Breaking Down Stem Cell Facts with Dr. David Prentice

If two million people have been helped by using Adult Stem cells, why are we still talking about embryonic cells?  How do adult stems cells work and why do embryonic stem cells not succeed?

We answer these questions and more as we sit down with Dr. David Prentice, a longtime stem cell researcher and policy adviser, to separate stem cell hype from stem cell results, and to name the ethical stakes that often get blurred on purpose.

We also get practical for anyone considering stem cell therapy now. We share what to ask your doctor about sourcing, why many procedures use your own cells, and how donor matching works. Then we look forward to where ethical stem cell treatments are heading, including research and clinical progress in multiple sclerosis, stroke recovery, heart damage, graft versus host disease, sickle cell disease, frailty, and even rare HIV remission cases. 

If you care about science, medical ethics, and real-world healing, subscribe, share this conversation, and leave a review so more people can find it.

Transcript

Two Million Success Stories

Dr. David Prentiss 0:03

There are over two million people who have been helped, cured, or at least their symptoms alleviated with adult stem cells at this point in time. And the number keeps growing exponentially.

Victor Nieves 0:23

Stem cell research offers groundbreaking treatments and cures for some of the most debilitating diseases to beset humanity. Adult stem cells are the true gold standard in regenerative medicine. Some of the results have been nothing less than dramatic. Scientists have used these cells to study diseases, test drugs, and potentially develop treatments for conditions like Parkinson's disease, heart disease, diabetes, and even spinal cord injuries. Over 2 million patients worldwide have been treated with adult stem cells and experienced

Meet The Stem Cell Expert

Victor Nieves 0:56

improved health. Welcome to Straight Talk on Life Issues. I'm Victor Nievis, president of Life Issues Institute. Today we're joined by Dr. David Prentiss, a renowned expert on stem cells. He's the president and founding board member of the Science Alliance for Life and Technology with almost 50 years' experience as a scientific researcher, professor, academic leader, and policy advisor. Dr. Prentiss, you really are one of the foremost experts on this topic. We're so grateful to have you with us today. Thanks for joining us. Good to be with you.

Sources And The Two Ethical Questions

Victor Nieves 1:35

I think as we dive into this conversation, it's helpful that we set the stage. Because as you know, there has been a debate happening surrounding fetal stem cells, adult stem cells. This goes back more than 20 years. So if you could very quickly give the listener just a bit of context as we talk about stem cells, why is it important? Why are we talking about fetal versus adult stem cells? And what does it mean, you know, going forward?

Dr. David Prentiss 1:59

Well, there are actually two ethical issues involved when we talk about the source of any particular stem cell. And most of the debate has centered on the difference between embryonic and fetal stem cells versus what we've termed adult stem cells. The embryonic, as the name implies, you get them from young human beings at the embryonic stage. And you have to kill that young human being to get those stem cells. There's a big ethical problem. Someone has to die to get these cells. The other part of that is that they actually haven't worked to cure anyone yet. So all of these promises about, well, if you'll just give us some money and let us kill a few young humans, we'll cure all these diseases. That's another big lie that has been part of this debate. The fetal stem cells, again, you're talking primarily about stem cells from aborted babies. So you've again had to kill a young human being to get your research material. And these, again, even though they're a little older than the embryonic stem cells, still really have not made good on any of the promises of treating any human being or curing them. Meantime, we've got adult stem cells. And the name's a bit of a misnomer. You don't have to be 21 years old to own an adult stem cell. We're born with them in our bodies, in all the various tissues and organs of our body. It's in the umbilical cord blood. So when you're born, one of the things they've started to do over the last couple of decades, we'd say, is stop and collect that umbilical cord blood and even the solid part of the cord after the baby's born. So I'm done using it. I've been born. You cut the cord. Now let's collect those cells because it's a rich source of these adult type stem cells. Listeners are probably familiar with bone marrow transplants. Those are adult stem cells. And so now let's look at those two ethical questions. Did you have to kill or even harm any human being to get adult stem cells? The answer is no. Number two, are you making false promises about actually treating anyone with adult stem cells? And the numbers are surprising. There are over 2 million people who have been helped, cured, or at least their symptoms alleviated with adult stem cells at this point in time. And the number keeps growing exponentially. So if we want to answer the ethical question as well as provide real help for patients suffering from a range of different diseases, we need to focus on these adult stem cells and the umbilical cord stem cells. I'm lumping in there with adult stem cells.

