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HUMAN STEM CELL RESEARCH
Media reports: 2001-SEPT to 2002-DEC
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2001-SEP-5: USA: Official admits that most stem cell lines not useable
at this time: Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) chaired a congressional
hearing to examine the President's announcement of AUG-9. Tommy Thompson,
Health and Human Services Secretary, admitted that most of the 60
stem cell lines that the president will allow researchers to work with are
not currently useable. Referring to the restrictions placed by President
Bush, Kennedy said that scientists worry that the limitations "will
delay development of cures for dread diseases for many years at the cost
of countless lives and immeasurable suffering." Thompson announced an
agreement with a U.S. university that will make a few stem cell lines
available to government researchers. | |
2001-OCT-14: USA: Comparison of AMA and pro-life stances on embryo stem
cells: An article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette contrasts the two
positions: "Medical organizations, including the largest in the country -- the
American Medical Association -- believe embryonic stem cell research is an
essential part of investigating a promising approach to treating disease. Conversely, pro-life organizations, such as the Colorado-based Focus on
Family, say it's not necessary to destroy embryos to further stem cell
research."
Yank D. Coble Jr., a Jacksonville, FL endocrinologist is expected to take
over as president of the organization in June. He said: "It's not an
easy fact, but embryonic stem cells show far more potential than those
from adults, or even from placenta or umbilical cord cells...They could
potentially be of benefit to humankind...It's an emotional issue, which is
understandable and complex....Some people say it's the single most
important medical advance since antibiotics."
Carrie Gordon Earll, a biomedical ethicist at Focus on Family contradicted
Dr. Coble. She said: "We're opposed to embryonic stem cell research,
and that's an essential clarification in all of this." She also said
that stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood, placenta and bone
marrow cells are as promising as embryonic stem cells. She said: "Embryonic
stem cells have been sold as almost a silver bullet in curing disease
[which is wrong] It is never justified to sacrifice one human being for
another." 1 | |
2001-NOV-7: USA: NIH posts list of cell lines on Internet: The
National Institutes of Health posted a list of the approved cell lines
in its "Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry." The total cell lines
now total 72. However, some lines are genetically identical to others.
2 | |
2001-NOV-13: USA: September 11 terrorist attack affects stem cell
research: According to Koenig's International News, Washington
politicians have largely abandoned their interest in the regulation of
stem cell research because of the Anthrax, World Trade Center and Pentagon
terrorist attacks. Hearings on stem cells and cloning which were scheduled
for later this year have been postponed until next year. David Greenwood,
spokesperson for Geron Corporation -- a company active in stem cell
technology -- said: "My concern is that, as the political process
slows, it will negatively affect progress in the entire field...days go by
that turn into weeks, and weeks go by that turn into months [before key
decisions are made]." | |
2002-JAN-16: Quebec: Canadian province bans all embryo stem cell
research: According to Agape Press, Quebec's Minister of
State for Science and Technology has released new research guidelines. The
extraction of stem cells from embryos is "forbidden." The use of
existing stem cells, or new stem cells obtained from out of province, is
banned if they involved the death of human embryos. The ban extends to
both privately and publicly funded research. | |
2002-MAR-4: Canada: New guidelines for stem cell research issued:
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research, which is the government agency
that issues grants to medical researchers, has issued new guidelines to
cover stem cell research. Government-funded researchers will be allowed to
extract stem cells from aborted fetuses and from spare embryos left over
after IVF fertility treatments. However, they will not be permitted to
create new embryos in the lab for the purpose of generating stem cells.
Private Canadian laboratories are exempt from these restrictions. The
federal government is expected to pass legislation during 2002 which will
probably reflect the guidelines. 3 | |
2002-JUN-30: USA: NRLC expands mandate: The National Right
to Life Committee was organized in 1972 to restrict or eliminate
abortion access. They decided at their Pittsburgh PA convention,
(held JUN-27 to 29), to expand their mandate to include seeking bans on
human embryo stem-cell research, physician-assisted suicide, and human
cloning. 4 | |
2002-JUL-11: 2002-JUL-9-11: USA: President Bush accused of breaking promise: According to
the American Life League, (ALL) when George W. Bush was running for
president, the U.S. conference of Catholic Bishops asked him
whether he would oppose research on aborted fetuses. He replied: "I
oppose using federal funds to perform fetal tissue research from induced
abortions." Again, according to the ALL, he "quietly approved a
decision made by members of his administration to endow federal money to a
project at Johns Hopkins University involving research on aborted human
embryos up to eight weeks old..." Other pro-life groups also
attacked the President for this decision. However, Focus on the Family
came to his defense. They pointed out that existing legislation does not
restrict stem cells taken from aborted embryos at up to eight weeks, which
is the purpose of the Johns Hopkins University study that was funded.
