Free Republic

RENO, Nev. - On a farm about six miles outside this gambling town, Jason Chamberlain looks over a flock of about 50 smelly sheep, many of them possessing partially human livers, hearts, brains and other organs. The University of Nevada-Reno researcher talks matter-of-factly about his plans to euthanize one of the pregnant sheep in a nearby lab. He can't wait to examine the effects of the human cells he had injected into the fetus' brain about two months ago. "It's mice on a large scale," Chamberlain says with a shrug. As strange as his work may sound, it falls firmly...

The most recent poll on California’s Proposition 71 concerning state funding of embryonic stem cell research indicates that 46 percent of likely voters support the measure, 39 percent oppose it and 15 percent are undecided. I wonder how those numbers would change if those “likely voters” knew what Proposition 71 was really all about — a transfer of $3 billion from already strapped California taxpayers to already wealthy venture capitalists and researchers by means of emotional extortion. I addressed the dim prospects of embryonic stem cell research in an earlier column. Consider the case of Dr. Irving Weissman, currently featured...