Victor Nieves 4:43

Dr. Prentice, you just mentioned 2 million. That's a pretty incredible figure. I mean, the future, I can only imagine how amazing it'll be the uses for adult stem cells. It seems to me as a lay person on the outside, kind of looking in, that we're probably at the cusp. Who knows what could be done with these adult stem cells. Two million is a pretty amazing number. Do you know what is the number that have come from the fetal or embryonic stem cells? What's the comparison there?

Dr. David Prentiss 5:08

That's a pretty easy pop quiz answer. It's zero. Zero people cured with embryonic stem cells or with the fetal stem cells derived from abortion

Why Adult Cells Beat Embryonic

Dr. David Prentiss 5:20

versus over two million, and they haven't calculated lately what that number is, but it's well past two million by this point from the adult type stem cells. So again, these are the ones that what I call the gold standard of stem cells, especially when it comes to patients. And the future is very bright in terms of these types of treatments and cures because they keep coming up with new applications. Again, uh the bone marrow transplants had been used for several decades now for things like leukemias and certain types of anemias. Not to minimize that, because that has saved thousands and even millions, if we will, lives using those types of adult stem cells for those types of things. But there are lots of other applications now that are starting to pop up. And I'm excited to tell you more about that.

Victor Nieves 6:13

I'm curious, Dr. Prentice, why is it that the adult stem cells have been so wildly successful with this bright future? Meanwhile, zero. There's been effectively nothing that's come from the fetal or the embryonic stem cells. What's the difference there?

Dr. David Prentiss 6:26

Well, I think the embryonic and fetal cells really aren't suited to the job. If we look at what we're trying to do to treat patients with stem cells, a patient has had, let's say, a stroke, so part of their brain is damaged, or a heart attack, and part of the heart is damaged. Maybe they've got uh some sort of autoimmune problem where the body's immune system has gone rogue, at least a few cells, and they're starting to attack your system. This is what happens in things like multiple sclerosis or juvenile diabetes. Maybe there's been some sort of accident or damage to muscle or to skeleton and so on. And the damage is extensive enough that you can't really repair that with your own body. Your body needs a little extra help. Adult stem cells are focused on repair and replacement. It's like a maintenance crew. And uh now you're mobilizing this maintenance crew to come in and start repairing, replacing damaged tissue and cells. That's their job description, and that's what they do throughout our life in the body. Came across a research paper not too long ago where they had verified what we had suspected for many, many years is that you keep making more adult stem cells in your brain throughout your life. Your listeners probably, as I was taught early on, had heard this thing about you start with as many brain cells as you're ever going to have and it's downhill from there for the rest of your life. Simply not true. And we can do a lot of things to inhibit that, but our bodies are trying to repair and replace all the way along. And they had found out this was true for the brain. They'd already shown that it's true for other parts of the body and other cells. Job description for an embryonic stem cell. Let's focus in on what are those cells doing at that part of our life. You're about five to seven days old. The cells now are growing very rapidly and starting to make every possible cell type that your body's going to use. Well, if you kill a young human being and take their embryonic stem cells and put them in the dish, and then try and put them, God forbid you'd even try into a human being, but let's say into an experimental animal, a mouse or a rat, what you get is a tumor because those cells are continuing to grow fast and start to make everything at once. They're not focused down on repairing and replacing. They're making brand new all sorts of kinds of cells at a very rapid rate. So they're simply not suited physiologically to the job of treating and curing any sorts of damage that we have in the body. Dr.

When Promises Become Propaganda

Victor Nieves 9:10

Prentiss, you know, this is an important piece of this conversation. Obviously, the whole reason that you and I are having this talk is because of how fetal stem cells, as a conversation, related to abortion. And what's underlying, you know, it's it's very interesting to me, yes, that there's really no medical advancements that have come from these fetal stem cells just yet. You know, you've laid out the reasons for as to why. But let's say hypothetically, right? As a pro-life individual, let's say hypothetically, those two million amazing treatments and cures and et cetera, that came from the adult cells, let's say those had all come from the fetal cells. That still, we have to be very careful with our ethics here, that still would not be a justification to kill an innocent child. I mean, if you think about the dystopian, and this is kind of what they were trying to do for the last 20, 25 years, is they were trying to say, well, but look, look, we could get all of these cures. We could get all of these advancements if we just kill a couple of babies. If we're just willing to sacrifice innocent children, that could be the plot line of a James Bond movie. But they're the villain, right? They would never, you would never be considered the good guy if your medical ethics says, let's kill a bunch of innocent children. Now, I think it's telling on top of that, obviously, that it has not been successful, but you focus so much on medical ethics and the importance of all of the things surrounding it. Is it concerning to you when you hear these, the framing? And it maybe it's not an overt argument being made, but it's a subtle argument that's being made here. When you see the framing as somebody who cares about the ethics of this situation, that would kind of presuppose, well, if it would have worked, it would have been justified to kill these babies.