Carrie Gordon Earll a Bioethics Analyst at Focus on the Family said
that "With this issue, Bush really doesn't have latitude. He is bound
by a 1993 law passed by Congress which allows research. And not only does
it allow the research, but it specifically forbids the president from
interfering." The only way in which he could have prevented the
funding would have been to break his oath of office -- an impeachable
offense.
It is worth noting that Bush's promise was to oppose fetal tissue
research. An embryo only becomes a fetus after 10 weeks gestation. The
study will not go beyond eight weeks, when the product of conception is
still an embryo. So the study goes beyond the scope of Bush's promise.
5,6
The Citizen Link article said that product of conception
becomes a fetus before eight weeks gestation. That is apparently an error. | |
2002-AUG-11: USA: Stem cells approved by President Bush mostly
useless: Paul Elias of the Associated Press interviewed stem
cell researchers one year after the President's decision. He reported that
researchers complained: "An overwhelming majority of the stem cells the Bush
administrated approved are in poor condition and useless for research."
Another concern by researchers is the lack of money. Six million dollars
has been pledged by small private foundations (Christopher Reeve
Paralysis foundation, Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research
and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Intel Corp.
Chairperson Andy Grove is giving a 5 million challenge grant to the
University of California. The National Institutes of Health
started funding research in 2001-NOV and has approved only 3.5 million
dollars in grants to date. Some of the larger foundations like the
American Heart Association and American Cancer Society have
decided to not fund stem cell research, fearing a backlash from their
contributors. 7 | |
2002-SEP-22: CA: Governor Davis signs stem cell research into law:
Bill SB 253, which permits embryonic
stem cell research within the state of California, became law. Response
was predictable. Ken Connor, President of the Family Research Council
wrote that Davis had put "profits and politics ahead of principle.
Gov. Davis is simply pandering to the noisy, well-heeled biotech lobby and
the pro-abortion crowd that spurns any recognition of the legal status of
the unborn. Such research on human embryos violates the Hippocratic
injunction that physicians "First, do no harm." It seeks to establish the
utilitarian ethic that the ends justify the means and attempts to bypass
President Bush's executive order limiting this research to specific cell
lines. Doubtless some politicians are salivating over the economic
windfall this decision could bring to the state--at the expense of
innocent human life. 8 Meanwhile, SiliconValley.com
posted an article by the Mercury News which said: "Scientists
said the signing of the stem-cell research bill is a symbolic boost for
the controversial research that could lead to breakthroughs in treatments
of spinal-cord injuries and diseases including Parkinson's and
Alzheimer's. 'Stem-cell research is responsible research that could
potentially save millions of lives,'' Davis said at a press conference
featuring actor Christopher Reeve, who has championed the research since
he was paralyzed in a horseback-riding accident. 'With world-class
universities, top-flight researchers and a thriving biomedical industry,
California is perfectly positioned to be a world leader in this area.'
'' 9 More details. | |
2002-SEP-26: MA: Researchers grow living pig teeth in rats:
Researchers at Forsyth Institute in
Boston have successfully grown living pig teeth in rats. They took cells
from immature teeth of 6-month old pigs, treated them with enzymes, and
placed them on biodegradable "scaffolds." These are small pieces of a
polymer that act like a mold to confine the forming tissue. The cells and
scaffolds were then implanted into the abdomens of rats. Within 30 weeks,
tooth crowns had formed. This process may some day lead to technology that
would allow a person to replace a lost tooth with an identical one grown
from their own dental stem cells. Spokesperson
Dominick DePaola said: "The ability to identify, isolate and propagate
dental stem cells to use in biological replacement tooth therapy has the
potential to revolutionize dentistry." 10 | |
2002-SEP-28: USA: Nancy Reagan promotes stem cell research:
Nancy Reagan, 81, wife of former Republican president Ronald Reagan is
challenging President Bush's policy on stem cell research -- but not in
public. She believes that such research could find a cure for Alzheimer's,
the disease that is destroying her husband's memory. She passed a message
via friend to the New York Times, saying that "A lot of time is being
wasted. A lot of people who could be helped are not being helped."
