Whether or not President Bush hyped the evidence to justify war with Iraq, there’s no question that he did so two years ago to sell his decision limiting federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. On Aug. 9, 2001, in a nationally televised address, Bush claimed that “more than 60” stem cell lines, or batches, existed for potentially life-saving medical research.

In fact, as documented by author Stephen S. Hall, no more than a dozen lines exist – and not all of them are freely available to scientists or free from contamination.