Dr. David Prentiss 10:48

And it's not justified in any sense of the word. So even if those two million people had been from embryonic or fetal stem cells, it's simply not worth the cost of a single human life to be able to treat thousands or millions of people. And that's why I mentioned this as there are two ethical issues here. One is that simple question: where did you get those cells? Did someone have to be killed or harmed to get those particular cells? Versus can you get them? And not only can you get them without killing any young human beings or any human being, period, but do they actually work? The sort of false promises that we'd heard. And what you've posed is a question that for years we heard from the embryonic and fetal stem cell crowd. If only you would let us kill a certain number of young human beings, take their body parts, you know, get the cells out, let them experiment on them in the lab for a while. We will come up with all sorts of cures. I actually had one U.S. senator a number of years ago tell me that embryonic stem cells had the potential to cure all known maladies. Well, that word potential is, of course, one of the problems in there, but the end result was he was advocating that you could still kill a certain number of human beings, and that sort of in the ethical balance, it was worth the cost if you could cure millions of people. It is not. The loss of one single life does not outweigh these other lives that are in the balance. And I think it also speaks to the fact that God provides, if you will, an alternative that is actually successful. Some people have phrased the embryonic and the fetal stem cells as a poisoned well. And, you know, it might sound good that if we could only kill a few, we could save millions, it's simply not worth that cost. And I also want to add in here that I think some of the scientists that have been proposing over the years embryonic and fetal stem cells and fetal tissue as well as a use, aborted baby body parts that your listeners are probably familiar with in terms of some of these debates. The scientists have understood, I think at last, that there is an ethical issue here, but they're not willing to forsake what they want to do at the cost of human lives. Instead, they're using deceptive language. We saw this years ago in California. They put several billion dollars of state taxpayer funds towards trying to make embryonic and fetal stem cells work. They realized after just a few years it wasn't working. And so they started to use adult stem cells, and it was working in terms of a number of treatments. But their language also changed. They said, we're just using stem cells, and they were still trying to use the embryonic and the fetal. And we've seen that sort of deception, not just years ago, but continuing where the scientists want to do these kinds of experiments. They want to experiment on the cells from young human beings that have been killed in the process, and they will talk about just using stem cells or using tissue, but they won't identify the source, and it's an unethical derivation.

Utilitarian Medicine And Its Endgame

Victor Nieves 14:15

Dr. Prentice, you know, as we discuss this philosophy that they have tried to present, that, well, we can just kill a few. Maybe the potential is so good, whatever it is, we can just kill a few people. That not to get into a whole ethics or philosophy, you know, diatribe here, but that's a form of utilitarian ethics. And people should know that this has been attempted by many bad people for a very long time. People have often said, well, it's okay if we just get to kill a few. This does not exist in a vacuum, this conversation. So let's say that we were to go, okay, fine. In this case, we'll give it to you. God forbid. I'm not saying that we should do that. But drawing this out, the ramifications of allowing this sort of a utilitarian ethic in one piece of our medicine, it would not stop there. These things do not exist in a vacuum. What do you see as drawing that philosophy out to its logical conclusion? If we're going to set the standard that, okay, you get to kill some innocent babies for the benefit of other people, how could that rear its ugly head in other aspects of medical care?

