Stemming
the Tide of Misinformation
Chances are you've never heard of Melissa Holley. She's an
American teenager whose spinal cord was severed in an auto accident last year,
leaving her paraplegic. Today Melissa "has recovered significant motor
function in her legs" and regained bladder control, following an injection
of immune cells from her own blood into the damaged area of her spinal cord.
She's not walking (yet), but the new treatment developed by Proneuron
Biotechnologies in
That Melissa's astonishing progress was not front page news may be
due to the fact that we're in the middle of a highly politicized debate over
federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research. With few exceptions, the
national media have chosen sides with pro-funding forces. Reporters and
columnists have all but ignored astounding research developments involving
cells obtained without injury to the donor-- from, e.g., adult human tissue,
umbilical cord blood, placentas, and even the brains of cadavers. At the same
time they have trumpeted even modest advances using embryonic stem cells--as if
cures were suddenly at hand for "incurable" conditions like diabetes,
paralysis, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's--and downplayed the negative scientific
and ethical aspects of using these cells.
Examples of this media bias were detailed in May by the
Statistical Assessment Service (STATS), a non-partisan, non-profit research
organization devoted to the accurate use of scientific and social research in
public policy debate.
One example STATS cited was a report that mouse embryonic stem
cells had been programmed to secrete insulin, supposedly pointing to a cure for
diabetes (Science, April 2001). This
received wide and enthusiastic media coverage. But no mention was made of a
much more significant development more
than a year earlier, in which adult
mouse pancreatic stem cells successfully reversed
diabetes in the mice (Nature Medicine,
March 2000).
And journalists neglected to mention that the mice receiving the embryonic stem cells still died from diabetes (a point which
diabetics might find relevant). Nor has there been coverage of further
developments here and abroad where ductal tissue from adult human pancreas has produced
insulin-secreting islet buds in culture.
Unless you read science journals, you would not know that amazing
advances in research using non-embryonic stem cells are occurring rapidly. A
few examples:
* Human patients were
successfully treated for heart disease using stem cells from their own arm
muscles (The Lancet, Jan. 2001);
* umbilical cords
"offer a vast new source of repair material for fixing brains damaged by
strokes or other ills" (Associated Press report);
* stem cells from
the adult bone marrow of rats and mice created new heart muscle cells and blood
vessels;
* UCLA researchers
created human bone, cartilage and muscle tissue from human fat stem cells;
* at the Salk
Institute, brain stem cells taken as long as 20 hours after death, from
cadavers up to 72 years of age, were induced to proliferate; and,
* adult bone marrow
stem cells can form almost any cell type-liver, nerve, brain, and so on (Science, June 2001).
Such discoveries mean that real cures for debilitating conditions
are possible in the foreseeable future.
How many therapeutic successes can scientists point to using
embryonic stem cells in clinical trials on humans? Zero. At a June 22 workshop,
"Stem Cells and the Future of Regenerative Medicine," sponsored by
the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, the chairman of the
Institute's committee studying stem cell research, Bert Vogelstein, M.D.
(professor of oncology and pathology and Johns Hopkins University), said all
claims of therapeutic benefit from embryonic stem cell research are
"conjectural." He added, "there is no experience with embryonic
stem cells in humans, and very little in mice."
Marcus Grompe, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Molecular and Medical
Genetics, Oregon Health Sciences University concurred: "There is no
evidence of therapeutic benefit from embryonic stem cells."
Why then have the national media, with few exceptions, talked only
about advances with embryonic stem cells? Why have they been loathe to admit
that embryos are something more than disposable clumps of cells? Maybe they
fear that the precarious edifice of abortion rights could topple, and that the
great god, Science, may be restrained by "conventional" and
"outdated" morality.
The new morality, underlying many editorials, can be reduced to
one commandment: The end justifies the
means.
Of Lice
and Supermen
Anna Quindlen, New York
Times columnist, wore her utilitarian heart on her sleeve when she wrote:
"It may be an oversimplification to say that real live loved ones trump
the imagined unborn, that a cluster of undifferentiated cells due to be
discarded anyway is a small price to pay for the health and welfare of
millions. Or perhaps it is only a simple commonsensical truth."
She echoes Raskolnikov's rationale for killing an old pawnbroker:
"Dozens of families [might be] saved. ... Take her money and with the help
of it, devote oneself to the service of humanity and the good of all. ...
Besides, what value has the life of that sickly, stupid, ill-natured old woman
[or undifferentiated "fertilized egg"] in a balance of
existence?" (Dostoevsky, Crime and
Punishment).
Raskolnikov liked to think of himself as one of the
"extraordinary men" who have the right to commit crimes in pursuit of
their great ideas. But after killing the pawnbroker and her sister, he
discovers that he was not a superman, just a "louse."
And history offers endless examples of what happens when groups of
humans are treated as "less than humans," as objects for others' use
and destruction.
The path we should walk is clear. We must resist efforts to kill.
We must resist the justification of killing human embryos through appeals to
the "greater good" of patients or society. And we should support
important legislation like the "Responsible Stem Cell Research Act of
2001," sponsored by Congressman Chris Smith, allocating $30 million for
stem cell research from non-embryonic sources and creating a "cell donor
bank" to serve researchers nationwide.
Over 24,000 people have signed a petition to President Bush on
this issue, organized by the Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics (at
www.stemcellresearch.org). In fact, why not sign up today? And let the White
House know what you think.