Crib Sheet: Stem Cell Research
What we’re set to lose from Bush’s veto.
By Alix Rogers, University of Pennsylvania
Thursday July 20, 2006
President George W. Bush has enacted his first ever veto against the bi-partisan bill H.R. 810: The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. This bill would fuel medical research stalled by the current administration’s policy, research which most scientists believe could lead to cures for a wide range of diseases and debilitating conditions, such as paralysis, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s Disease. Passed with 63 votes in the Senate and 238 votes in the House, Congress is likely to fall short of the 2/3 majority needed to override a presidential veto. This means that embryonic stem cell research will continue to be hampered across the country. As young Americans, we should be particularly concerned about this issue. It is one which will ultimately have great impact on us and our health care.
The current policy is preventing cures from being developed, cures which our generation is the most likely to benefit from, because it will be several years before we begin to see clinical applications. Embryonic stem cells could be used to cure a wide variety of diseases including Alzheimer’s, Diabetes, and spinal cord injuries. A recent John’s Hopkins University study in which researchers used embryonic stem cells to enable paralyzed rats to walk highlight some of the potential medical breakthroughs.
President Bush has claimed that adult stem cells are a more promising avenue of research, because they are already being used in the clinical setting. This argument is absurd in light of the fact that the majority of available treatments involving adult stem cells, such as bone marrow transplants, do not involve complicated attempts to differentiate the cells into specific types of body cells. On the other hand, transforming an embryonic stem cell into a heart or nerve cell is an extremely complicated process that will take substantial time and research—and money. For 2007 the National Institutes of Health (NIH) earmarked only $39 million for human embryonic stem cell (ES) research, while adult stem cell research received $200 million. Adult stem cells have more developed medical applications because they are easier to work with and have received more funding, not because they have more potential. More importantly, an extended time frame is no reason to bar a path of medical research. If we invest in ES research now, it may offer useful treatment by the time members of our generation begins to develop Alzheimer’s.
The second problem is that America has a declining crop of researchers and is driving away its best minds. Current policies are causing prominent researchers to accept positions in other countries that support their research. Already reports have been issued that show how America is losing its standing in embryonic stem cell research. But what is more disturbing is that many budding scientists are discouraged from entering the field of stem cell research. While testifying to a Senate sub-committee, James Battey, Chair of the NIH Stem Cell Taskforce, said “young people are now electing to stay away from human ES research.” Elizabeth Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, has also said, “The restricted access (to embryonic stem cells) will hamper the NIH’s ability to recruit…young scientists.” This gap is one reason that all of the first round grants given by the state of California as part of its $3 billion investment in stem cell research went to “multi-year training grants to increase the number of young investigators (pre-doctoral, post-doctoral, and clinical fellows) with the technical and academic skills necessary to conduct basic and applied stem cell research.” Because young scientists are discouraged from entering the field now, America will have few researchers with the experience and expertise to work with embryonic stem cells, even if the policy is reversed.
So with the potential benefits of pursuing ES research being so great, and the potential costs of not doing so equally significant, why is it so controversial? It’s because, despite the fact that human embryonic stem cell research involves a ball of cells in a Petri dish that has no developed nervous system, there are certain groups who believe that because the derivation of human embryonic stem cells involves the destruction of nascent human life. So, for the same reason that almost all the same people oppose reproductive freedom for women, they believe embryonic stem cell research should be prohibited (or at a minimum that the government shouldn’t fund it.) Seventy-two percent of Americans support embryonic stem cell research, but federal policy is being held hostage by the small minority who oppose it.
On August 9, 2001, President Bush announced his restrictive policy of limiting federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to stem cell lines derived before that day. As science has advanced, it is being increasingly hampered by these conservative policies. Problems such as a lack of access to the federal lines, contamination by mouse feeder cells in which the stem cells grow, and a lack of genetic diversity have plagued federal researchers and caused concern over their ability to use these lines for clinical trials in human patients. These problems are also paired with a general lack of funding for stem cell research by the NIH.
The lack of opportunity, support, and funding provided by the federal government is especially egregious because the federal government is the major funder of basic biomedical research. The NIH received $28.5 billion for 2007 to fund medical research. While states and private industry have taken up some funding of embryonic stem cell research, and they should be commended for doing so, this does not mean they can fill the gap left by the current administration’s policy. James Thompson, a stem cell pioneer, has pointed out that “the reality is that the federal government, the National Institutes of Health, is the funding that drives basic research and research into new therapies in this country. And if you exclude that, then you’re basically stuck.”