Dr. David Prentiss 15:17

Well, there's no end in terms of where it would stop. And the basic premise here is that some human beings are more valuable than others. And we're going to say your value is as body parts or cells versus we've got other people here that we value more. We're making a human calculation there, and we're going to use some people for the benefit of others. And yeah, this actually showed up in the stem cell debate early on, where people were advocating that no, you shouldn't be killing these young human beings, but we'll allow you to go ahead and abort a five-month-old baby instead of a five-day-old baby. Well, what they quickly were arguing was that, well, if we say this five-day-old human being has value, well, that does away with all our desire to kill later at five weeks or five months. And, you know, if you don't stop at some point, then it goes on. Well, what about newborns? There was actually a proposal that you should wait maybe six months to decide whether you're going to keep that newborn or discard her instead for, you know, just your own desires. Uh the idea of a perfect baby, but you know, I just decide I don't want a baby after all. And what about then people later on in life? The infant, the teenager, the adult. And of course, it it comes back very strongly in terms of our seniors, who now some people would say, well, you're not contributing as much anymore, or, you know, you're a drain on the system, and so on. Well, you don't have as much value. So we're not going to provide medical care for you. And in fact, we've seen this start to play out already in Canada and a couple of states where assisted suicide and euthanasia are allowed. There are several stories about people who had some sort of disease that there was a treatment available to treat and cure them. But instead, they were offered assisted suicide instead, because it was cheaper to just kill them than to try and treat and cure them. So there's exactly no end of this. But it does come back to are we going to value any human being or are we going to value them all?

Victor Nieves 17:34

And you know what I've noticed, just anecdotally, Dr. Prentice, those who are advocating for the utilitarian ethics seemingly are never the ones on the chopping block. It's always somebody else. It's always somebody who has a disability, a chronic illness, somebody at the end of their life. Well, we can kill them. That's what they'll say. But it's never the guy in the mirror. And I think that that's very interesting when we have these ethical debates, I suppose. And it really shouldn't be a debate, but we're seeing it in real time when we devalue the sanctity of human life. That does not exist in a vacuum. That's one of the biggest takeaways that I want the listener to understand. Because the propaganda can at times, if you don't think about it much, it can almost sound compelling. You can think, oh, well, it's for the pros and the cons. Well, we're not talking about pros and cons. We're not talking about dollars and cents here. We're talking about

How To Vet A Stem Cell Treatment

Victor Nieves 18:20

innocent human beings literally being killed. That is a bridge we simply cannot cross. Dr. Prentice, I have another question for you here. As we've debated this publicly for what, 25 years, I suppose it is now, the fetal stem cell conversation, I think at times it has muddied the waters a little bit. And some of this may be intentional from the fetal stem cell folks. You mentioned how they're changing their language. Now sometimes they just say stem cells. There may be a listener out there who's really concerned anytime they just hear stem cells. It doesn't matter if it's fetal, if it's adult, they just hear the phrase stem cells. And rightfully so, they kind of put a shield up and they think, wait, wait, wait, that's unethical. I don't want anything to do with anything that's called stem cells. What reassurance can you give to somebody? We talked earlier about the question of where you're getting these cells, but how can somebody feel a little bit more confident if they're getting some sort of a treatment that may be derived from stem cells? What message do you have to them as far as are they doing anything wrong by getting one of these treatments?

Dr. David Prentiss 19:20

And it comes back to this are you going to kill or even harm a human being to get those cells? Which the answer is yes, you have to kill young human beings to get fetal or embryonic stem cells. But the adult stem cells, I think they actually coined that term as adult stem cells to get it as far away on the developmental scale from embryonic as fetal as they could. In all of those cases, whether it's umbilical cord blood stem cells, whether it's bone marrow stem cells, and so on, these are cases where these are ethically derived. You don't destroy any human being to get them. And in fact, in about half of the cases from adult stem cell transplants, the patient themselves is the donor. So you don't worry about the matching things. They actually have come to the point where they can take some of your own bone marrow adult stem cells, or you'll get an injection to get those out into the bloodstream, which makes it even easier. Just take a few out of your blood, purify them, concentrate them down, and give them back to that same patient, because then you don't have to worry about matching. In other cases, people are willingly going in and donating their bone marrow adult stem cells or other types of stem cells from their bodies, or as we mentioned, you know, donating the umbilical cord after their baby's born. Because again, you're not killing or harming any human being to get these, but these are the ones that work. Back to that other side of the equation. And I think, you know, what we really need to emphasize here is you can get stem cells ethically, and it's the ethical stem cells that are the ones that actually work.

Victor Nieves 20:59

And if somebody is receiving a stem cell-based treatment right now, today, we can say this confidently, it is not fetal or embryonic stem cells.

