Title . . .

POLICY BRIEF: Stem Cell Research
Updated Wednesday, August 14, 2002

Scientific Breakthrough
The issue of stem cell research burst on the scientific scene in November of 1998 when researchers first reported the isolation of human embryonic stem (ES) cells. The discovery, made by Dr. James A. Thomson, a biologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, offers great promise for new ways of treating disease. ES cells, which are derived from several-day-old embryos, can theoretically differentiate into virtually any type of human cell, from blood cells to skin cells. Scientists hope to find ways of using these cells to repair damaged tissue. (For a clear and concise description of stem cells and their potential, see the recent National Institutes of Health (NIH) report Stem Cells: Scientific Progress and Future Research Directions, executive summary 10 page PDF file.)

Human embryonic stem cell colonies in different stages of development. The maintenance of embryonic stem cells in their undifferentiated form is a primary accomplishment of the work reported in the Nov. 6 Science by a team from UW-Madison. Here, embryonic stem cell colonies sometimes include a core of undifferentiated cells surrounded by a margin of differentiated cells, such as the small colony at right in Figure B.
Image Credit: 1998 Science.

Ban on Embryo Research
Dr. Thomson's breakthrough work was not eligible for funding from NIH, the federal government's primary sponsor of biomedical research, and the sponsor of some of his other research projects. Instead, he set up a separate lab to work on human ES cells supported by private funding from the Geron Corp. of Menlo Park, Calif., and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

The work was ineligible for public funding because of a ban placed on NIH-funded human embryo research by Congress. In 1995, Congress attached the ban to the bill appropriating funds for NIH. It has been retained in each successive appropriations bill (appropriations bills are passed annually), and until 2001, no public funding was ever provided for human ES cell research in the United States. The following is the text of the ban, originally authored in 1995 by then-Rep. Jay Dickey (R-AR), as it appeared in NIH's most recent (fiscal 2002) appropriations bill (H.R. 3061, Sec. 510):

(a) None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for--
(1) the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes; or
(2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater than that allowed for research on fetuses in utero under 45 CFR 46.208(a)(2) and section 498(b) of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 289g(b)).
(b) For purposes of this section, the term `human embryo or embryos' includes any organism, not protected as a human subject under 45 CFR 46 as of the date of the enactment of this Act, that is derived by fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means from one or more human gametes or human diploid cells.

Because of the great potential promised by Dr. Thomson's discovery, NIH sought legal counsel from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on the application of the ban to ES cell research. In January 1999, HHS concluded that public funds could be used for research on ES cells as long as derivation of the cells--which results in the destruction of an embryo--was carried out with private funds. NIH thus began drafting guidelines governing funding for ES cell studies.

Ethical Dispute
Opponents of ES cell research hold that human life begins as soon as an egg is fertilized, and they consider a human embryo to be a human being. They therefore consider any research that necessitates the destruction of a human embryo to be morally abhorrent.

Proponents of ES cell research, meanwhile, point out that in the natural reproductive process, human eggs are often fertilized but fail to implant in the uterus. A fertilized egg, they argue, while it may have the potential for human life, cannot be considered equivalent to a human being until it has at least been successfully implanted in a woman's uterus.

In vitro fertilization clinics routinely create more human embryos than are needed over the course of a fertility treatment, and are therefore left with excess embryos which are often simply discarded. Proponents of research hold that it is morally permissible to use such embryos for potentially life-saving biomedical research. Opponents object to this argument, however, saying that such research would still condone the destruction of embryos.

Some opponents of ES cell research also argue that research on stem cells obtained from adults is just as promising and renders ES cell research unnecessary. Most scientists, however, dispute this claim, citing great potential in the field of adult stem cells but several drawbacks as compared with ES cells. Proponents of ES cell research advocate funding for both fields.
(Much More: AAAS.org)
2002 © American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Dan