Wesley J. Smith

Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack apparently has a problem: He is a Democrat who wants to run for president. But, he signed a bill banning all human cloning in Iowa three years ago. Vilsack apparently thinks that supporting a cloning ban would, shall we say, hinder his chances of gaining the nomination. So . . . . Continue Reading »

To avoid criminal charges the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey has permitted itself to be taken over by a federal monitor. Apparently double billing, Medicare fraud, and other irregularities. The deal apparently is in lieu of criminal prosecution. But if there is massive financial . . . . Continue Reading »

Human cloning advocates and their media allies are steeped in regret over the “years” that Hwang has allegedly cost cloning science. This piece in the Observer is well written and a prime example of this line of thinking. (And the description of therapeutic cloning is pretty accurate!) . . . . Continue Reading »

Here we are in the midst of a crucial democratic debate about the future of biotechnology and human cloning. For people to have truly informed opinions, the information they receive from the media must be accurate. Yet, whether through ignorance or bias, reporters for the New York Times seem never . . . . Continue Reading »

To all of those who stop by Secondhand Smoke, whether you agree with my views or not, I wish you health, happiness, and prosperity in the new year. Thank you all for your . . . . Continue Reading »

This story involves a bitter controversy in Los Angeles over euthanizing the millions of stray cats and dogs that LA has to contend with, the tactics of some animal liberationists that may have successfully induced (coerced?) the mayor to fire an embattled head of the city’s animal control . . . . Continue Reading »

The Weekly Standard has posted my piece in this week’s issue on the Hwang debacle on its Daily Standard site, so it is now available to non subscribers. Here is the link.Since this was published, the independent investigation has concluded there were never any cloned embryonic stem cells. . . . . Continue Reading »

There were no embronic stem cells made through cloning, as claimed by Hwang in his fraudulent 2005 paper in Science. None. This probably means he also fraudulently claimed to have created an embryonic stem cell line from cloned embryos in 2004. Still unknown, but increasingly unlikely, whether he . . . . Continue Reading »

This is short, so I will just reprint the story rather than link it. Hwang made it all up.SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean scientists had no data to prove claims made in a landmark 2005 paper that they had produced tailored embryonic stem cells, an investigation panel said on Thursday, indicating . . . . Continue Reading »

Ian Wilmut, the creator of Dolly and now a would-be cloner of human embryos wants to experiment on dying people. Rather than go through the usual process of animal studies to test efficacy and safety, he wants to switch quickly to conducting embryonic stem cell experiments upon dying people on the . . . . Continue Reading »