Dr. David Prentiss 21:09

That's true. And, you know, if people are concerned, they should ask. You know, if their doctor says we're going to do a stem cell transplant, they ought to say, well, wait a minute, you know, where did you get them? And like I said, in about half the cases, they're going to go, we're going to get them from you. And you're going to get your own stem cells back. And those are very successful, or we're going to get a match donor. And in fact, they may ask, you know, could we check your sister or your father or your child to see if they're a match for you? There's a whole program called Be the Match that encourages people to come in and donate, whether it's their bone marrow or the umbilical cord blood from their baby after the baby's born, so they can develop a bank of these adult stem cells to be able to find a match for those who can't. Perhaps you know give their own stem cells. But again, these are all ethically derived, and it's the ethically derived cells that work.

Victor Nieves 22:07

So Dr. Entis says we've had this conversation that two million different treatments and cure. I know this is speculative, and I don't want to be like the other side. You know, they always they said for years everything could be cured. They they really hyped stuff up. But realistically, this seems like a very exciting technology. Is there a limit with this? Uh, where do you think it goes if we're still having this conversation 25 years from

The Next Wave Of Adult Stem Cell Uses

Victor Nieves 22:30

now? What do you think it's gonna look like, the development of these treatments?

Dr. David Prentiss 22:33

Well, and I actually hope the debate will be over long before that next 25 years happens. But I think what you're gonna find is that people are becoming more and more attuned to the fact that these adult stem cells are the ones that work. And it's a matter of, well, let's try it on this, let's try it on that, let's try it on that. We mentioned, you know, for for decades they've done adult stem cell, used to be called bone marrow transplants, for various types of leukemia and so on. But I mentioned there are now lots of other conditions that are being treated. And let me just mention a few. Multiple sclerosis, which is an autoimmune disease where your body is actually a few rogue cells attacking itself. There are several hundred patients now who've been treated for MS using adult stem cells. In some cases, even their own, where they've basically purified out the good cells to give back to you after the treatment. Stroke has been treated in various studies now with adult stem cells. Heart damage has been treated. I came across an article the other day, and it sounds a little strange. I'm kind of waiting to see where it will go, but aging frailty. So how we kind of get weak and we get frail, at least some of us as we age. There was a group in Miami, I believe it was, that were starting to look at can they use adult stem cells to help these patients that, you know, it's become a severe condition for them. It's not like, hey, you know, I haven't been working out and I'm weak, but this is the true frailty that is even life-threatening for these people. HIV. There are actually several patients now who have been, quotes, cured of their HIV using adult stem cells. Now you have to have a certain specific type with certain, they're called markers, but certain tags on their cell surface. But there are patients now who have gone 10 years free of HIV with, again, using adult stem cells. Even in terms of cases where there are problems getting that match, so you couldn't provide your own stem cells and they got a hopeful match, but it wasn't quite, that can cause a condition that's called graft versus host disease. In other words, the graft, the stem cells you're adding from the donor actually attack you. Well, you didn't have a complete match, that's a problem, but they're finding that a certain type of adult stem cell can now actually alleviate that condition and save these people's lives. And they've been developing treatments using that sickle cell disease and some other things that they're starting to see great applications here. And the sky's kind of the limit. If some enterprising scientist, some doctor decides, you know, we haven't tried this stem cell stuff on these patients, we don't have anything else. Well, maybe we can adjust this a little bit. That's how they came up with the stem cell treatment for sickle cell anemia and for a number of other conditions. So it's a matter of, again, thinking ahead and again thinking about the cells that really are the gold standard, the adult stem cells. How can we apply these in different ways to continue to treat and to cure a host of different conditions? Well, Dr.

Victor Nieves 25:53

Prentice, the future is very bright. I'm very encouraged by our conversation today. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you.

Final Takeaways And Where To Learn More

Victor Nieves 26:21

This is one of the things I'm so grateful for Dr. Prentiss and his work and the opportunity to talk about this. Even if these fetal stem cells had proven to be tremendously successful, revolutionary medicine, it still wouldn't justify killing innocent children. As we mentioned, those who try to implement a utilitarian ethic are never the ones on the chopping block themselves. It's always somebody else. And these debates do not exist in a moral or ethical vacuum. We cannot go down the road of sacrificing innocent children for the quote unquote betterment of others. If you'd like to learn more about the tremendous success of adult stem cells and the ethical application of adult stem cell treatments and therapies, go to our website, lifeissues.org, where you can find more information there, and you can share it with your friends, your family members, and your church community. Be sure to tune in next week for another straight talk on life issues.