A part of me just does not care that yet again the ridiculous theory advanced by the only man more dangerous to stem cell research than Hwang Woo-suk, William Hurlbut, has become again part of the national debate about the funding of stem cell research.
It didn’t bug me when Jeb Bush backed Hurlbut’s nonsense.
It didn’t bug me when Hurlbut used his mind-numbingly stupid theory to defend Tom Delay.
I was not surprised that having been castigated for the theory’s stupidity by real scientists on the Hill and in New England Journal, and by basically every serious stem cell researcher in, um, the world, Hurlbut remained unfazed.
I admit to being a tiny bit annoyed that Slate’s William Saletan not only dignified Hurlbut’s idea but belittled Laurie Zoloth for questioning Hurlbut’s science.
But anyone who has not figured out by now that Hurlbut’s poorly thought out plan to make handicapped embryos is both disingenuous claptrap and utterly political in nature is probably not going to be persuaded by any sort of arguments to emerge in the upcoming battle on the hill about federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. 
So why not be grumpy about a statement from Senator Frist – whose support of embryonic stem cell research was the key break against President Bush just months ago – in which he essentially switches sides using the Hurlbut copout:
“The new science that may involve embryo research but not require destruction of an embryo is tremendously exciting,” Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said recently. “It would get you outside of the boundaries of the ethical constraints.”
Simple. Because it does not matter.
The stem cell debate in Washington is over. Whatever pittance that might be won were Democrats and reasonable Republicans to prevail in their push for additional US government spending would pale by comparison to what will be spent in the states.
It would be wonderful to see the US government spend additional dollars on stem cell research. For the price of a day’s military activities in Iraq, the US could be at the lead of the most important medical research in the history of the world.
But instead, it seems clear now that cutting edge regenerative medicine is going to happen offshore and in a few enclaves in the US. What Korea didn’t kill, those who published these silly “alternative” theories in Nature – none of whom want to use them – and their conceptual Godfather William Hurlbut – may have.