Don - ypu're right about the way embryos are dealt with.

I have friends who went this route 17 years ago and three embryos being implanted led to triplets! The remaining embryos were kept, I think for 5 years, and then my friends were asked what they wanted done with them. They had decided that their family was complete and, since each of the children had had some health problems, the clinic decided that, even if permission were given to donate the embryos, that it would not be the best solution.

As far as I am aware those embryos were destroyed. IMHO they would have been better used for this research and I'm pretty certain that my friends would have agreed, particularly since they lost one daughter to leukeamia seven years ago. Now, that might not have been a disease that would benefit from this sort of research but it still brings home how little we really know about some of the things that cripple and kill us.