For this reason, the issue of stem cells has been bubbling beneath the surface of health discussion in the Senate and the House since 2001, despite President Bush’s staunch refusal to reconsider his decision. The most recent passage of H.R. 810 by the Senate represents a break within the Republican Party, as leaders including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, have come forward in support of embryonic stem cell research. H.R. 810 is a crucial bill, because it would expand the number of embryonic stem cell lines available for federal funding. It would allow funding for research on lines derived from the over 400,000 embryos that are cryogenically frozen and stored in fertility clinics across the country. The vast majority of these embryos will never be implanted in a woman’s womb, but will remain indefinitely frozen or simply tossed down a sink. If these embryos are going to be destroyed anyway, should they not be used, with the consent of the donors, for research that could save countless patients whose personhood nobody questions?
Despite pleas by conservatives like Nancy Reagan and “591 different disease-related groups, patient-advocacy groups, universities, research institutions, renowned scientists, Nobel Prize winners,” according to Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), to support the bill, Bush has adamantly refused to change his stance.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said before President Bush’s veto that “regardless of the president’s actions, whether he vetoes this bill or not, we intend to keep pushing this research forward.” Pushing this research forward to override a presidential veto will require 50 more House votes and four more Senate votes. As constituents it is our responsibility to apply the necessary pressure on our representatives to encourage them to vote for embryonic stem cell research. We cannot continue to allow Bush to impose a position that flies in the face of science and common sense. To do so would be to deny hope to the millions of patients who are anxiously waiting for the potential of embryonic stem cells to be realized.
Alix Rogers is a senior at the University of Pennsylvania and a bioethics intern at the Center for American Progress.
--------
Comments
|
!
With all the other wrong moves made by Bush for the wrong reasons, why should we expect any better from “the decider” ?
— Jim Devereux - Jul 20, 02:59 PM - #If more conservatives had family members who had diseases or disorders such as Alzheimers, they might realize the true effect of Bush’s veto. I formerly worked in the field of speech pathology, and the benefit of stem cell research to many of my past clients could be truly life-changing. We need to make funding available to ensure that American scientists will be able to work in the area of embryotic stem cell research, regardless of whether or not Bush’s veto is overthrown. This issue is particularly important to younger generations, who, statistically, will be living longer due to medical advances and technology. The terms “longevity” and “quality of life” are not interchangable.
— Karen - Jul 21, 02:53 PM - #True. But don’t forget that Republicans wern’t even willing to use stem cell research just to save their hero, Ronald Reagan’s, life.
It changed Nancy Reagan’s view, though. So I guess it takes until their loved ones gets one of those diseases.
— Charles Brubaker - Jul 22, 12:10 AM - #What? No “Mission Accomplished” banner? No codpieces? No canned rendition of traitor Ashcroft’s “Let the Eagle Soar”? Not even C-Span invited in to witness the Historic Event before us all? (Shee-ee-iit.)
Couldn’t he at least have staged the Return of Big Jim Guckert or something, just for glitz ‘n’ sleaze’s sake?
Fact: We shall know how great a nation we have become (should we indeed survive the consequences of this criminally-constituted half-man’s ceaseless gloating, sneering harmfest!) by the degree to which we work as a nation to prevent, reduce and remedy our citizens’ as-inflicted harm and suffering outright – instead of punishing and avenging these toxic conditions with even more huger(er) toxicalized (sic) “War on War on War on War” operationally tacticalized Federal militarized force, delivered unto us even unto our very deaths at such a hefty net profit to the Halliburtons and Custer Battles of this world as cannot be entirely dismissed as Prime Motivator.
Eleanor Roosevelt said it well before I did, and better too. President Eisenhower likewise had wise words of caution re these “Privatized Service Contractors” we got on our necks now these days. Google them!
— Rev. Charlene Walking Turtle Mann (ULC) - Jul 23, 01:58 AM - #Bush and his ilk are not concerned about these diseases because, afterall, the apocalypse is upon us! And Bush knows he’s going to paradise.
It just amazes me how these “pro life” zealots care more for a batch of cells in a petri dish than for all the innocents being killed in the middle east.
You’d think they’d be able to include stem cells in the category of collatoral damage.
