a baby is born, not fetal stem cells. It doesn't involve the termination of a fetus, so in that respect Rush is still right.

The stem cells in amniotic fluid are, technically, fetal, since a baby, until it is born, is a fetus. They aren't embryonic since the cells involved in that stage of development are long gone.

It's a different source for the same types of stem cells that Limbaugh & Co. keep saying are a waste of time anyway.

Nope. These are not the totipotent cells known as embryonic stem cells. And it's not Limbaugh & Co., it's the group of researchers who have discovered what really works versus what has never worked. The reason they went in the direction of using adult stem cells is because it worked. Those stem cell researchers who rolled their dice on embryonic stem cells have come up snake-eyes. They're upset and they want what they consider to be their piece of the NIH pie.

The cells were not taken after the baby was born, they were taken during pregnancy. The risk to the mother and child in extracting small amounts of amniotic fluid are small but real -- my guess is this was done using fluid extracted to test for fetal anomalies.

And the cells are not embryonic, embryonic refers to cells in their earliest stages, when the embryo is in the 1-10ish cell range, before there is any differentiation.

The undifferentiated cells "seem" to have promise because they can be "anything", but so far it turns out being able to be "anything" has meant that they can't really be "anything useful" -- like there is too much possible variation to make actual use of the cells.

Even if this new source of stem cells doesn't provide stem cells that are useful, who cares? It's not the performing of research that leads to dead ends that is the problem with embryonic stem cell research, it's that for many people that research is KILLING BABIES, terminating human life.

The argument that embryonic cells are useless may be truthful, but it is a dangerous one -- it argues that if embryonic stemm cells actually WERE useful, then it would be OK to kill babies. However, we were losing the argument, and some people who WOULD be willing to kill babies to save themselves would join our side if they thought the killing was for no purpose at all.

With new ways of getting these stem cells, we can stop arguing about whether research will lead to cures, and simply argue on the merits that you shouldn't kill humans to try to save other humans.