Stem Cells Polarize Ethics

CEH ^ | April 7, 2009

[GodGunsGuts]

April 7, 2009 — Adult stem cells are continuing to promise revolutionary therapies, while embryonic stem cells remain a political football even after Obama’s loosening of restrictions.  Some stories seem to suppress the word “embryonic” and just talk about “stem cells,” but there is a big difference in the ethics of one over the other.  Embryonic stem cells require harvesting a human embryo.

Adult Stem Cell News

1. Diabetes:  Sufferers of peripheral artery disease, common among diabetics, may have hope using stem cells from their own bone marrow.  PhysOrg reported that researchers at the University of Western Ontario isolated three types of stem cells from bone marrow that can regrow blood vessels.

2. Bone:  Arthritis?  Hip fracture? The BBC News reported that stem cells from bone marrow are showing promise to regrow bone.  Researchers at Keele University attach the stem cells to tiny magnets and then guide them to places where they are needed.  “The technique combines the patients [sic] own bone marrow stem cells with donor bone cells to patch-repair damaged bones that would otherwise need treatment with metal plates and pins.” 

3. Angina:  Adult stem cells may alleviate the pain of angina and allow patients with the heart condition to walk again.  Autologous (from-the-patient) stem cells from bone marrow helped patients walk longer on a treadmill without pain, reported Science Daily.

Embryonic Stem Cell News

1. Fetal harvesting:  An upbeat article from Science Daily says “New Stem Cell Therapy May Lead To Treatment For Deafness.”  The body of the article describes a scientist from University of Sheffield harvesting cochlear cells from 9- to 11-week old human fetuses.  They got them to differentiate into inner ear cell types, but not to form the hair bundles characteristic of the cochlea.  The research is in the early stages; no actual treatments are being proposed.  It was not clear from the article where they got the fetuses.

2. Brazil nuts:  Science last week reported that Brazil ran roughshod over religious leaders by banking on embryonic stem cell research over their objections.  “Despite vocal opposition from religious groups, the Brazilian government has launched a major initiative in pluripotent stem cell research.  In the past 3 weeks, eight university labs in four states started receiving the first payments of a 3-year, $9.3 million grant intended to reshape them into Cell Technology Centers.”  In this predominantly Catholic country, religious leaders have opposed ES research for years, but “A coalition of scientific groups, including the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science, and patients' advocacy organizations fought back.”  Last year, after one advocate “helped fill the Supreme Federal Court galleries with people in wheelchairs and their relatives,” Brazil’s Supreme Court upheld a 2005 law allowing the harvesting of stem cells from fertility clinics.  Now the government is supporting it with the taxes of those who oppose it.

3. Harvesting Obama for more:  Constance Holden wrote in Science March 20 that scientists, though thrilled with Obama’s executive order loosening restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, want more: “Many scientists would like to work with lines created through research cloning, or somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT).”  Human cloning was considered abhorrent by most ethicists during the Bush administration.  Arguments for stem cells from fertility clinics at the time stressed that those embryos were going to be destroyed anyway.  Many politicians on both sides of the aisle at the time stressed that they did not support human cloning.
   

   Obama’s executive order, however, did not specify the source of the embryos.  It appears that scientists might have the liberty to choose what stem cells to work on – including those of human embryos created solely for research purposes.  What guidelines or restrictions will the National Institutes of Health (NIH) provide?

   The traditional opponents of hES cell research are expecting the worst.  Even with the derivation of new cell lines still banned, some fear the new policy will turn the federal government into an indirect supporter of cloning.  The executive order “turned out to be far more extreme than [the] biggest proponents had hoped,” said the Family Research Council.  “With no clear policy from the White House, you and I could be footing the bill for research that clones embryos just to scavenge their parts.”  Psychiatrist and columnist Charles Krauthammer, a former member of the president’s bioethics commission, said in an op-ed column that he does not oppose hES cell research but accused the president of “moral abdication” in leaving it up to scientists whether to create embryos solely for research.

   On the contrary, says Harvard University’s George Daley: “We need legislation that allows [such] decisions ... to be left to scientists.”  Daley points out that guidelines hammered out in 2005 by a committee of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and regularly updated, as well as recommendations by the International Society for Stem Cell Research, do not specify what biological sources should be used but focus on informed consent procedures for obtaining eggs, sperm, or embryos, and proper scientific procedures.

   So far, there’s no available evidence that researchers anywhere are using lines other than from excess IVF embryos....

