POLITICAL dynamite is not what you expect to find in a leading international scientific journal. But last week's news in Nature that US researchers had isolated the ultimate adult stem cell will prove explosive for Prime Minister John Howard.

The medical implication of the work of Catherine Verfaillie's team at the University of Minnesota is that destruction of human embryos is unnecessary to obtain stem cells for "miracle cures". A patient's own bone marrow contains all that is needed to repair damaged cells in the heart, brain, pancreas -- or any other organ.

The political implication is that Howard has made a huge blunder. He has given his enthusiastic support to the destruction of "spare" IVF embryos -- so enthusiastic that late in May he awarded $46.5 million to the Centre for Stem Cells and Tissue Repair to do research which is presently illegal in Victoria and other jurisdictions.

This glitch, he thinks, will be fixed when Parliament ratifies a deal he struck with the state premiers in April which will allow scientists to use 70,000 frozen IVF embryos for experiments.

Problem is, this will be a conscience vote and the outcome is uncertain. A number of Government MPs already have expressed their qualms about legalising research which uses human embryos as raw material for procedures such as testing drugs. Apart from backbenchers such as Guy Barnett and Christopher Pyne, they include Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson and Ministers Tony Abbott and Nick Minchin. Other MPs are wondering why Howard pre-empted Parliament by awarding the funds before it was possible to use them.

The moral questions dangling over embryo research failed to move Howard, because IVF scientists led by Professor Alan Trounson of Monash University mesmerised him with their patter about an immense market for stem cell products. Trounson estimates the world market will be $71 billion by 2010. But first Trounson and his team have to overcome two major hurdles. First, embryo stem cells can cause cancerous growths called teratomas unless they are tamed. Second, patients' immune systems will reject them because embryo-based therapies do not have the same genes. These problems are so tough that not a single human cure has been attributed to embryo stem cells.

However Verfaillie's research proves that a non-controversial source of cures exists which does not cause cancer and which will not be rejected as foreign tissue. And far from being a one-minute-past-midnight discovery, her work is well established. Other types of adult stem cells have been used successfully to treat a large number of conditions, and advances are being announced almost weekly.

It is time to ask why the Prime Minister handed over $46.5 million of taxpayers' money to scientists to work on a technology which is presently illegal, may soon be obsolete, is ethically contentious and faces huge technical hurdles, but which could help make a few entrepreneurial scientists very rich. The scandal of the $46.5 million funding leads to other questions. Why has Howard's advice been so incompetent? What will happen to this money if the legislation does not pass?

This latest good news on adult stem cells has dramatically altered the politics on this issue. Although Howard has dug his heels in, MPs who once backed embryo research can now change their minds gracefully. Without alienating voters who want cures for juvenile diabetes and Parkinson's disease, they can please voters who oppose research on "spare" IVF embryos.

If the Opposition is searching for an issue to embarrass our Teflon-skinned leader and expose the incompetence of the Government's attempt to pick biotech winners, it ought to dig here. The defeat of the Human Cloning and Research Involving Embryos Bill could prove one of the biggest humiliations of Howard's tenure as prime minister.

Michael Cook edits the e-mail newsletter Australasian Bioethics Information michael.cook@australasianbioethics.org