What is a stem cell? What are the ethical concerns involved in stem cell research? Over the past decade, stem cells have gained a place in most Americans' vocabularies—discussions of them appear on TV and radio news programs, in newspapers and magazines, and in political campaigns across the country. As stem cells have come to the forefront of medical research, the ethical controversies over embryonic stem cells have become prominent. The National Academies produced Understanding Stem Cells, an educational primer designed to provide basic knowledge to facilitate thinking about and understanding the scientific and ethical issues surrounding stem cells.
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These booklets have been written by the National Research Council on a variety of topics with particular interest for the general public, based on information from NRC reports. Some booklets draw exclusively from one report, while others are tied to many reports.