by Rep. Zach Wamp
posted July 21, 2006
Listening to the rhetoric being tossed about this week on the floors of Congress and the tenor of the comments on call in shows regarding stem cell research, I was troubled to hear how this issue has unnecessarily divided the country.
Some people are saying that there is “a ban on embryonic stem cell research,” but in fact no ban exists and none is being considered. Embryo stem cell research in this country is legal and unrestricted. The current debate is over whether federal taxpayers should be forced to pay for research that takes human life in order to harvest parts for research, which millions of Americans believe is unethical.
Americans have also been told that miraculous breakthrough treatments and cures for debilitating diseases “are right at our fingertips” via embryo stem cell research, but they are not. Researchers – medical doctors and veteran scientists - have been telling us and science has shown that research on adult stem cells, which does not require the taking of human life, is much more effective and has yielded fantastic results.
In 2005, patients were being treated for 58 different conditions – either in clinical trials or in practice – with adult stem cells while research in embryonic stem cells has yielded none. In 2006, the number of conditions being treated with adult or blood stem cells has increased to 72, while the number being treated with embryonic stem cells remains at zero.
People on the other side of the debate would claim this discrepancy is due to improper funding of embryonic stem cell research. But this is also not the case. California and other states have passed laws authorizing hundreds of millions of state taxpayer dollars to fund bio-technology companies and research universities to do embryo cell research. California alone has authorized $3 billion over 10 years. To put that in perspective, that is $300 million annually - almost more than the National Institutes of Health (NIH) spends on all types of stem cell research – and California’s funding is devoted solely to embryonic stem cell research and cloning.
As for the claim that President Bush is preventing embryonic stem cell research, that is also demonstrably false. In 2005 alone, the NIH spent almost $40 million on human embryonic stem cell research and, according to testimony recently given before a Senate panel by Dr. James Battey, the NIH’s director of stem cell research, the NIH continues to fund quality grants for embryonic stem cell research as they are received.
But this debate is a day late and a dollar short. Recently, Japanese researchers discovered how to essentially transform adult stem cells into embryonic stem cells. So the question now is: why should we engage in this lengthy and divisive debate in which neither side is going to gain any political points? Our research goals should be pursuing technology that allows us to engage in scientific study that supporters of embryonic stem cell research advocate but without the ethical questions to human life.
Scientists in America are still free to engage in embryonic stem cell research, even though it has not resulted in any treatments yet. But if we are truly forward thinking, if we really want to give hope to those with debilitating diseases and conditions, if we want to honor the Hippocratic oath of “do no harm” we will urge research in all these areas while respecting the sanctity of human life and base our communication with the American people on fact, not fiction.
* * *
As a Chattanooga native and human embryonic stem cell researcher, I feel it necessary to say a few words in response to the recent banter about this field of research as a whole. There is much debate about which type of stem cell research will be most beneficial to man, that with adult stem cells or with their embryonic counterpart. I quote Mr. Wamp as saying "Researchers – medical doctors and veteran scientists - have been telling us and science has shown that research on adult stem cells, which does not require the taking of human life, is much more effective and has yielded fantastic results."
What Mr. Wamp fails to mention is that these scientist and researchers will also say that human embryonic stem cells serve as an invaluable research tool outside of the scope of cell replacement therapies in regenerative medicine. These cells provide a window into studying the fundamentals of human developmental biology, disease etiology, as well as they serve as a tool for drug screening and discovery. Human embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells represent two avenues of science that should be equally explored, as they both hold promise in the advancement of the biomedical sciences.
Stem cell research is still in its infancy, we cannot expect to see results on demand. We have to realize that science is not a linear process, but a series of fits and starts over extensive periods of time. We must be patient and careful not to over-promise and under-deliver. We will continue to see years of scientific progression at the lab bench before we will likely see any clinical applications. Although we may not see cures for diseases right away, I assure you that this does not reflect the failure of this field. I would like to remind you that it is a long road from the lab bench to the clinic.
I would also like to mention just a bit about the moral concerns of human embryonic stem cell research. To fully address the issue we must think about the source of and alternative fates for embryos from which hESCs are derived. These embryos are left over from procedures of In Vitro Fertilization, they are the remaining embryos after the woman has sustained a healthy pregnancy. We have to think about the fate of these embryos, of which there are over 400,000 in the United States alone. Mr. Bush says that there is no such thing as a 'spare embryo,' and so the only possible fate would be to find a surrogate for each of these 400,000 plus embryos as well as a home for every resultant child. Given the absurdity of this idea, we have to think of other potential fates for these embryos. Shall they remain in their liquid nitrogen stores indefinitely until they are discarded, or shall we harness their potential for medicine and science through human embryonic stem cell research?
Kit Nazor
kristopher.nazor@gmail.com
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In his July 21 post to Chattanoogan.com, Mr. Wamp is obviously referring to the “work” of David Prentice, a scientist with the conservative Family Research Council. Prentice claims scientific papers prove that adult stem cell lines could be useful treatments “for at least 65 diseases.” Prentice’s research is used to argue that enhanced embryonic stem cell research is unnecessary.
It’s not true. A letter to the journal Science by three stem cell experts, Shane Smith of the Children's Neurobiological Solutions Foundation in Santa Barbara, Calif.; William B. Neaves of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City, Mo.; and Steven Teitelbaum of Washington University in St. Louis, debunks Prentice’s claims item by it em. They added,
“Prentice not only misrepresents existing adult stem cell treatments but also frequently distorts the nature and content of the references he cites…By promoting the falsehood that adult stem cell treatments are already in general use for 65 diseases and injuries, Prentice and those who repeat his claims mislead laypeople and cruelly deceive patients.”
Only 9 of the 65 examples cited by Prentice hold up to scrutiny. For example, “a study cited by Prentice as evidence that adult stem cells can help patients with testicular cancer is in fact a study that evaluates methods of isolating adult stem cells.”
Similarly, a published report that Prentice cites as evidence that adult stem cells can help patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma does not address the medical value of those cells but rather describes the best way to isolate cells from lymphoma patients and grow them in laboratory dishes, the letter said.
And Prentice's reference to the usefulness of adult stem cells for patients with Sandhoff disease - a rare nerve disorder - is "a layperson's statement in a newspaper article," the scientists reported.
Prentice told the Washington Post, “I appreciate them pointing out some of the things…that need to be changed and updated.”
So, the obvious conclusion to Rep. Wamp’s article is that he is either one of the deceivers or one of the deceived. At best he doesn’t do his homework, and this is another example of his parroting of information to go along with the Bush administration and its congressional leaders. At worst it is a lie purposefully presented to deceive the voters of our district.
Laziness or deception? Either is easy to believe from someone who brushes away his term limit agreement in the Contract with America he signed with the simple excuse that he realizes the idea of term limits was a mistake. His other mistake was to sign the contract which stated that if these legislators failed to make good on their contract with us that we should vote them out. It will be our mistake if we don’t.
W. Smith
Red Bank
esdawg@comcast.net
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