Source:   Financial Times (London, England)
 October 22, 2004 Friday
USA Edition 2

SECTION: COMMENT; Pg. 13
HEADLINE:  How to resolve America's stem-cell dilemma:
by DAVID SHAYWITZ and DOUG MELTON:

   The US has always been a nation of innovators. We seek out the
unknown, the
unexplored, the unsolved and then work until we figure out the answer.
Above
all, we never stop pursuing something just because it has not worked yet.
However, as the nation agonises over the future of stem-cell research, a
persistent objection - voiced again in this year's presidential debates -
is
that so far embryonic stem cells have not cured anybody.

   As stem-cell researchers passionately interested in freeing diabetic
children
from their daily insulin injections, we agree: no one has been cured yet.
But
this is precisely what makes embryonic stem-cell research essential.

   In contrast to the glossy vision of television dramas, scientific
research is
maddeningly slow and fitful. But if researchers gave up just because
something
was hard, we would never have transplanted hearts or largely eradicated
polio.
New medical therapies are notoriously difficult to create. The
development of a
new drug typically takes more than 10 years, and fewer than one in 1,000
potential compounds will prove usable. Entirely new technologies take
even
longer to develop.

   Human embryonic stem cells were isolated less than a decade ago; they
attracted the interest of scientists because of their ability to develop
into
any cell type and because they offer a window on the body's astonishing
capacity
for self-renewal and repair. The hope is that, by adjusting the
conditions under
which these cells are cultured, it will be possible to grow specific
types of
cells that could be given to patients who need them.

   Embryonic stem cells usually come from fertility clinics, where
couples have
several eggs fertilised in a culture dish; these cells are grown for a
few days
and the most promising reimplanted in the mother. The others are frozen,
in case
the procedure is repeated. Once the treatment has been completed, the
remaining
frozen cells are commonly discarded. However, they can be used as the
source of
new embryonic stem-cell lines.

   Unfortunately, in the US, federal restrictions introduced in August
2001
prohibiting government funding of new stem-cell lines have had a chilling
effect
on the field - particularly on the recruitment of young researchers. Who
would
commit themselves to an area where funding may depend more on the results
of an
election than on those of an experiment? For some scientists, the answer
has
been to pursue their research overseas.

   These concerns are very real; we cannot use federal funds either to
establish
new stem-cell lines or to study any cell line developed after August 2001
- even
if only to compare it with its older brethren. Were it not for the
generosity of
independent funding agencies, many of the cell lines currently in
existence
would never have been created.

   Some critics have suggested that researchers devote themselves to the
exclusive study of a type of stem cell found only in adults. Although
adult stem
cells are very useful in treating certain blood cancers, these cells are
considerably less versatile than embryonic stem cells and are unlikely to
prove
therapeutically useful for the treatment of many other diseases,
including
diabetes.

   Even if embryonic stem cells represent the best hope for replacing
damaged
pancreas cells in diabetic patients and even if we can figure out how to
turn
stem cells into insulin-producing cells, the eventual use of such therapy
requires a belief in the underlying ethics. Here, it seems, reasonable
people
can, and do, disagree (although one wonders whether some of the fiercest
opponents of embryonic stem-cell research actually would decline
treatments when
they became available).

   To foster the development of the field while respecting its critics'
concerns, we would propose the following simple compromise: prohibit the
use of
federal funds for deriving new embryonic stem-cell lines but permit these
funds
to be used to study embryonic stem-cell lines, whenever they were
derived,
provided the cells were obtained in an ethically acceptable fashion. This
would
require the approval of a review board and, of course, the consent of the
donating couple.

   This compromise would not be perfect. But it would acknowledge the
special
nature of human embryonic stem cells while providing a framework for the
sort of
research that will replace our vision of medical promise with a
time-honoured
expression of American innovation - the introduction of a new clinical
practice.

   David Shaywitz is an endocrinology fellow at Harvard University. Doug
Melton
is professor of natural sciences at Harvard and co-director of the
Harvard Stem
Cell Institute
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MY NOTE: These guidelines are similar to the policy for federal funding
of stem cell research adopted by the NIH  in 2000, during the Clinton
Administration in 2000. Before the funding could begin, the guidelines
were reversed by President Bush's order in August 2001 - limiting federal
funding to research using stem celll lines created before Aug 9, 2001.

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