Art Caplan had the great idea of hosting a hearing on stem cell research at Penn for the Pennsylvania state legislators who are interested. He got lots of great people to come, and the agenda was right on the money; the typical sort of argument about how “our state will be left behind,” an argument I was making when I led the Penn “stem cell initiative” in 2000. But will it make any difference for this key state – one in which stem cell research might actually have a shot? No chance, in my view. It is still a felony to destroy an embryo in Pennsylvania. Here’s MSNBC’s review of what happened in the hearing.