Science has a letter from Shane Smith, William Neaves and Steven Teitelbaum addressing the anti-ESC canard that adult stem cells have cured 64 diseases. It was published on Science Express earlier in July, but it's worth mentioning again.

Opponents of research with embryonic stem (ES) cells often claim that adult stem cells provide treatments for 65 human illnesses. The apparent origin of those claims is a list created by David A. Prentice, an employee of the Family Research Council who advises U.S. Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) and other opponents of ES cell research (1).
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In fact, adult stem cell treatments fully tested in all required phases of clinical trials and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are available to treat only nine of the conditions on the Prentice list, not 65 [or 72 (4)]. In particular, allogeneic stem cell therapy has proven useful in treating hematological malignancies and in ameliorating the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation. Contrary to what Prentice implies, however, most of his cited treatments remain unproven and await clinical validation. Other claims, such as those for Parkinson's or spinal cord injury, are simply untenable.

The references Prentice cites as the basis for his list include various case reports, a meeting abstract, a newspaper article, and anecdotal testimony before a Congressional committee. A review of those references reveals that Prentice not only misrepresents existing adult stem cell treatments, but also frequently distorts the nature and content of the references he cites (5).

For example, to support the inclusion of Parkinson's disease on his list, Prentice cites congressional testimony by a patient (6) and a physician (7), a meeting abstract by the same physician (8), and two publications that have nothing to do with stem cell therapy for Parkinson's (9, 10). In fact, there is currently no FDA-approved adult stem cell treatment--and no cure of any kind--for Parkinson's disease.

For spinal cord injury, Prentice cites personal opinions expressed in Congressional testimony by one physician and two patients (11). There is currently no FDA-approved adult stem cell treatment or cure for spinal cord injury.

The reference Prentice cites for testicular cancer on his list does not report patient response to adult stem cell therapy (12); it simply evaluates different methods of adult stem cell isolation.

The reference Prentice cites on non-Hodgkin's lymphoma does not assess the treatment value of adult stem cell transplantation (13); rather, it describes culture conditions for the laboratory growth of stem cells from lymphoma patients.

Prentice's listing of Sandhoff disease, a rare disease that affects the central nervous system, is based on a layperson's statement in a newspaper article (14). There is currently no cure of any kind for Sandhoff disease.

By promoting the falsehood that adult stem cell treatments are already in general use for 65 diseases and injuries, Prentice and those who repeat his claims mislead laypeople and cruelly deceive patients (15).

It was amazing though how rapidly idiots like Brownback, not to mention many a troll on PZ's blog, latched onto this false list, and refused to listen to anyone's assertion that it was nothing but gibberish. I wonder how long it will be before they come up with some new garbage about adult stem cells, but here's the fact. Right now, ES cells indisputably can be made to differentiate into any cell in the body. So far, studies on adult stem cells have shown they have limited transdifferentiation capacity, that is, the ability to make cells of a type other than those they make in an adult animal. They simply are not that powerful, and they are extremely difficult to access. The reason the 9 treatments that actually are real on this list all come from blood stem cells, is because those are the ones easy to access. We're not going to be getting stem cells from other tissues in a living adult any time soon.

One possible exception to the general failure of adult stem cells to perform are testicular stem cells, (as we've discussed)which have been shown to have ESC-like properties, however they can only be isolated from males, and except for an unconfirmed report from a private company, haven't been isolated from humans (besides most men aren't interested in an orchidectomy to get their stem cells out). These need a lot of work, need to be purified from humans and need to be generalizeable to the entire population (we have to find them in women) before we would even consider directing the research in this direction.