No Praise for ACT's Stem Cell Paper

Advanced Cell Technology's announcement yesterday that the company's scientists derived embryonic stem cell lines without destroying embryos is getting a chilly reception from scientists all over the country.
Glenn McGee, professor of ethics and director of the Alden March Bioethics Institute at Albany Medical College told Helen Palmer of American Public Media's Marketplace:

Investors just aren't buying it. I mean they don't believe this kind of discovery is going to set Advanced Cell Technologies apart and they shouldn't.

I'm not sure how he knew that just hours after the announcement. Another bioethicist, Art Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania, sent an email saying the following:

the idea that blastomere derived cell lines are an 'alternative' to embryonic is quite simply all hype.

if you are going to use blastomeres from embryos where would you get them. from human embryos! so either you make them just to get blastomeres which means destroying embryos and makes no sense or you get them at fertility clinics. but the only people who will let you pull a blastomere off of one of their embryos are people who dont plan to use them anyway! So they are going to destroy their embryos
making it senseless to use a blastomere.

this is not quite as much hype as the killer of jon benet ramsey but it is close!

Stanford piles on with a press release (it's not posted on the university's website) with skeptical quotes from three of its top researchers. Hank Greelysaid:

From the scientific perspective, never believe anything until it's replicated several times. That's not an accusation of fraud, but science is full of honestly nonreplicable findings. It has to be able to be replicated reliably. Second, speaking still about the science, it will be interesting and important to see if these cells turn out to be the same kind of cells with the same kind of promise as stem cells derived from blastocysts.

True, we don't know yet if other scientists will have the same luck, but that's how science works. You publish your findings so others can build on them. And the method does not insure that the embryo will live on. But I also think that: a. ACT generally annoys university scientists because it is a for-profit company that likes to send out press releases. I have to wonder whether the comments would have been as harsh had the paper come from an academic institution. And, b. some of these scientists are worried about showing any acquiescence to the anti-abortion folks who have been campaigning against embryonic stem cell research.