— Kevin Morgan - Jul 23, 06:43 AM - #“collateral damage”? Do you even know the definition? Collateral means “not direct” or “unintended”. When embryonic stem cells are harvested, a human embryo – a human life – is purposely, deliberately, and directly destroyed.
“The current policy is preventing cures from being developed, cures which our generation is the most likely to benefit from, because it will be several years before we begin to see clinical applications. Embryonic stem cells could be used to cure a wide variety of diseases including Alzheimer’s, Diabetes, and spinal cord injuries.”
So, basically it is progressive to support things that might help your generation. What about the future generations? What about the part of the U.S. Constitution that says, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity…” It means we are supposed to do all things, not just for ourselves, but also for “our posterity” – the future generations. If we are to ensure the blessings of liberty to future generations, that means that we have to respect their right to live as well as our own!
Read a little more about how there are many more advances made with adult stem cells, and many, many more failures from embryonic stem cells. Here’s one link and here’s another that shows the great advances of ethical stem cell research
How about being progressive, by not flushing our tax dollars down the drain, and instead using those research dollars to further proven, and ethically correct, techniques for curing diseases.
— Orthodoxy - Jul 24, 09:41 AM - #What about the fact that all of these embryonic cells are just going to be destroyed anyway ? Are you protesting that, because by your logic, that’s certainly the destruction of life. If not, you’re looking the other way while “murder” takes place. I don’t see how it is unethical to use cells that will never become human beings, which are no more than a collection of blastocysts, to cure diseases for humans that are already living and suffering. It seems to me that this “pro-life” stance arbitrarily decides which lives are worth preserving and which aren’t. The lives of people already living and suffering in the world don’t seem to matter much, but God forbid we should use embryonic cells to save those lives.
— ekendrick - Jul 24, 03:20 PM - #Since those frozen cells will most likely be destroyed anyway, why not use them to find cures for diseases that plauge humankind? I don’t understand what’s immoral or unethical about that! But the cynic in me says, “How can one expect any better from the current administration?”
— Hummingbird - Jul 27, 12:41 AM - #Robin Hummingbirdsongs
What does the potential destruction of already harvested embryonic stem cells have to do with the ethics of using them? This is similar to policies on eating endangered species – just because someone may have already killed it does not make it ok to consume.
What is of much more interest here is making a middle ground approach where humanity (as a whole – not just one generation as Orthodoxy has implied above) is allowed to benefit from the vast potential health benefits of embryonic stem cell research without even needing to discuss the destruction of an embryo. There are new methods of embryonic stem cell harvesting which have the potential to do exactly this. (See Stem Cell Test Tried on Mice Saves Embryo; NYTimes; October 17, 2005) This is the key step to allowing people the benefits make possible by embryonic stem cell research. Once this is in order then it is only a question of education.
— John Flynn - Aug 1, 08:40 AM - #my daughter is 5 and was just diag. aug 4th with type one it is really hard to believe amercia does not want to cure this disease becuase it a billion dollard instrudy and that is quite upsetting canada and japan are already very close to the enbro stew cell and have complter islet transplants that were very sucessful how can i help make it pass
— deborah - Aug 29, 10:48 PM - #the destruction of human life is evil even if based on good intentions, however, if ‘unwanted’ embryos are used, then why can’t science be used to help the millions of people suffering all over the world. many researchers are willing to commit themselves for the chance to cure the world of disease, why don’t we give them the support and the chance to see their hard work become a reality.
— marie - Sep 28, 07:15 PM - #Forget the fact that life begins at conception. Forget that these unborn people can neither speak up for nor defend themselves. It amazes me that more of us, the post-natal population, are not willing to stand up for these defenseless living human beings. But the same crowd who care little or nothing at all about these unborn people will protest the harvest, or planned harvest of wildlife that endangers human life.
It seems to me the problem is not that certain groups are against embryonic stem cell research as much as it is that other groups are against adult stem cells cures. Why are you bound and determined to try to find one successful cure using murdered unborn people, when adult stem cells are readily available and have proven sucess? If they are easier to work with, why waste the time, effort, and money to figure out how to use embryonic stem cells? Would you be willing to give up your unborn children to chase this dream when all the stem cells you need are right there in your fat and other cells in your adult body? What if your mom and dad had been wililng to give you up?
— Dave Adams - Nov 5, 10:01 PM - #