According to reporter Alessandra Stanley, Ms. Reagan "has personally
contacted 20 members of Congress, button-holed administration officials
and conferred with leading scientists, including Dr. Richard D. Klausner,
who resigned as director of the National Cancer Institute last September
and now runs the global health program of the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation." 11 | |
2002-DEC-10: UK: British government gives extra £40m for stem cell
research: The British government has decided to increase funding for
stem cell research from £20m to £60m (about $94 million U.S. dollars).
This makes it one of the world's largest publicly funded programs. Science
minister, Lord Sainsbury, said that stem cells have "the revolutionary
potential to cure a range of life-threatening and debilitating diseases
such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, cancer, chronic heart disease and
diabetes, by generating replacements for damaged tissues." According
to the Financial Times, "He said many scientists from Britain and
overseas were expressing interest in conducting stem cell research in the
UK - attracted by the prospect of generous funding, along with a favorable
legal and regulatory framework." 12 | |
2002-DEC-12: CA: Stamford launches stem cell research program: As
a result of an anonymous 12 million dollar grant, medical professor Dr.
Irving Weissman, will direct a stem cell research program involving
nuclear transfer technology at Stanford university in California. Weissman
said: "Our avowed goal is to advance science. For any group to stay out
of the action and wait for someone else to do it because of political
reasons is wrong." He explained that the project will involve taking
human DNA from diseased adult cells, transferring them into ova, and
growing them in the lab for a few days before extracting the resultant
stem cells for further research. Stanford released a statement saying
that: "Creating human stem cell lines is not equivalent to reproductive
cloning....The first step in the process of creating a stem cell line
involves transferring the nucleus from a cell to an egg and allowing the
egg to divide. This is the same first step as in reproductive cloning.
However, in creating a stem cell line, cells are removed from the
developing cluster. These cells can go on to form many types of tissue,
but cannot on their own develop into a human." The American
Association of Medical Colleges says that: "Somatic Cell Nuclear
Transfer (SCNT) or therapeutic cloning involves removing the nucleus of an
unfertilized egg cell, replacing it with the material from the nucleus of
a `somatic cell' (a skin, heart, or nerve cell, for example), and
stimulating this cell to begin dividing." 13
Ronald Green, chairman of Advanced Cell's ethics advisory committee
and a religion professor at Dartmouth University said: "We've been
struggling with names for this technology — I've favored 'therapeutic
cloning." Other leading ethicists call it "biomedical cloning"
and draw a distinction between it and "reproductive cloning," which
is intended to produce a newborn.
Wendy Wright, senior policy director at the Fundamentalist Christian
Concerned Women for America said that "This announcement shows
we've gone from a slippery slope to a free fall." 14 Dr.
David Stevens, president of the Fundamentalist Christian Medical
Association accuses Stanford of "trying to pull the wool over
people's eyes. And Dr. (Irving) Weissman, (who is) heading the project, is
just being disingenuous. This is cloning and every scientist out there
that is involved in the scientific process knows for a fact that that's
what's going on." He is concerned that graduate students who decide to
do research in this field may not fully consider the ethical
ramifications. He is also concerned that stem cell research might result
in cures or treatments for people with cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, or
other diseases. He urges Congress "to pass a ban on human cloning now.
Once the scientists are able to claim that some kind of success has come
out of this, it will be too difficult to try and ban it even if that
success is trumped up." 13 | |
2002-DEC-13: New Jersey Senate vote to encourage stem cell
research: A vote is scheduled for DEC-14 on Bill 1909 The bill notes
that "an estimated 128 million Americans suffer from the crippling
economic and psychological burden of chronic, degenerative and acute
diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, cancer, diabetes and Parkinson's
disease; The costs of treating, and lost productivity from, chronic,
degenerative and acute diseases in the United States constitutes hundreds
of billions of dollars annually. Estimates of the economic costs of these
diseases does not account for the extreme human loss and suffering
associated with these conditions; Human stem cell research offers immense
promise for developing new medical therapies for these debilitating
diseases and a critical means to explore fundamental questions of biology.
