As I read the Letter to the Editor, "Stem Cell Research" in yesterday's Tufts Daily (Oct. 26), I could not help but feel that yet another simplification of a complicated issue had occurred. The Letter stated that "non-embryonic stem cells" which were "ethically derived" had already treated several human illnesses, while embryonic stem cells (ESCs) have not been used to treat any "human patients."
This presents an error in logic to me: if you ban experimentation with human ESCs, how can you possibly proceed to deride ESCs for not producing any experimental treatments in humans? This is a self-fulfilling prophecy. ESCs have proven very successful in vertebrate research, such as regenerating the spinal cords of lab rats that had been severed (the South Park episode "Kenny Dies" explained this process). Other animal research is also promising, but has been severely curtailed because of the ban.
The Letter also posits that "If an embryo is a human life ... then destroying it is murder." I would agree with this claim if an embryo indeed was a human life. However, it is my opinion that an embryo is merely the potential for human life - not alive as a human being at this early blastocyst stage of development (a uniform mass of cells that has not gastrulated yet). This accusation against ESCs seems to be trying to equate it with the abortion debate, which it is distinct from. I believe that the creation of the ban on federally funded ESC research was meant to court the anti-abortion vote.
This leads into the larger issue: President Bush's ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. I call it a "ban," although Bush technically "was the first President ever to allow funding." In the 1990s, no federally funded institution was allowed to utilized ESCs for research. Only private funding could be used and this drastically reduced the amount of funding available.
It also led to fears that the technology would be dominated by private corporations if the federal government had no hand in it. Bush did not want to alienate his conservative base, so he agreed to give federal funding only to the "cell lines created from 70 embryos already destroyed" (Sen. Kerry correctly pointed out in the debates that in reality only less than 20 have been used, and 70 is gross exaggeration).
However, Bush's funding was a pittance, and has led to a de facto ban on ESC federal funding. Research even in as many as 70 ESC lines is simply not enough; medical research requires far more genetic diversity than this.
Would anyone think it sensible to use only 70 people infected with HIV in research towards developing an HIV vaccine? No. It would take at least a hundred times that many and probably more.
Bush sidestepped the issue, and using the power-of-the-purse, he has been trying to heavily curtail ESC research by allowing what is essentially no federal funding. In the end, a de facto ban on ESC research was made: by funding less research than would in any way be useful, Bush has in a strict legal sense lifted the old total ban, but in fact has only reinforced it.
In the meantime, Bush now uses every opportunity to publicly pat
himself on the back for "funding" the research.
President Bush's administration is decidedly in favor of continuing the ban, while simultaneously claiming that they would be more than happy to stop it.
On Oct. 4, I attended the lecture by Dr. Leon Kass at the inaugural meeting of the Presidential Lecture Series. Dr. Leon Kass is chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics. During the Q&A section, I asked Dr. Kass whether he felt that Senator Kerry's support of ESC research or Bush's ban on it, was the most ethical choice. He sidestepped the issue by reiterating the administration's rhetoric that it was not, indeed, a "ban." He went on to say that it was really an issue for Congress and that the President had no control over it.
This assertion is a bold-faced lie. Just four months ago, a majority of the senate sent a letter to President Bush asking that the restrictions he has imposed on ESC research be lifted. Fifty-eight senators signed on to the letter, including 14 Republicans. Furthermore, just month previously in May of this year, the House of Representatives also sent a letter to Bush signed by 206 congressmen.
So there is really broad support in both houses of Congress for ESC research and the major barrier to the ban being lifted is President Bush himself. As for the judicial branch, we can only hope that with the failing health of Chief Justice Rehnquist, President Bush will attempt to attempt to appoint an impartial replacement who will deal even-handedly with the ESC debate. But as Bush has not only admited but boasted, he doesn't believe in a "litmus test."
President Bush also opposes the therapeutic cloning of embryonic stem cells for use in research. Bush equates it with reproductive cloning that would produce clone babies (missing the point on why names to distinguish the two forms were devised in the first place). Debate on a global ban on cloning began on Oct. 21 in the United Nations, but there are sharp divisions over whether it should include therapeutic cloning; Bush is adamantly for a total ban.
Furthermore, reports that stem cells from adults are just as useful as ESCs are meant to play on the lack of knowledge by everyday people about ESCs. ESCs can divide indefinitely, which means they could rapidly grow, say, a whole new organ. However, adults' stem cells cannot divide indefinitely, and if forced to rapidly create an entire new organ, the organ would suffer extreme genetic damage from the strain.
Most cells, including adults' stem cells, can only divide a set number of times before the telemeres (essentially repeat-sequence padding) on the ends of their chromosomes wear down and they have to stop dividing.
ESCs are special in that they have an enzyme known as telomerase which can restore the damage that telomeres receive, allowing them to divide indefinitely. Because they can divide indefinately thanks to telomerase, embronic stem cells can be used to engineer new organs and tissues in a way that adult stem cells cannot.
