>    Subject: ARTICLE: Virginia lab's creation of embryos for research
spurs debate over stem cells
>    From: Murray Charters <[log in to unmask]>
>    Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 17:03:34 -0700

The Boston Globe
Virginia lab's creation of embryos for research spurs debate over
stem cells
By Sonja Barisic, Associated Press, 7/11/2001 17:46

NORFOLK, Va. (AP)   The debate over the ethics of stem-cell
research intensified Wednesday with word that Virginia
scientists have created human embryos in the lab solely for
the valuable cells.

Medical ethicists say the development complicates the issue
at a time when President Bush is weighing whether federal money
should be used for research on embryonic stem cells.

Patient groups favor such research because of its breakthrough
potential in treating diseases, while anti-abortion groups and
others call such work unethical because it entails destroying the
embryos.

''The timing of this has been somewhere between disastrous and
horrific,'' said Arthur Caplan, a medical ethicist at the University
of Pennsylvania. The development ''throws everything in
an uproar'' and gives ammunition to those who argue that
researchers are headed down a slippery slope.

Embryonic stem cells can mature into any cell or tissue. As a
result, scientists say they someday may be used to repair or
replace damaged tissue or organs in victims of Parkinson's
disease, Alzheimer's, diabetes, cancer and spinal cord injuries.

Until now, researchers derived embryonic stem cells mostly
from embryos left over from infertility treatments.
Other researchers have derived stem cells from other sources,
such as fat cells, bone marrow and aborted fetuses, though the
embryonic stem cells are the most useful.

In the Virginia case, scientists approached donors and informed
them that their eggs and sperm would be used to develop embryos
for stem-cell research.

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson criticized the development
on his ''700 Club'' television show Wednesday. ''We're on the
slippery slope now,'' he said. ''Before long, we'll be harvesting
body parts from fully formed people, not just from something
in a petri dish. Once you begin this concept of utilitarian use of
cells, then everything is up for grabs.''

Kenneth Goodman, director of bioethics at the University of Miami,
said such research illustrates the need for federal guidelines.

''The in vitro fertilization industry evolved with almost no regulation,
which is why you have bizarre custody disputes over fertilized eggs
in refrigerators,'' Goodman said. ''Society, in the form of government,
failed to oversee and regulate a controversial industry. For the
government now not to support and therefore oversee stem cell
research would be another failure. It would allow the research
to go forth unregulated again.''

The work was done at the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine,
a private fertility clinic responsible for the birth in 1981 of the nation's
first test-tube baby. The findings appeared Wednesday in the journal
Fertility and Sterility, a publication of the American Society of
Reproductive Medicine.

The society said it believes the researchers are the first in the United
States to have created embryos explicitly for stem cell research.

''At one level, it's cleaner'' ethically than using leftover embryos,
society spokesman Sean Tipton said. ''There's no question as to
what you're going to do with these embryos. You're going to
the individuals up front.''

After consulting with clergy, ethicists and legal professionals,
the Jones Institute's ethics committee concluded that creating
embryos for research purposes was in keeping with ''our duty to
provide humankind with our best understanding of early human
development.''

Robin Elliott, executive director of the Parkinson's Disease
Foundation, which supports research on stem cells from embryos
left over from fertility procedures, said the latest development has
little to do with the debate in Washington. Research involving the
creation of embryos would not be eligible for federal money, he
said.

''If this is taken as kind of a new element in the debate that is going
to complicate the president's job, that would be disappointing,''
Elliott said.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said that the report
illustrates the ''very sensitive'' issues involved in such research
and added that Bush would not be rushed into a decision.

The researchers extracted 162 eggs from 12 women and fertilized
110 of them with donor sperm. Forty developed to the blastocyst
stage a collection of 100 to 300 cells. Researchers destroyed
those to get the stem cells inside.

A biotech company, Advanced Cell Technology of Massachusetts,
has done something similar since early last year. But instead of
fertilizing donor eggs with sperm cells, it replaces the nuclei of
the donated eggs with genetic material from adult cells, and then
clones the results. The company calls the subject of its research
an ''ovumsum,'' not an embryo.

On the Net:
http://asrm.org/Professionals/Fertility&Sterility/fspage.html
http://www.jonesinstitute.org

SOURCE: The Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/192/nation/Virginia_lab_s_creation_of_emb:.s
html

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