Washington, DC — Disappointed that more federal funds have not been sent
their direction to prop up embryonic stem cell research which relies on
killing human life to save it, some scientists complained at a Senate
subcommittee hearing last week that they are running out of embryonic stem
cells to use in research.
Embryonic stem cell research has not been responsible for curing the disease
of one single patient, while stem cell research using stem cells from more
ethical sources has helped numerous patience recover from a host of
debilitating ailments.
Almost 14 months after President Bush first limited federal funding of any
new embryonic stem cell research, some U.S. scientists remain frustrated by a lack of access to the controversial cells.
At the same time, the number of laboratories making the cells available to
scientists has begun to increase, senators were told. And a handful of labs
have now received grants from the National Institutes of Health to help them
scale up production and distribution of the medically promising cells.
Nonetheless, scientists said, the restrictive nature of the Bush policy,
patent conflicts and the technical difficulty of keeping the fragile cells
alive have conspired to stifle research in what they had hoped would be, by
now, a highly energized research field.
“Embryonic stem cell research is crawling like a caterpillar,” said Curt I.
Civin, a pediatric oncologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
The cells, Civin said, are accessible “only to those persistent and patient
enough to jump through a series of hoops and endure lengthy waits. I am still
waiting to receive my first stem cell line.”
Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the ranking Republican on the Appropriations
subcommittee on labor, health and human services, and education, said he is
worried that delays could undermine the U.S. lead in the stem cell field.
“A big issue arises as to whether [the Bush policy] is adequate to carry on
the research,” said Specter, who is pushing for more destructive research.
Because Specter headed up the subocmmittee hearing, he did not invite
advocates of the pro-life persecptive on stem cell research to participate.
Elias Zerhouni, the new NIH director, told the subcommittee that his agency
is working hard to make the eligible cells more available. The NIH has
awarded $4.3 million to five laboratories that account for 23 approved cell
lines, he said. Those and two additional pending awards are to help labs
scale up the growth, testing, quality assurance and distribution of cells.
The NIH has also helped four cell-supplying laboratories develop material
transfer agreements that spell out the intellectual property rights of
distributors and receivers. Six labs on the NIH campus have received cells
under those agreements, Zerhouni said, as have about 74 researchers at dozens of institutions in the United States and abroad. The NIH has awarded
scientists more than $4.2 million to initiate experiments on the cells.
Roger Pedersen, the California researcher who moved to Cambridge University
in England, said none of the cell lines approved by Bush have real
therapeutic potential because they were cultivated with mouse cells, making
them all but ineligible for transplantation into humans. By contrast, he
said, his team is developing new colonies that he hopes will pass muster with
the Food and Drug Administration.
(This update courtesy of Steven Ertelt and the Pro-Life Infonet email newsletter. For more information or to subscribe go to www.prolifeinfo.org or email infonet@prolifeinfo.org.)
President Bush v. Nancy Reagan on Stem Cell Research
Washington, DC — When Nancy Reagan received the Presidential Medal of
Freedom at the White House last summer, she cast her eyes demurely downward as President Bush praised her 1980's “Just Say No,” campaign against teenage drug use.
Bush did not cite Reagan's current and far more divisive cause — federal
financing for embryonic stem cell research, which pro-life groups oppose
because it involves the destruction of human life. Last year Bush sharply
limited such research. At 81, the former first lady is obliquely but
persistently campaigning — through friends, advisers, lawmakers and her own
well-placed calls and letters — to reverse the president's decision.
Mrs. Reagan believes that embryonic stem cell research could uncover a cure
for Alzheimer's, the disease that has wiped out her husband's memory. She was dismayed, friends say, when the White House took issue on Monday with a new California law that encourages embryonic stem cell research.
Pro-life advocates disagree with Reagan's push for the research for former
President Reagan, a strongly pro-life president. Embryonic stem cell research
has not been responsible for curing the disease of one single patient, while
stem cell research using stem cells from more ethical sources has helped
numerous patience recover from a host of debilitating ailments.
Her advisers say Reagan's sense of decorum and party loyalty inhibit her from
publicly challenging a Republican president. Instead, she is expressing her
frustration through emissaries.
“A lot of time is being wasted,” she told a friend last week who was given
permission to pass her words on to The New York Times.
Bob Colacello, a Vanity Fair writer who is working on a biography of Mrs.
Reagan, said, “In the four years that I have been working on the book, I have
never seen or heard her talk about a policy issue — except stem cell
research.”
Mrs. Reagan voiced concerns about the president's policy on stem cell
research with the White House chief of staff, Andrew Card, at the dinner
party in her honor, an aide to Card said. But her friends say it is unlikely
she would have breached etiquette by raising the issue with Mr. Bush while a
guest in his house.
Once a first lady, now Mrs. Reagan is a lobbyist, working her old network to
once again wield influence in Washington. She has personally contacted 20
members of Congress, button-holed administration officials and conferred with
leading scientists, including Dr. Richard D. Klausner, who resigned as
director of the National Cancer Institute last September and now runs the
global health program of the pro-abortion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
“Mrs. Reagan has been very helpful in talking to members about the use of
stem cells,” said Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, who a
leading advocate of the destructive research. “She's a former first lady, she
holds a special position because of her own persuasive personality, and her
husband, President Reagan, has Alzheimer's. She's a triple threat.”
Last year Mrs. Reagan wrote to Bush. She then entrusted two advisers to show her letter to influential Republican legislators. On the eve of Bush's
decision last year, she instructed an ally, veiled under the stiff euphemism,
“people familiar with Mrs. Reagan's feelings,” to inform reporters that she
had communicated her views on stem cell research to Bush.
The White House responded delicately. “A great many good-hearted people have strong feelings about this,” Adam Levine, a spokesman, said. “The president is confident that the decision he made last year strikes the right balance between moral and ethical responsibility and furthering scientific research.”
