Hot on the heels of Obama’s inauguration, here’s another welcome piece of news from the US: regulators have “cleared the way for the world’s first study on human embryonic stem cell therapy” (via BBC).

Obama has said that he intends to restore science to its rightful place in the national agenda. But of course this won’t be a matter of throwing a few more nickels at the men in white coats.

For one thing, there is huge (and relevant) debate over what his priorities should be.

For another, he will surely face considerable opposition from the more conservative elements of Christian America. I’ll be interested to see what form their arguments take. I imagine they might well follow the line of attack visible at the tail end of the Beeb’s article:

But Josephine Quintavalle, director of Comment on Reproductive Ethics (Core), which opposes embryonic stem cell therapies, dismissed the research as “highly speculative”.

“The work is at a highly experimental stage and there’s still a question mark over the capacity of these cells to form tumours,” she said.

“What worries me is that patients will really believe this is going to cure their spinal injury.”

She pointed out that other research teams in Australia and Portugal were developing spinal therapies using adult stem cells.

“We’ve never changed our point of view, which is that embryonic stem cell treatments cannot ever be justified,” she said.

In a nutshell: we’re worried about the speculative nature of the research; we’re worried about the tumours; we’re worried about patient hopes; and besides, other people are doing this work… but anyway, these treatments cannot ever be justified.

That last line’s the kicker, isn’t it? And that, I imagine, will be the bottom line for those who oppose any easing up of White House policy.

Still, with headlines like this one, perhaps the case against embryonic stem-cell treatments will become tougher and tougher to make.