Medical Advances Held Back by Embryonic Stem Cell Ban?
Aug. 9, 2004 - The U.S. ban on embryonic stem cells is making America miss
out on medical advances, a prominent researcher argues.
The editorial, by George Q. Daley, MD, PhD, appears in the Aug. 12 issue of
The New England Journal of Medicine. It comes three years after President
George W. Bush's ban on federal support for research on embryonic stem cells
created after Aug. 9, 2001.
The 21 embryonic stem cell lines created before that had to be grown with
nonhuman animal products. This makes them unsuitable for medical use. Since
then, scientists in other nations, notably Singapore, have created fully
human embryonic stem cell lines. But researchers who accept federal support
can't take advantage of these breakthroughs.
"The President's policy has severely curtailed opportunities for U.S.
scientists to study the cell lines that have since been established, many of
which have unique attributes or represent invaluable models of human
disease," Daley writes.
Daley is associate professor of pediatrics at Children's Hospital and
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and associate professor of biological chemistry
and molecular pharmacology at Harvard Medical School in Boston. He's also a
member of the board of directors of ViaCell, a firm that banks and finds
uses for stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood.
Not Just the President
The president's policy isn't the only problem, Daley says. A 1996 rider to
the HHS appropriations bill forbids use of federal funds for any "research
in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly
subjected to risk of injury or death." This amendment, written by Rep. Jay
Dickey (R-Ark.) has been renewed every year since then.
"Although most embryos created in vitro during fertility procedures are
discarded, federal funds may not be used to ascertain what went wrong,"
Daley writes. "The Dickey Amendment prohibits federally funded scientists
from deriving lines that model human disease. ... Such studies have an
immediate, compelling medical rationale, yet they cannot be pursued with
federal grants."
Rep. David J. "Dave" Weldon Jr., MD, (R-Fla.) is a strong opponent of human
embryonic stem cell research. In his January 2003 testimony before a Senate
committee, he argued that embryonic stem cell research has not been
adequately explored in animal models and that nothing currently justifies
the use of human embryonic cells for research. He advocates using adult stem
cells, which do not require the use of embryos created during in vitro
fertilization or by cloning.
"In fact, the real successes and advances are being made in the area of
adult stem cells," Weldon testified. "Adult stem cells can be harvested from
many areas of your body such as the marrow, fat tissue, even your nose.
There are no immune rejection issues with their use, no moral or ethical
objections."
But Daley says international researchers have already created about 50 new
embryonic stem cell lines from in vitro fertilizations that, upon genetic
testing, carried genetic diseases. These discarded embryos, he says, carry
the genes that cause several deadly diseases. Yet U.S. researchers can't
study them with federal funds.
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