Stem Cell Research: Science and Politics
Seventy-three prominent scientists, including 67 Nobel
prize winners, signed a letter supporting plans by the
National Institutes of Health to consider financing
research with stem cells that originated from human
embryos. The letter, published in the journal Science,
said that despite the opposition of more than 70 members
of Congress, the NIH position on human stem cell research
"is both laudable and forward-thinking." This research,
the scientists said, could be used to treat heart disease
and brain disorders and could
"perhaps even cure"
diabetes.
Pluripotent stem cells are the master cells from which
all body tissue develops. During gestation, the cells
change into the 210 types of cells that make up the
human body.
Privately funded researchers recently took cells from
aborted or unused embryos no longer needed for invitro
fertilization and grew colonies of pluripotent stem cells.
In some experiments, the cells differentiated into other
types of cells, supporting the theory that heart, brain
and other tissue could be grown from such cells.
There is growing disagreement between medical researchers
who say stem cell research offers great promise and members
of Congress who believe the research is immoral because it
starts with aborted human embryos. The lawmakers support
a ban on federal funding of human embryo research and say
that ban includes stem cells.
Dr. Harold Varmus, director of the National Institutes
of Health, proposed in January that the agency consider
funding such studies. He said the research may not violate
the federal ban because it would use existing stem cell
colonies and not involve working directly with embryos.
An NIH committee is being selected to evaluate the ethical
concerns.
In their letter, the 73 scientists said Varmus' plan
"succeeds in protecting the sanctity of human life
without impeding biomedical research that could be
profoundly important to the understanding and treatment
of human disease." Stem cells could be used to make "a
long list of cells and tissues that could be used for
transplantation." New cells could be injected to restore
ailing hearts, or to correct damage by Parkinson's disease,
or to replace failed insulin-producing cells, and, thus,
cure diabetes, they said.
If Congress blocks this research, the letter said, "these
tremendous scientific and medical benefits may never become
available to the patients who so desperately need them."
In reply, the leader of an antiabortion group in Congress,
Rep. Christopher H. Smith, R-N.J., said: "Some scientists
resent any moral limits on their use of taxpayer funds for
harmful experiments. I reject the claim that a degree in
science -- even a Nobel Prize in science -- makes scientists
our supreme arbiters of morality and human dignity." Smith
leads a group of 70 Congress members who have written two
letters opposing Varmus' plans. The congressman said medical
experimenters have committed "horrific abuses" in the past.
Addressing the scientists, Smith said: "Americans will not
endorse lethal experiments on infants just because you claim
it would be useful. We should not start down that road now."
Among those who signed the scientists' letter were Nobel
laureates Dr. Robert F. Furchgott of State University of
New York, 1998 winner for discovery the action of nitric
oxide in the body;
Eric F. Wieschaus of Princeton, 1995 winner for studies
of genes in developing fetuses;
Joseph E. Murray of Harvard, 1991 winner for studies on
cell and organ transplantation; and
James D. Watson of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories,
co-discoverer in 1953 of the DNA molecule.
