First he rescinded the Mexico City
Policy, which prevented US tax dollars from paying for abortions
overseas. Now, as promised, President Obama has declared that the
federal government will allow funding for embryonic stem-cell
research. This reverses the Bush Administration's policy of
protecting human embryos from being created and then destroyed in
the name of science. In the meanwhile, scientists have had
increasing success in developing cures that use adult stem-cells,
with much less ethical controversy.
Embryonic stem-cell(ESC) research
never completely went away; private companies have been laboring
away with funding from investors. Government agencies were unable to
continue research due to lack of federal funding, but that did not
stop private biotech companies from pursuing ESC Days after
President Obama was sworn into office, the FDA gave a go-ahead for
the first clinical trial of a drug made with embryonic stem-cells.
On January 23, the California biotechnology company Geron was
cleared to start a clinical trial to re-grow damaged spinal cord
tissue using stem-cells from human embryos. Now that federal funding
is available, this type of research promises to take off. The stock
in several stem-cell research companies shot up at Obama's
announcement on Monday, many jumping between 20 and 48 percent.
In the past absence of federal
funding, though, many stem-cell companies began to focus on
developing therapies using adult stem-cells. Researchers at Lindner
Research Center at Christ Hospital in Cincinnati will start a trial
treatment on a diabetic patient using stem-cells from adult bone
marrow. Physicians sponsored by Osirus Therapeutics will determine
whether the patient's pancreas is healed through use of Prochymal, a
medication made of adult mesenchymal stem-cells.
People have been treated overseas
with adult stem-cell therapies for years. One Dr. Howard Lindeman
had adult stem-cell therapy to repair his heart after a heart
attack. "I had the procedure done and since then, I've just been
getting better and better and better. I'm going to be 58-years-old
in May and I'm on my way to being 35 again," he said at a stem-cell
seminar in Naples, Florida.
Embryonic stem-cell research, on
the other hand, has some serious problems. A purely practical
concern is that embryonic stem-cell therapy can have serious side
effects. The potential for tumors with fast-growing embryonic
stem-cells is well known. Adult stem-cells may be more difficult to
coax into becoming heart or pancreas cells, but they also have a
much lower chance of causing tumors in already-ill patients.
"The use of ASC requires a
different thinking, but they can be as effective as ESC, if not
more," argues stem-cell scientist Christian Drapeau. "ASC do not
grow easily in vitro and they are not easy to re-program. But there
are ways of using ASC that can be just as effective as methods using
ESC, without the risk of tumor formation."
Another problem with embryonic
stem-cell therapy is immune rejection. Whereas adult stem-cells can
come from a patient's own body, and therefore be accepted easily,
embryonic stem-cells are somebody else's body and run the risk of
being rejected by the immune system.
The most serious difficulty with
ESC research and therapy, however, is that it destroys human embryos
for their stem-cells. Even if the treatment could eventually cure
terrible diseases, it would always have a serious ethical and moral
price-tag attached.
The fact that US taxpayers will
now be funding the research has upset a large number of Americans:
"President Obama's executive order
to federally fund experimentation on embryonic human lives certainly
represents change: For the first time in our nation's history,
citizens will now be required to participate in killing embryonic
human lives for research," said Michael Janocik, assistant director
of the Right to Life Educational Foundation of Kentucky.
Criticism also came from the
Legislative Branch. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
(R-Kentucky) said in a statement, "With this announcement, the
government is, for the first time, incentivizing the creation and
destruction of human embryos at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer."
Many scientists and patients are
rejoicing at President Obama's executive order in the name of
funding research that might save lives. Yet, funding the treatment
of human embryos as a disposable 'therapy' is bad policy, especially
when there are available alternatives that do not depend on the
destruction of human life.
"Adult stem-cells are showing
great promise," notes Christian Drapeau. "This is a very very
important area of research right now and people must realize that
Embryonic stem-cells are not the only stem-cell phenomenon out
there."