Stem cell research could lead to unprecedented treatments and potential
cures for Alzheimer's disease, cancer, diabetes, Parkinson's disease and
other diseases." 15
Two Fundamentalist Christian groups, Focus on the Family and New
Jersey Family Policy Council, oppose the bill for three reasons:
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They believe that pre-embryos are human persons; killing them
constitutes murder. |
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Stem cells removed from adults, which have a limited degree of
usefulness, should be used in preference to embryo stem cells. |
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The legislation "opens the door to human [reproductive] cloning."
16 From a reading of the bill, it is unclear to us how
this can happen. The bill deals entirely with stem cell research. |
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2002-DEC-17: NJ: Senate approves therapeutic cloning bill: The
New Jersey Senate voted 25-0 to allow the production of stem cells for
medical research within the state. All twenty Democrats and five
Republicans voted in favor. In a curious development, fifteen Republicans
abstained. 17 | |
2002-DEC-20: Germany: Government issued permit to import stem
cells: Germany issued its first permit to allow the import of stem
cells into the country. It was issued to the University of Bonn,
and will be used for research into Parkinson's and other currently
incurable diseases. Oliver Bruestle, a neurobiologist at the University,
said: "I am very happy and relieved that everything came together this
yea. I have waited more than two years." He plans to start research in
2003-JAN. The law permits imports of stem cells produced before 2002-JAN-1
for projects of "overwhelming significance" where no other research
method can be used. There is a narrow window of opportunity during which
such stem cells will be useable. Probably by the end of 2004, all stem
cells that can be imported under this law will be useless for research.
18 |
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Related essays on this web site:
Cloning and stem cell research are unrelated lines of research. However, they
both start with an ovum and initially use some of the same techniques.
References used in the above essay:
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Janice Crompton, "A View from the Experts: Pro-lifers say embryo cells
not essential; AMA disagrees," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette® at:
http://www.post-gazette.com
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Paul Recer, "NIH releases list of stem cell colonies approved for
federally funded research," Associated Press, at:
http://www2.startribune.com/
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"Canada issues guidelines for stem-cell research," Associated
Press, 2002-MAR-5, at:
http://www.nando.com/world/story/283698p-2547491c.html
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Jim Rudd, "National Right to Life's Deception," at:
http://covenantnews.com/rudd020701.htm
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"Bush Advances Legacy Of Bad Decisions, Broken Promises And Dead
Babies," American Life League National Desk, 2002-JUL-8, at:
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/first/0709-102.html
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Stuart Shepard, "Federally Funded Research Prompts Questions,"
Citizen Link, Focus on the Family, 2002-JUL-11.
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Paul Elias, "Stem cell work 'a mess'," Associated Press,
2002-AUG-11.
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Ken Connor, "California: Rebels with a Cause," Family
Research Council, 2002-SEP-23, Washington Update news release.
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Barbara Feder Ostrov, "Davis signs
nation's first stem-cell research bill," Mercury News,
2002-SEP-23, at:
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/4132665.htm
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Greg Frost, "Doctors
Grow Living Pig Teeth in Rats," Reuters, 2002-SEP-26.
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Alessandra Stanley, "Nancy Reagan Fights
Bush Over Stem Cells," New York Times, at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/29/politics/
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Clive Cookson, "Stem cell research gets extra £40m in funding,"
Financial Times, 2002-DEC-10, at:
http://news.ft.com/servlet/
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Paul Elias, "Stanford to Develop Human Stem Cells," Associated
Press, 2002-DEC-11. Online at:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?
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Bob Kellogg, "Stanford Launches Stem Cell Research Program,"
Family News in Focus, 2002-DEC-12, at:
http://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/news/A0023641.html
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"Senate No. 1909," Text of the bill, at:
http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2002/Bills/S2000/1909_I1.HTM
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"CITIZENLINK--Special Alert/Correction," Family News in
Focus, 2002-DEC-13.
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"Mad science," Family Research Council, 2002-DEC-17.
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"Germany Clears Embryonic Stem Cell Import. Germany Issues First
Permit to Import Human Embryo Cells for Research Under New Law,"
Associated Press, 2002-DEC-13. Online at:
http://abcnews.go.com/wire
Copyright © 2001 to 2003 incl., by Ontario Consultants
on Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2003-MAY-13
Author: B.A. Robinson
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