Donald R. May, "Embryonic stem cell research as an obsession" (2005)

Embryonic stem cell research as an obsession
Donald R. May

"I will work with Congress to ensure that human embryos are not created for experimentation or grown for body parts, and that human life is never bought and sold as a commodity." 

-- President George W. Bush, State of the Union address, February 02, 2005.

Twenty-first century society was not prepared for the fact that human life could be produced for the purpose of harvesting cells or body parts for the benefit of others.  Only a few years ago we thought this was still science fiction from some futuristic Star Trek age.

Rapid scientific advancements have made it possible to produce new human life in the laboratory.  We can no longer put off the ethical questions surrounding the use of embryos and clones.

President Bush was correct to address the embryonic stem cell controversy and to provide money to fund it with appropriate limitations and safeguards.  His courage to address problems quickly and definitively, and not defer them to future administrations, may well be his greatest legacy.

Bone marrow stem cell transplants save the lives of thousands each year and have been performed for more than four decades.  The medical therapies developed from stem cell research (SCR) have produced successful results far beyond our expectations.

With all this scientific success and with more than 15,000 patients benefiting from SCR each year, why are some people apoplectic?  The answer is both simple and perplexing.  The scientific breakthroughs and the medical therapies have all come from adult stem cells and none as yet have come from embryonic stem cells.  Rather than welcoming the results and pursuing support for what works, there are paradoxically increasing demands for the recognition and funding of embryonic SCR.

A dangerous combination of political and social ideology is determined to make embryonic SCR succeed.  The problem is an apparent obsession with destroying human life to provide medical therapies.  Looking from the outside, one might imagine that embryonic SCR supporters are advocating a pagan ritual of human sacrifice to treat disease?

It appears there is also a need to prove President Bush wrong.  Do they believe that if embryonic SCR were to produce useful results, President Bush and his supporters would somehow be discredited?

Embryonic SCR supporters have resorted to political action to force its funding.  As it has not been successful, and private funding is drying up, public subsidies from the National Institutes of Health and other government sources appear to be the only way to keep embryonic SCR viable.

It is of concern that government funding is apparently being directed preferentially to research based on embryonic SCR.  Researchers such as Dr. Kathy Mitchell of the University of Kansas have reported that their grant applications to the National Institutes of Health are being turned down specifically because her stem cells are adult stem cells harvested from umbilical cords.  Dr. Mitchellšs research is directed at repairing kidney damage resulting from diseases such as leukemia and diabetes.

As Lynde Langdon reported in łMiracle cells˛ (World, February 5, 2005):

The National Institutes of Health has shunned her grant applications three times.  In one grant review, a fellow scientist commented that her stem cells come from tissue inside umbilical cords, not days-old embryos.  "We already have a good source of stem cells," the grant reviewer wrote,  "Why do we need another?"

Ms. Langdon further writes:

The NIH . . . has funded only 30 projects involving stem cells from umbilical cords.  In contrast, it has funded 634 projects involving embryonic stem cells.

California voters, some led by ideology and others by emotion and guilt, passed Proposition 71.  It will provide $3 billion in embryonic SCR funding over the next 10 years and take $6 billion in taxpayer money to pay off the bonds issued for its support.  Going into debt to subsidize political ideology is of serious concern.  Other state governments are pushing to enact similar publicly funded mandates for embryonic SCR.  It appears the logic is similar to that of fighting poverty or supporting failing schools -- provide more money and eventually it might work.

Politics, science, religion, morals, and ethics all meet head on in embryonic SCR.  Adult stem cell research has shown significant success.  As it is not politically correct research, it does not receive the credit and the funding that it deserves.  As a result, future productive research will be slowed, and people will suffer and die from diseases that might have otherwise been treated earlier.  The positive results from adult SCR are minimized and even disparaged.  We have seen little news of the South Korean woman who was paraplegic for 20 years and is now starting to walk, or the leukemia patients who have survived, after adult stem cell therapy.

The supporters of embryonic SCR are apparently not as concerned about meaningful scientific results as they are about political and ideological success. They do not give the impression of being interested in curing illness or saving lives unless it is the result of embryonic stem cell therapy.  Ignoring research that is working and supporting research that is not working plays into the hands of those who oppose scientific thought and factual evidence.

For the present, ethics, scientific integrity, honest scientific competition, and the free economic marketplace are best suited to determine which research to pursue and to fund.  As embryonic SCR is producing no useful results, the alternative of adult SCR appears to be the better choice.

C 2005 Donald R. May