Not one embryo survived the process:
From http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=23953
In a news release about the study published in its pages, Nature said only one cell had been extracted from each embryo, making a mistake it soon corrected.
The news media reported the study as a significant breakthrough that might end the controversy over the cells that supposedly have great potential for treating debilitating diseases but so far have required the destruction of a human embryo in order to extract them.
Some pro-life bioethicists quickly pointed out, however, the technique not only remained unethical but it actually was not used by the researchers. The ACT team, led by Lanza, actually took from four to seven cells from each of 16 embryos, destroying all of them in the process.
Wesley Smith, a senior fellow with the Discovery Institute, said ACT and the news media "simply took a leap of faith and portrayed an experiment showing that something might be possible as if the feat had already been accomplished. This is not to say, of course, that deriving embryonic stem cell lines from a procedure that allows the embryo to survive is impossible -- only that it hasn't been done."
When Lanza appeared at the Senate hearing, Specter and Harkin clearly were upset about the potential injury his firm may have inflicted upon the movement to fund embryonic stem cell research
"ACT should have made it more clear from the beginning that none of the embryos survived," Harkin said. The stem cell arena has "been hyped too much. We need to come back to Earth," he said, The Post reported.
I cannot find anything to further substantiate claims the embryos lived or died ... and since the only source saying such comes off a Baptist news site.
What I can say is that claims of preserving life must be proved before the Fed backs such research. I have my doubts that a company with this much on the line, so many years in developement would risk not just public and professional ridicule but their careers concerning such a finding so easily discoverable.
Me thinks the anti-stem cell crowd is very powerful in this country with enough guns to fight this for some time...to hell with the facts.
It's cloning they're really fighting.