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Posted on 08/27/2006 6:29:03 AM PDT by Aussie Dasher
The Catholic Church has rejected claims a new technique to create stem cells does not harm embryos, pouring cold water on hopes by many scientists of ending ethical uproar over their research.
A US company says it has developed a way to create the stem cells without harming the original embryo, which the Vatican holds is a fully-fledged human life.
The breakthrough technique was meant to answer critics at the papal palace, the White House and beyond, who have long argued that it was ethically reproachable to attempt to save one life by taking another.
The head of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life, Bishop Elio Sgreccia, says the new method by Advanced Cell Technology fails to overcome the Church's many moral concerns.
Bishop Sgreccia says the procedure is wrong-footed from the start - experimenting with embryos is reprehensible, as is use of "unnatural" in-vitro embryos created at fertility clinics, like the ones the US scientists employed in their research.
He says Advanced Cell Technology then made things worse by extracting what could be a "totipotent" cell.
"This is not just any cell, but a cell capable of reproducing a human embryo," he said. He added that, in effect: "a second embryo is being destroyed".
Across the Atlantic, Richard Doerflinger, a bioethics expert with the US Conference of Bishops, has accused the scientists of "killing" 16 embryos during their research.
Since stem cells can develop into any kind of body tissue, medical researchers believe they can lead to tailored treatments for diseases, including cancer and diabetes.
The Advanced Cell scientists, led by Dr Robert Lanza, let its embryos grow to the 8 to 10 cell stage before removing one cell. They then grew stem cells from that single cell.
Dr Lanza says the embryos, after such a procedure, still can be implanted in women with the potential to develop normally.
"For most rational people, this removes the last rational objection for opposing this research," Dr Lanza said.
Bishop Sgreccia say there is no way that Dr Lanza can ensure that embryos which had cells extracted could later go on to develop normally.
He urged them to look into other promising avenues, including adult stem cell research, accepted by the Church.
"Even if it didn't damage the embryo, it's still an issue of an invasive, unjustified operation on a human being ... You're going in, taking a piece of a embryo's organism to use for yourself," he said.
The media focus on opponents to embryonic stem cells as though they are backward people against science, progress, and technology (the same are leveled at Creationists), although all of the mainstream groups against embryonic stem cells are for more research into adult stem cells, and see adult stem cells as useful.
Bishop Sgreccia says the procedure is wrong-footed from the start - experimenting with embryos is reprehensible, as is use of "unnatural" in-vitro embryos created at fertility clinics, like the ones the US scientists employed in their research.
He says Advanced Cell Technology then made things worse by extracting what could be a "totipotent" cell.
"This is not just any cell, but a cell capable of reproducing a human embryo," he said. He added that, in effect: "a second embryo is being destroyed".
BINGO! This Bishop knows his science.
The Church has long opposed in vitro for similar reasons.
Creating embryos in a petri-dish reduces human life to a commodity to be experimented with.
It separates the unitive from the procreative, and many embryos are killed in the process.
"This is not just any cell, but a cell capable of reproducing a human embryo," he said. He added that, in effect: "a second embryo is being destroyed".
Raises some interesting philosophical questions then. Could someone simply grow 10 billion of these cells? Would that therefore mean over half the human population of Earth existed in their lab?
BUMP
No...eventually, with more generations (or cell divisions) -- beyond the number that this researcher waited, these cells will loose their totipotentcy and become pluripotent cells. But then the pluripotent cells less desired to the "embryonic stem cell researcher" because they cannot become "any and all" human tissues.
Creating embryos in a petri-dish reduces human life to a commodity to be experimented with.
It separates the unitive from the procreative, and many embryos are killed in the process
Yes, IMO, that's the more important issue here!
Ethical Alternatives to Embryonic Stem Cells Exist
Embryos are not the only source of stem cells. Every one holds an unknown amount of stem cells that can be derived without harm or injury. These “adult” stem cells are capable of transforming into countless cell and tissues types have been located throughout the human body, including in the brain, muscles, blood, placentas and even in fat. Recently germ?line stem cells from testes have been successfully reprogrammed into “pluripotent” adult stem cells with the same potential of embryonic stem cells.
Stem Cells from Ethical Sources Are Now Treating Over 70 Diseases and Afflictions
Every useful stem-cell therapy developed to date has not required the destruction of human embryos. According to a June 2004 report prepared by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), adult stem cells and stem cells from cord blood are currently being utilized to treat 72 diseases and the NIH is funding another 330 human clinical trials using these cells. Adult stem cell research has revealed potential treatment and cures for afflictions such as Buerger’s disease, bladder disease, lupus, heart failure, stroke, liver failure, nerve regeneration, genetic metabolic disease, and respiratory conditions such as emphysema and pulmonary fibrosis. Other studies have shown that adult stem cells hold great potential to treat Parkinson's and diabetes. When asked at a June 2006 Senate hearing about the best avenues of research that could be pursued, Dr. James Battey, the director of the NIH Stem Cell Task Force responded, “to me, the very most interesting thing is… this frontier area of nuclear reprogramming, where you take a mature adult cell type and you effectively de-differentiate it back to the a pluripotent state.”
