Think tanks wrap-up

From the Think Tanks & Research Desk
Published 5/9/2003 7:34 AM

WASHINGTON, May 9 (UPI) -- The UPI think tank wrap-up is a daily
digest covering opinion pieces, reactions to recent news events and
position statements released by various think tanks. This is the
first of several wrap-ups for May 9. Contents: ANWR amendment;
presidential speeches; stem cells to eggs defeat anti-cloners.

SNIP

Human egg farms? How biomedical science does an end run around anti-
cloners

By Ronald Bailey

LOS ANGELES -- Embryonic stem cells taken from mice can be
transformed into mouse eggs, according to a report published in the
journal Science last week. If it works for mouse cells, many
researchers believe that it will work for human cells, too.

In other words, colonies of human embryonic stem cells could
potentially be transformed into an unlimited supply of human eggs.
Those eggs, in turn, contain the factors needed to jumpstart the
process that produces more malleable embryonic stem cells that can be
transformed into any type of cell in the body. Thus, we now have the
promise of a self-sustaining cycle of stem cell production that does
not depend on donor eggs from living women.

This could have important effects on the future of what is being
called regenerative medicine. Some day, physicians will be able to
transform stem cells into cells and tissue that can replace damaged
cells in the patient from whom the original genes were taken. Such
cells would be perfect transplants that could repair things such as
heart muscle damaged by heart attacks or replace dead brain cells
killed by Parkinson's disease. Tens of millions of Americans could
benefit from those techniques.

The major technical bottleneck has been the scarcity of human eggs
needed to jumpstart the process. Heretofore, human eggs have been
harvested from women who undergo hormonal treatments that cause them
to superovulate. These treatments are generally unpleasant and may be
dangerous to the women's health. Obtaining millions of eggs for stem
cell therapies in this way would be neither moral nor practical.

Nevertheless, opponents of human stem-cell research painted lurid
pictures of women confined to human egg farms forced to produce eggs
for avaricious doctors and corporations. Conservative embryonic stem
cell opponent Wesley Smith calculated, "Obtaining (800 million) human
eggs for (curing diabetes) would involve stimulating the ovaries to
hyper-ovulate, which generally produces seven to 10 eggs. Assuming a
liberal 10 eggs harvested from each procedure, 80 million women of
childbearing age would be needed as donors."

Feminist Judy Norsigian, the executive director of the Boston Women's
Health Book Collective, joined with conservative opponents, citing
fears that stem-cell therapies would lead to a "massive expansion in
the use of women as paid 'egg producers.'" But thanks to the new
mouse stem-cell work, it appears that donated eggs soon may not be
necessary.

Assuming that human eggs can be produced in mass quantities using
embryonic stem cells, that might split the strange bedfellows in the
Left-Right coalition against therapeutic cloning. It may also make
inroads among those people uncomfortable with therapeutic cloning,
because that technique would make it clear that somatic cells (normal
body cells) and embryonic cells differ only in the details of their
biochemistry and can be transformed from one to another. An embryonic
cell is no more a complete human being requiring legal protection
than any other body cell.

For those still committed to the idea that every embryo is as morally
significant as a living person, the discovery of how to transform
embryonic stem cells into eggs will probably have little immediate
effect. However, as the details of the biochemistry of embryonic
cells, eggs, and somatic cells are further unraveled, the moral
intuitions of such opponents may also shift. Even the Roman Catholic
Church has changed its opinion about the moral status of early
embryos over time and could change it again in light of new
scientific information.

The discovery that embryonic stem cells can be transformed into eggs
also has implications for human reproduction. For example, it could
make human reproductive cloning unnecessary. How? Proponents of
reproductive cloning have always believed that it would be a little-
used niche treatment for infertility. Now researchers agree that it
should be possible to transform embryonic stem cells not only into
eggs, but into sperm as well.

One possible future scenario would have an infertile couple using
eggs derived from previously existing stem cell lines to produce
their own embryonic stem cells. These new stem cells with the genetic
material derived from the man and the woman could be transformed into
eggs and sperm that could then be combined to form an embryo.

The new embryo containing genes from both the man and woman, just
like a conventionally produced embryo, could then be implanted in the
woman's womb. Gay couples could also use the same technique to
produce children sharing both their genes. Of course, this should
only be done once the technique has been proven to work safely.

Finally, the discovery of how to transform stem cells into eggs might
derail the pernicious anti-cloning bill that has already been passed
twice by the House of Representatives and is still pending in the
Senate. The pace of biomedical progress may well outstrip the efforts
of those who are trying to stifle it.

(Ronald Bailey is Reason magazine's science correspondent.)

SOURCE: United Press International / Think Tanks & Research Desk
http://www.upi.com/print.cfm?StoryID=20030509-071438-4218r


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