Transcript
Election 2004: Stem Cell Research
Monday, October 25, 2004; 4:00 PM
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When fertilization initially takes place, whether within a fallopian tube (in vivo) or in a petri dish (in vitro) it forms a single-cell embryo called a zygote. The zygote divides progressively into a multicell embryo. After about five days, the embryo contains many cells with a cystic cavity within its center and is called a "blastocyst." If this blastocyst implants into the uterus and continues to develop, it becomes a fetus. But this is also the stage at which the individual cells become viable for use in ESC experimentation. "Blastocyst" is not to be confused with "blastocyte," which is simply another term for an embryonic stem cell (ESC).
President Clinton's National Bioethics Advisory Commission, in its 1997 report Cloning
Human Beings, explicitly stated:
"The Commission began its discussions fully recognizing that any effort in humans to
transfer a somatic cell nucleus into an enucleated egg involves the creation of an embryo,
with the apparent potential to be implanted in utero and developed to term."
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The President's Council on Bioethics defines: "Cloned human embryo: (a) A human embryo resulting from the nuclear transfer process (as contrasted with a human embryo arising from the union of egg and sperm). (b) The immediate (and developing) product of the initial act of cloning, accomplished by successful SCNT, whether used subsequently in attempts to produce children or in biomedical research." (emphasis added), Human Cloning and Human Dignity: An Ethical Inquiry Executive Summary 2002.
Following are successful treatments from adult stem cells (ASCs) listed online at: http://www.stemcellresearch.org/facts/treatments.htm
1. Brain Cancer
2. Retinoblastoma
3. Ovarian Cancer
4. Merkel Cell Cancer
5. Testicular Cancer
6. Lymphoma
7. Acute Lymphobolastic Leukemia
8. Acute Myelogenous Leukemia
9. Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia
10. Juvenile Myelomonocytic Leukemia
11. Angioimmunoblastic Lymphadenopathy with Dysproteinemia
12. Multiple Myeloma
13. Myelodysplasia
14. Breast Cancer
15. Neuroblastoma
16. Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma
17. Hodgkin's Lymphoma
18. Renal Cell Carcinoma
19. Various Solid Tumors
20. Soft Tissue Sarcoma
21. Scleromyxedema
22. Multiple Sclerosis
23. Crohn's Disease
24. Rheumatoid Arthritis
25. Juvenile Arthritis
26. Systemic Lupus
27. Polychondritis
28. Systemic Vasculitis
29. Sjogren's Syndrome
30. Behcet's Disease
31. Myasthenia
32. Red Cell Aplasia
33. Autoimmune Cytopenia
34. X-Linked Lymphoproliferative Syndrome
35. X-Linked Hyperimmunoglobuline-M Syndrome
36. Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Syndrome-X1
37. Sickle Cell Anemia
38. Sideroblastic Anemia
39. Waldenstrom's Macroglobulinemia
40. Aplastic Anemia
41. Amegakaryocytic Thrombocytopenia
For an extensive list with documentation, see: http://www.lifeissues.org/cloningstemcell/adultstemsuccess.htm
Rep. Dave Weldon, of Florida said the following on the floor of the House regarding successes from ASC treatment:
"Mr. Speaker, the following diseases have been successfully treated with adult stem cells from humans: Parkinson's disease, blindness has been treated, relief of symptom of lupus, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis; the cure of combined immunodeficiency diseases, the treatment of several different types of leukemia, solid tumors, neuroblastomas, non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, multiple sclerosis. Indeed, the list goes on and on.
In accordance with the "Dickey Amendment," passed each year since 1995, research involving the destruction of human embryos cannot be funded with taxpayer dollars. This is not Bush's policy; it is the law of the land, passed annually by Congress and signed by both Presidents Clinton and Bush. This law does not ban embryo research, and it does not fund embryo research. It is a policy of public silence.
In 2000, the Clinton administration discovered a loophole that would allow the NIH to provide some federal funding for embryonic-stem-cell research without asking Congress to overturn the Dickey amendment. By law, the government could not fund research "in which" embryos were destroyed. But if the destruction itself were funded privately, the government could offer funds for subsequent research on embryonic-stem-cell lines derived from the destroyed embryos. In other words: A researcher could destroy endless numbers of embryos in his private lab, and then use the fruits of such destruction to get public funding. This would not violate the letter of the law, but surely the spirit.
When he took office in 2001, President Bush put implementation of the Clinton guidelines on hold. He wanted a way to support potentially promising research, but he also did not believe the federal government should create an ongoing incentive for the destruction of human embryos. On August 9, 2001, President Bush announced his new guidelines: federal funding for research using stem-cell lines that existed before the announcement, but not for those created after. In this way, federal money would not act as an incentive for destroying human embryos in the future, but stem cells derived from embryos already destroyed in the past could be used with federal money to explore the basic science.
ESC research results in the destruction of human life. When we value one life over another in the name of medicine, we have opened the door of vulnerability for the disabled and aged to be euthanized. Scare federal resources should go to fund research that has already produced documented effective treatments from ASC treatments instead of funding ESC research that has not. It is unethical to play on the emotions of people and give them false hope for cures. If ESC research were truly promising, private foundations and pharmaceutical companies would be funding it. Instead, private investors have avoided funding ESC research because they don't want to wait years for results that very well may not materialize and because of the ethical objections of the vast majority of Americans to such research.
Kerry has endorsed so-called 'therapeutic cloning' for years. ["While I am opposed to reproductive cloning, I believe that the process of somatic cell nuclear transplant (SCNT), commonly referred to as therapeutic cloning, should be protected." Kerry letter of Sept. 3, 2002.] On July 13, 2004, Kerry cosponsored a bill (S. 303) to allow the mass creation of human embryos by cloning solely for research, as long as they are not allowed to continue developing past 14 days. This bill has nothing whatever to do with so-called "excess" embryos created and stored in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics.
