Treating burn victims with fetal skin

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Overview:

A team led by Dr. Patrick Hohlfeld, a professor of gynecology and obstetrics at the University Hospital of Lausanne, Switzerland, published the results of their study of skin grafts for the treatment of children's very serious burns. Their report appeared on the Internet on 2005-AUG-18. It will appear in a future edition of The Lancet, a British medical journal. ₁

Physicians had previously observed that when operations are performed on a fetus before birth, the surgical wounds heal without leaving a scar. The Swiss team speculated that this unusual property of fetal skin might offer some advantages when used to treat burn victims.

The team appears to have made a major advance in the treatment of second and third degree burns. We have included this essay in our web site's morality section because pro-life groups are almost certain to raise moral objections to this new technique, since it uses grafts which can be traced back to a piece of skin removed from a fetus.

How it works:

In conventional treatment of serious burns, a piece of skin is removed from the patient's body -- typically from their thigh -- and used to cover the wound. In this new study, a small patch of skin was removed from an aborted fetus, and grown in the laboratory. The result were sheets of artificial "bioengineered skin." The artificial skin patches were used in the place of the victim's own skin to cover the burns. Dr. Hohlfeld said: "The results were sort of unexpected. . . . These constructs seem to work as a biological Band-Aid, promoting spontaneous healing of the patient." ₂ (The name "Band-Aid" is registered by Johnson and Johnson).

Design of the study:

Physicians removed a small patch of skin approximately three quarters of an inch square (four square centimeters) from a 14 week fetus. ₃ The pregnant woman "gave permission at the time of the abortion", ₂ presumably long after having made the decision to terminate the pregnancy. At the time, the fetus would have been about 3 inches long. She had obtained an abortion for "medical-social" reasons. This piece of skin was first divided, and then "...seeded into a collagen 'construct'." The result were sheets of bioengineered skin sized about 3.5 by 4.7 inches (9 by 12 cm). These were used to treated eight children, aged 14 months to 9 years. All had deep second or third degree burns on their hands, feet, legs or buttocks as a result of contact with scalding water, fire or a hot iron. Treatment would normally have required skin grafting from the patients' own bodies. A new layer of artificial skin was placed over the wound every three or four days.

Advantages of the technique:

There appear to be a number of advantages to the use of artificial skin derived from fetal skin cells:

Dr. Hohlfeld summarized the new technique: "We observed spontaneous healing of the wound, which you would never observe in normal conditions with a traditional graft...It wouldn't heal that way, it wouldn't heal that quickly; it would take months; and it wouldn't cover the whole surface."

Of course, much further work needs to be done before this technique becomes generally available.

Disadvantages of the technique:

There appears to be one disadvantage to the new procedure: the skin used for grafts are grown from a small patch of skin removed from an aborted fetus. This essay is written before any reactions from pro-life groups have surfaced. But it is likely that very serious objections will be raised. We speculate that protests may come from two directions:

Reactions from pro-life groups:

"The use of aborted baby parts is not new. Body parts of aborted children are highly prized by researchers for a number of different experimental applications including for cosmetic testing. Mark Crutcher of Life Dynamics, the group that first exposed the practice, says that the abortion industry is developing new methods of killing children so that more of the body is preserved intact so the parts can be more readily re-sold to research firms. Crutcher told LifeSiteNews.com that the logic is inescapable. "Once you cross the line, where you see a child as a commodity, something you can remove if you have the money to do it, then this is a natural extension." ₅

Reactions from medical experts:

References used:

1. Sheryl Ubelacker, "Fetal skin cells used to treat child burn victims," Canadian Press, The Toronto Star, 2005-AUG-18, Page A18.
2. David Brown, "Fetal tissue heals burns: Tests show treatment led to normal skin regrowth," Washington Post, 2005-AUG-18, Page A02. Online at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
3. Various media reports state that the skin biopsy used either had an area of four square centimeters or was a 4 cm by 4 cm square. We have assumed that the former is correct.
4. Cecil Adams, "Did the Nazis make lampshades out of human skin?," The Straight Dope, 2004-JUN-04, at: http://www.straightdope.com/
5. "hw," "Abortion-Derived Skin From Unborn Babies Used to Treat Burns," LifeSiteNews.com, at: http://www.lifesite.net/

Copyright © 2005 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally posted: 2005-AUG-18
Latest update: 2005-AUG-19
Author: B.A. Robinson