Ethical Alternatives Should Be Pursued Rather Than Seeking to Save Life By Destroying Life
We all desperately want to find cures for the diseases that afflict our friends, families and neighbors. Yet in our quest to find these cures, we must not ignore or rationalize the tremendous moral questions posed by destroying living embryos, which is undeniably human life in its earliest stages. We are fortunate that ethical alternatives to destructive embryonic stem cell research exist and it is imperative that we first pursue these ethical alternatives before even considering investing in research that requires destroying life to save life.
Embryonic Stem Cell Research Diverts Funding Away From More Promising Research
Over the past five years, Congress has increased funding for ESCR every year and increased annual funding almost four-fold, despite zero results. This bill seeks to increase federal ESCR funding even more, despite the lack of results and the existence of ethical alternatives that has a multitude of proven results and offers countless benefits from future research. Every dollar spent on research that does not yield results is one less dollar that could have been invested in research on ethical alternatives that are already yielding cures. Again, 25 years of embryonic stem cell research has produced zero cures.
Embryonic Stem Cells Have Dangerous Side Effects That May Require Other Unethical Practices to Remedy
In experiment after experiment, embryonic stem cells have demonstrated that they may be too taratogenic for therapeutic purposes. It is not uncommon in experiments on mammals for the animals to be killed by tumors. Uncontrollable growth of cells is one of the main reasons embryonic stem cells can not be tested in human subjects. As a consequence, cloning embryos and then destroying them to extract their stem cells or allowing embryos to develop into fetuses so that their organs can be cultivated may be the next step, but both techniques pose additional scientific, moral and ethical dilemmas.
Adult Stem Cells Have Consistently Outperformed Embryonic Stem Cells for Therapeutic Purposes
Virtually every breakthrough announced using embryonic stem cells in animal models has been preceded by a similar feat with often greater results using adult stem cells.
Very Few “Surplus” Embryos Are Available for Research
Proponents of destructive embryonic stem cell research claim that surplus embryos “are going to be discarded anyway.” A RAND study has found that to the contrary, very few embryos are expected to be discarded. The vast majority—88.2% are designated for family building and another 2.3% are being donated to other families for adoption. According to the RAND study, embryos available for research do not have high development potential and very embryonic stem cell lines could be created from the embryos available for research. This means that embryos would have to be created specifically for destruction is additional stem cell lines were to be created for research.
Patients Need Cures Not False Hopes
Leading proponents of research on embryonic stem cells are themselves lowering expectations that dramatic cures to diseases such as Alzheimer’s. The Guardian newspaper recently reported that Lord Winston, the most prominent embryonic-stem-cell researcher in the United Kingdom, said that hopes for cures had been distorted by arrogance and spin. “I view the current wave of optimism about embryonic stem cells with growing suspicion,” Winston told the British Association for the Advancement of Science. A leading embryonic stem cell researcher in South Korea who hailed some of the most promising advances in the field has admitted to falsifying his research. Exaggerated predications and expectations used to promote embryonic stem cell research exploit patients and families desperately seeking cures.
The related problem is that you're still using the first embryo as an experimental subject, without any of the safeguards essential to its moral status as a nascent human being.
The third problem is that the entire process of ovum extraction, sperm collection, in vitro fertilization, and so forth, has already reduced human procreation to an laboratory procedure resulting in a product who/which is a commodity in commercial transaction.
The entire distinction between a human being, a lab animal, and a bit of biological property is in smithereens.
So we (Americans) are right back where we were at the time of the Dred Scott decision of 1857, with the law unable to distinguish between a human being and a piece of property. Except at a potentially worse degree of complexity, since the human genome can now be altered through the introduction of heterologous genes, and the embryo manipulated into forms of abnormal development, so that distinguishing between "human" and "not-human" becomes almost impossible.
When Aldous Huxley wrote "Brave New World," he assumed --- didn't he? --- that people would want to prevent this from happening. There must be somebody out there who is thinking strategically about how to stop this whole race to total depersonalization. I think it should be done. You'd have to start by banning IVF. Lord. I almost despair of the possibility.
We are ;)
OK, good buddy, what's the strategy?
What, you mean chatting about the problem on FR is not working??..;)
Read "up-to-the-minute" info on wesleyjsmith.com blog.
The reason that lib Dems don't want to support Adult sc is because Embryonic sc reserach desensitizes life, which helps their abortion agenda. The lib Dems are beholding to the abortion industry.
Are there any Biblical passages that says thou shalt not use invitro to create a baby? If not I believe we are ok.
Please tell me this is sarcasm... please...?
Absolutely. I have to have some humor in my life especially while at work...
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