Kerry's sponsorship of this bill was specifically referenced by a staffer on the national Kerry campaign, quoted in a news story that appeared in the August 10 Wall Street Journal: "Kerry policy director Sarah Bianchi says the Kerry bill prohibits cloned embryos from developing for more than 14 days or from being implanted in a uterus so they could produce live births."
Yet, Bianchi said just the opposite in an August 19 A.P. story. She said Kerry would allow scientists to study leftover embryos that had been created for infertility treatment and would otherwise be discarded. Kerry is "absolutely not" suggesting creating embryos for the sole purpose of research.
Scare federal resources should go to fund research that has already produced documented effective treatments from ASC treatments instead of funding ESC research that has not. It is unethical to play on the emotions of people and give them false hope for cures. If ESC research were truly promising, private foundations and pharmaceutical companies would be funding it. Instead, private investors have avoided funding ESC research because they don't want to wait years for results that very well may not materialize and because of the ethical objections of the vast majority of Americans to such research.
No such ban exists on funding exists. In August 2001, President Bush disallowed federal funding of only the kind of stem cell research that would require the killing of human embryos. Last year, the Bush Administration provided over $200 million for stem cell research, of which about $190 million was allotted for research on adult stem cells. Adult stem cell research is the only stem cell research that has yielded any clinical benefits for humans.
There is a misunderstanding about the # of embryos in IVF clinics that are available for creation of ESCs.
See: http://www.stemcellresearch.org/facts/2004-06-11.htm
According to a 2002 survey by the RAND Corporation of IVF clinics in the United States , the vast majority of the 400,000 currently frozen embryos are NOT slated for destruction. The vast majority — 88.2% — are being held for family building.
Only a small fraction — 2.2% --- are slated to be discarded.
An only slight higher percentage -- 2.8% — have been designated for research. That means of the original 400,000 frozen embryos, only 11,000 are actually available to be destroyed for their stem cells.
Only a small number of those 11,000 embryos would actual yield stem cells. Using what it calls "a conservative estimate" the RAND study calculated that only about 275 stem cell lines could actually be developed from the embryos available for research. And even then, the RAND study concedes that this number "is probably an overestimate."
Leading fertility experts also agree that frozen embryos would yield a far smaller number of stem cell lines than is often assumed. Dr. William Gibbons, of the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Virginia, says the Institute has about 200 frozen embryos available for research, but "there is no guarantee that we would get any stem cells from those 200 frozen embryos… We hear all this stuff about how all these embryos are available, but we just didn't think there was much there." And Dr. Barry Behr of Stanford University notes that "By far, by far, the vast majority of embryos that are frozen are not good. If we thawed 10,000 embryos, we would get 100 or so that are viable blastocysts".
So behind the seemingly impressive number of "400,000 frozen embryos," the reality is that the actual number of stem cell lines likely to be produced from them is so small as to be clinically useless. In order to treat diseases (still a very distant prospect using human embryonic stem cells) hundreds of thousands more embryos, beyond those currently frozen and available for research, would be needed. This could only be achieved by a deliberate effort to create new embryos for the sole purpose of destroying them — an outcome that the use of the frozen embryos is supposed to avoid, but would most likely cause.
And if these 275 potential stem cell lines derived from frozen embryos would therefore be used only in basic research, then the number of human embryonic stem cell lines already available for federal funding under current administration policy (a number sure to increase) is already sufficient for this purpose.
A poll taken last August shows that 74% of Americans support federal funding for stem cell research that does not require killing human embryos. 69% of Americans support a total ban on human cloning, including a ban on cloning human embryos for stem cell -research which would kill the embryo.
contributers? How old is it? Any organizations that your group is aligned with? Thanks
CWA is not officially aligned with any other organization other than our ow Legislative Action Committee or PAC, which are separate organizations. We do work closely with other pro-family organizations.
There are many problems associated with ESCs, such as a tendency to cause malignant tumors, and the body rejects them just as it rejects donated organs.
Yet it was always believed that ESCs had one huge advantage over their ASC counterparts -- that while an ASC could become or "differentiate" into only a few types of mature tissue with those tissues dictated by the source of that ASC, the ESCs could become any type of tissue in the entire body. In medical terminology this is known as "plasticity." But this has never been more than theory, and lately that theory has begun crumbling under the weight of empirical findings.
There's a huge ESC industry seeking research funds. Private investors avoid them because they don't want to wait many years for results that very well may not materialize and because of the ethical concerns. That leaves essentially only Uncle Sam's piggy bank, primarily grants from the National Institutes of Health, to keep these labs open. This, in brief, explains the "stem-cells wars," the perceived overwhelming need grossly to exaggerate petri-dish advances with ESCs, while life-saving new applications of ASCs are downplayed or ignored.
"John Kerry to my knowledge has said no such thing. He realizes that embryonic stem cell research offers a potential cure for many diseases but nobody including Mr. Kerry is offering any guarantees."
Ron is wrong. Here's what John Edwards told a rally in Iowa earlier this month:
"If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."
That's political pandering at its worst.
Here are some facts about spinal cord injuries and ASC treatment:
Two American women who suffered spinal cord injuries that left them confined to wheelchairs testified before Congress after receiving ASC treatment in Portugal. They said they were told by American doctors that they would never get out of their wheelchairs again. After receiving treatment derived from their own stem cells derived from the olfactory mucosa that lines the naval cavity, they can both stand and walk with the assistance of braces. Both Dr. Geoffrey Raisman of Britain's National Institute for Medical Research and Dr. Steve Hinderer of the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan have studied Dr. Lima's techniques and are hoping to begin human trials based on them in Britain and the U.S.
