| CuresNow 2004-10-22, 7:08 am |
| Stem-cell 911
By Robert Lanza and Wendy Goldman Rohm
Outside View Commentators
Worcester, MA, Oct. 22 (UPI) -- In an unprecedented move, the Royal
Society -- Britain's National Academy of Science -- this week asked
the United Nations to ignore President George W. Bush's call for a ban
on all forms of human cloning, including stem-cell research.
What hangs in the balance, on the cusp of the U.N. vote and the
upcoming U.S. presidential election, is not only the plight of
millions of patients, but also the future of one of the greatest
medical advances in the 21st century.
It is alarming that the policy being pushed by the Bush administration
is not in sync with either public opinion (a recent Harris poll
indicates six out of seven people in the United States asked fully
support all forms of stem-cell research), or the expert opinions of
thousands of scientists and scores of Nobel laureates, both in the
United States and worldwide.
The president has also ignored the recommendations of the most
renowned scientific and medical groups in the country, including the
American Medical Association, National Academy of Sciences and the
American Association for the Advancement of Science. Indeed, the
president's ideological blinders seem to have put him in the same
factual vacuum he found himself in at the start of the Iraq war: then
and now, he refuses to look at the facts in an objective/scientific
fashion.
Even the United States' new ambassador to the United Nations, John
Danforth, called a news conference in support of therapeutic cloning
and the urgent need for this research. Now, like National Institutes
of Health chief Elias Zerhouni, Danforth has had to swallow the Bush
policy; he must promote the Bush position to the United Nations that
represents neither the scientific facts nor public opinion.
In the United States, Bush's habit of mixing personal religious
beliefs with public policy has slowly and subtly eroded the line
between church and state. This is inappropriate and damaging to human
well-being and public health. If the Bush administration succeeds in
extending this to the world via a U.N. ban, it will be a sad day
indeed.
Bush's policies in the area of scientific research are as damaging to
the public interest as his foreign policies have been to the state of
international peace.
In the U.S. arena, a careful look at the record will show that a
scientific and factual view of the world has rarely been incorporated
into decision-making by this president. Earlier this year, 5,000
scientists (including 48 Nobel laureates) spoke out in support of
embryonic stem-cell research and therapeutic cloning, and expressed
outrage at the Bush administration's habit of distorting science.
When Laura and George W. Bush state that embryonic stem-cell research
holds no near-term promise for helping patients with debilitating
diseases, scientists on the front lines know they are flat-out wrong.
With adequate funding, we can see the first therapies within five
years.
The scientific results so far speak for themselves. In animals,
embryonic stem cells already have reversed diabetes and fixed damaged
hearts. Nerve cells have been used to treat Parkinson's disease,
multiple sclerosis and to restore function to paralyzed rats.
Stem-cell scientists worldwide have no interest in destroying lives.
They obtain stem cells from tiny balls of cells left over in in-vitro
fertilization clinics. Some 400,000 of these are either discarded or
frozen in the United States. It is puzzling to us that the president
believes the potential life of a group of cells -- smaller than a
grain of sand -- is more valuable, say, than the life of a living,
feeling, 5-year-old with a life-threatening disease.
Leading Republicans like Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, are similarly
puzzled. They believe an embryo only has the potential for life when
it is a fetus in woman's womb, not a ball of cells in a test tube. The
question is whether a microscopic ball of cells warrants the same
rights as a parent or a spouse suffering from Alzheimer's disease, or
a young diabetic child who may go blind or have limbs amputated.
Even a generous private sector will be hard pressed to fill the
government's role. Overcoming the scientific challenges that remain
will require a large and sustained investment in this research. The
government is the only realistic source for such an infusion of funds,
and remains the greatest hope for moving embryonic stem-cell research
into the clinic in the next five to 10 years.
Without this support, research progress will be substantially delayed,
and many scientists and companies may be driven overseas, to the
United Kingdom, Singapore, South Korea, Israel and many others where
stem-cell research is more fully supported by government.
Bush's dangerously flawed policy in the United States should not be
allowed on the world stage, where it will severely dampen efforts
underway to relieve human suffering and disease with emerging
stem-cell therapies. Moreover, it should be overturned in the United
States; time is of the essence for millions of patients.
--
(Dr. Robert Lanza is editor in chief of "Handbook of Stem Cells" and
medical director at Advanced Cell Technology. Wendy Goldman Rohm is
author of "The Eighth Day: On the Front Lines of Stem Cell Research
and the Countdown to a Human Clone," to be published in April 2005 by
Harmony Books (Random House).)
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