If you have turned on the news or flipped through a newspaper during the past couple of weeks, you undoubtedly are aware that a federal judge blocked President Obama’s 2009 executive order to allow federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. As is typical in media coverage, complex issues were quickly boiled down to two choices of opinion, both of which were argued vociferously in print and videobyte. Medical researchers argue that embryonic stem cells’ flexibility to differentiate into every cell type in the body is vital to develop promising cures for degenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s disease. Many groups, however, oppose any procedure that would destroy cells that could, if allowed to develop naturally, become healthy infants. With an election cycle looming, the arguments on both sides have increased rapidly in volume.
But this verbal distillation into two polarized camps belies the true landscape of stem cell research. There are many types of stem cells. My research uses adult stem cells, harvested from liposuction leftovers, which retain the ability to differentiate into various cell types but lack the extreme flexibility of embryonic stem cells — the ability that allows them to develop into infants. And there are different ways to obtain these alternate stem cells.
Regardless of one’s personal beliefs about when exactly a human life begins, it is not difficult to imagine how valuable it might be if there were a way to attain cells as flexible as human embryonic stem cells without destroying what would become a healthy infant. To be able to push forward with promising medical research without threatening a single conceived human life could be a wonderful compromise in an otherwise incensed debate on the goals of medical research versus the value of early human life.
As a matter of fact, there is a way. University alumnus Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, dedicated a number of pages in his book, “The Language of God,” to a brief explanation of the technology known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT. By replacing the DNA-containing nucleus of a donated, unfertilized human egg with the nucleus of an ordinary skin cell from an adult, scientists can induce the egg to produce artificially created cells with the same flexibility as embryonic stem cells. Those cells then can be harvested without ever having threatened any group of cells that would otherwise develop naturally into a human life.
But this technology has not quelled the media storm, which were whipped up again in the last few weeks. Why has SCNT not replaced the majority of stem cell research? First, it’s pretty tedious and expensive manual work. Second, SCNT is viewed by many as a being just one step away from cloning.
It seems odd that we might turn to something related to a topic as controversial as cloning for our bridge across the troubled moral waters of embryonic stem cell research. In fact, the cloning procedure for the most famous sheep in the world, Dolly, began with SCNT. Dolly’s synthetically derived cells then were carefully treated and artificially implanted into a surrogate mother for further development. Without such drastic scientific and surgical intervention, the artificially generated cell products cannot develop into an organism. In humans, such a surgical procedure with synthetically derived cells could easily be made illegal and punishable with the strictest of penalties to guard against the hypothetical but reprehensible specter of human cloning.
Although there are certainly moral pitfalls along the pathway of SCNT, the technology provides much-needed hope for the medical research community, perhaps granting a supply of powerfully flexible cells without the moral hazard of embryonic stem cell research. As you watch the news and political speeches sure to address stem cell research during the coming months, you may wish to question whether political talking points and soundbytes present a complete picture of how society and the research establishment might wade through the moral quagmire.
Tom Mendel,
I think we can agree on one thing. We can agree that media coverage of this topic has long been woefully inaccurate and misleading. The problem is, your article doesn’t do much of a better job than they have done. Lets cut to the chase, shall we?
Embryonic and fetal stem cell research has been a flop over the last 20+ years, causing little else than uncontrollable tumors and achieving zero positive medical breakthroughs. These failures include the research in all the other countries where funding flowed and controversy was minimal. As you know, research in adult stem cells are where the breakthroughs have been, and there have been lots of them. Private money for the destructive research that violates multiple human rights accords, meanwhile, has dried up and gone elsewhere due to its repetitive failures all over the world. Thus, those still wanting to pursue it are desperately seeking “much needed” government funding now – the hope notwithstanding.
Perhaps one of your contemporaries can explain this silliness better that I can:
http://gerardnadal.com/2010/04/28/stem-cell-logic/
I’m sure none of this comes as news to you, but you followed the media’s cue and ignored these facts nonetheless. Another thing you chose to ignore is the damage done to women’s health in the difficult, unnatural, and painful egg donation process. I’m guessing that names like Jacqueline Rushton, Calla Papademas, and Nina Thanki don’t mean much to you or most of your your colleagues inside UVA hospital. You may even consider them worthwhile “collateral damage” for the cause – and perhaps even the money. But I don’t know for sure what you think about that, or how much you know about it. What I do know is that you deliberately avoided mentioning that egg donation (better stated as steroid induced ovary stimulation and egg extraction) has killed, maimed, and made infertile women all over the world.
SCNT may be an interesting new take on an old debate, but your presumption that medical researchers would never cross the line and go down the wrong road with it is very, very naive. Even if you don’t want people know the name Hwang Woo-suk, I’m betting you know the story of him and his research lab rather well. Medical ethics has not been in vogue in quite some time, has it?
Young female UVA students who are being recruited for egg donation right here in Charlottesville are not hearing any of these names either, now are they?
While you tried to dance around the science of human development in this article, you did at least acknowledge that those of us on the human rights side of this debate have a lot of scientific as well as philosophical mettle to our arguments. Indeed, Tom, I know from the level of your education in the field you chose that you know exactly when you became a male human. You know exactly when the story of YOU began. And you also know exactly when you got your unique DNA that makes you, well, you. I suggest you look up the word “infant” and stop using it to suggest that we only become infants at some late stage in gestation. You also know that the vast majority of embryos do not suddenly become healthy at later stages in natural development. The vast majority are perfectly healthy 60 seconds after each entirely unique human life takes form also. Just like clumps of cells like me and you, Tom. I spent the better part of today in an emergency room surrounded by dozens of quite elderly and very ill people. They probably thought that me and the nurses were infants also. After all, we are simply young people to them. (OK, you don’t have to look it up now..)
Lastly, I’d like you to consider some of the foundational human rights accords that strictly forbid embryonic and fetal research – and include them in your contemplation of these topics. I’m talking about Nuremberg and Geneva, Tom. Ever heard of the Nazi Doctor’s Trial and Dr. Josef Mengele? Indeed, these are not new issues in medical ethics, are they? The hospital you work in is in direct violation of at least 4 of them at present, and that’s not even including the dangerous dishonesty they partake in daily with regard to female steroids. One of your colleagues in UVA hospital even performs the same procedure that Mr. Mengele did throughout his long medical career in Germany, and then in Argentina.
A few of us here locally have taken the time to remind you and others who might just be confused by politics, pressured by superiors, or just desperate for research money of what medical ethics is essentially all about when it comes to consent, and to early human development. I hope you can take a moment to consider these things on our web page and ask yourself and those around you if violating these accords is what you wanted to do when you decided to pursue medicine as a career.
http://www.uvalies.org/accords.html
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