   The tone of the article indicates that scientists want to police their own policies but fear running afoul of public concerns over ethics.  Meanwhile, Kurt Gottfried and Harold Varmus, in the same issue of Science (March 20), portrayed the Obama Era (including his support of embryonic stem cell research) as “The Enlightenment Returns.”  This presumably portrays the Bush Era as a kind of scientific Dark Ages.  They commented on Obama’s call for scientific integrity, which they interpreted as science free from political agendas performed by those with good scientific qualifications, but they did not use the words ethics or morals.

Leading science journals have been attacking the Bush era and praising the Obama administration for its support of embryonic stem cell research.  Nature said last week, “President Barack Obama’s appointment of academic scientists and economists to positions of high authority in his administration has created the sort of excitement in universities and among researchers that has not been seen for eight years.  Certainly, after George W. Bush’s grudging agreement to a constricted programme of stem-cell research and his politicization of scientific findings about the environment, Obama’s choice of prominent scholars is a breath of fresh air.”

Likewise, Science interviewed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, giving her high marks for her support of “science.”  Reporter Jeffrey Mervis called her a “big hit” and said she “lights up a crowd” with her support of scientific institutions.  “Donning her mantle as party leader, she used the events to take a swipe at the Bush Administration,” he said, quoting her: “For a long time, science had not been in the forefront.  It was faith or science, take your pick.  Now we’re saying that science is the answer to our prayers.”  She also told a group of “assembled biomedical bigwigs” that “we need your help again to make President Obama’s executive order on stem cell research the law of the land.”

The scientific societies, wedded to liberal politics as they are, don’t know ethics from a black hole.  “We don’t see anyone cloning humans... yet” they say, softening the public, like a frog in the pot, to accept what is coming.

To understand what is going on, read Ann Coulter’s book Godless about the secular liberal love fest with abortions and embryonic stem cells, in spite of the scientific evidence.  Read how liberals use victims and emotional propaganda, like celebrity pleas and courtrooms filled with wheelchairs, to spin their desire to kill as “compassion.”  See intentional folly turn into moral evil in the name of science by people who hate real science.  It will break your heart.

From the people who deny God as the Author of life, and who see humans as evolved slime, what would you expect?  Life is cheap.  Life is trash.  Scientists can play with it and do whatever they want.  Morals, shmorals.  If a cure for some disease emerges, fine, but it’s not a requirement.  Just get me a Nobel Prize.  In a perverted revolutionary cry, the out-of-control scientists shout: give me liberty, and give me death.

[GodGunsGuts]

Ping!

[MrB]

The EMBRYONIC stem cell issue is about keeping any human value from being assigned to the unborn. Period.

It has NOTHING to do with any potential cures.

[Liberty1970]

I wonder what supporters of embryonic stem cell harvesting would say if someone promised scientific progress could be achieved by killig their infant children, or toddlers, and so on?

They are killing human beings in the name of science, same as the Nazis. If pointing that out makes me "anti-scientific" then so be it. (I still believe in scientific laws from a Lawgiver and a rational universe from the same, however. ;-)

[frogjerk]

Some stories seem to suppress the word “embryonic” and just talk about “stem cells,”

Every single story in the MSM speaks with forked tongue like this. This is from the devil.

[Moonman62]

I finally agree with you on something. If scientists really want to work with ESC's, they can use them from mice or other animals. They can also turn adult stem cells into ESC's using only one transcription factor.

Single factor converts adult stem cells into embryonic-like stem cells

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[G Larry]

“Politics polarizes Science”

The scientific results are best illustrated by the lack of private money flowing to Embryonic Stem Cell research.

If ESC had any potential, it wouldn’t be looking for government money.

The liberal desire to pretend abortion has a medical benefit is the ONLY motivating factor for ESC research.

[MEGoody]

If pointing that out makes me "anti-scientific" then so be it.

It is scientifically certain that a human life is begins upon conception. Those who try to claim that an embryo is not a human life are the ones denying science.

[MainFrame65]

At ANY stage - and for ANY reason - it is nothing short of CANNIBALISM. For the scientists, drug companies, and captive “bio-ethicists” (bio-DEATH-assist?) it is the primary source of their livelihood. These are not the consumers of living human flesh, but the purveyors - the abattoir and rendering plant - of this sick indulgence

The consumers of this awful harvest include only a tiny number of recipients, and many of them have suffered terribly for their surrender to expediency. These juvenile cells can grow uncontrollably, and can transform into undesired cell types - or they can languish and die with no effect at all. A vanishingly small number of minor successes, a larger number of victims, and a still larger number of expectations raised and dashed is a record of abject failure.

But worst of all are the cheerleaders - the politicians and ideologues who pursue this fixation in order to pander to the abortion crowd. I don't have the words to express my contempt for these parasites.