Nobel Laureates Back Stem Cell Research

Group of 80 Recipients Sends Letter Asking Bush Not to Block U.S. Funding
for Studies

By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 22, 2001; Page A02

Hoping that sheer brainpower may help tip the balance in a heated political
and ethical debate, 80 U.S. Nobel laureates have signed a letter to
President Bush urging him to not block the first flow of federal dollars for
research on human embryo cells.

The letter, which organizers believe is the biggest collection of Nobel
signatures ever sent to a president, marks the latest effort to influence
the Bush administration as it decides whether to fund experiments on
embryonic stem cells. The cells, obtained from spare human embryos slated
for destruction at fertility clinics, are widely believed to hold the
potential to cure many ailments, including juvenile diabetes and Parkinson's
disease.

The decision about whether to fund the work is forcing the new
administration to weigh its political allegiances in an escalating battle
pitting antiabortion activists against patient advocates and biomedical
researchers.

Opponents of the work say the cells are ethically tainted because human
embryos must be destroyed to retrieve them.

But in their letter to Bush, the Nobel laureates say that given the cells'
great therapeutic promise, it would be immoral not to study them.

"While we recognize the legitimate ethical issues raised by this research,
it is important to understand that the cells being used in this research
were destined to be discarded in any case," the letter said. "Under these
circumstances, it would be tragic to waste this opportunity to pursue the
work that could potentially alleviate human suffering."

The letter is to be faxed to the White House this morning -- three weeks
before a National Institutes of Health deadline by which scientists must
apply for the agency's planned first round of stem cell research grants.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson has said he is
"reviewing" the Clinton administration's decision to fund such research, and
Thompson "is cognizant of" the March 15 deadline, said HHS spokesman
Campbell Gardett.

But with Thompson's review still in its early stages, and the NIH
grantmaking process set to proceed, many researchers fear that Bush will not
wait and instead sign an executive order blocking the funding before it
begins.

The letter to Bush was signed by such notables as James Watson, who won a
Nobel in 1962 for co-discovering, with Francis Crick, the structure of DNA;
molecular biologist Hamilton O. Smith, who was a key player in the recent
landmark genome mapping effort by Celera Genomics of Rockville; Edward
Lewis, the California Institute of Technology biologist who conducted
seminal work on embryo development; and Nobelists in other disciplines,
including physicists Murray Gell-Mann and Steven Weinberg and economists
Robert Samuelson and Milton Friedman.

The letter was composed and circulated by Michael West and Robert Lanza, two
scientists at Advanced Cell Technology Inc., a biotechnology company in
Worcester, Mass. Lanza said the company, which conducts stem cell research,
had nothing to gain from the campaign since a Bush ban on federal funding
for stem cell research would force scientists to do business with private
companies such as his. Rather, he said, he was motivated by a personal wish
to help patients.

"As a medical doctor and a human being, I feel obligated to do everything I
can to ensure that this research reaches the clinic as soon as possible."

The letter drew sharp criticism from opponents of the research, including
Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life
Committee.

"Just as war is too important to be left only to generals, the killing of
human beings in medical research is an issue too important to be left only
to scientists, even Nobel laureates," Johnson said. Like other opponents, he
favors research on similar cells obtained from adults -- an approach that
many scientists say is promising but not promising enough to justify
dropping the embryo studies.

The stem cell debate that Bush inherited started when the Clinton
administration determined that research on embryo cells was not prohibited
by a longstanding congressional ban on embryo-destroying research. Federal
researchers could not themselves destroy embryos to get stem cells, the HHS
general counsel declared. But they could conduct research on cells taken
from embryos that privately funded researchers had destroyed.

Opponents claim that ruling was wrong and hope that Thompson's new general
counsel, yet to be named, will reverse the opinion. That would stop the
grant approval process on a legal technicality without Bush having to make
an executive decision.

The NIH delayed giving grant money for embryo cell research until it
developed new guidelines to ensure that the research would not influence
women's decisions to destroy or donate their leftover embryos. Those
guidelines were finalized last year.

An NIH spokesman yesterday declined to say how many stem cell grant
proposals the agency has received. Nor would he say how close the agency is
to naming the members of a new advisory board that will review all such
applications, or how long it might be before the first grants are approved.

"To me, it's a no-brainer," said Stanford University biologist and Nobelist
Paul Berg, who signed the letter to Bush. "The cells exist and they're being
destroyed and you have to decide whether you are going to just let that
happen without getting any of the potential benefits."

Richard Doerflinger, of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops,
disagreed. "Nobody ever said these Nobel prizes are for ethics," Doerflinger
said.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company