I have also been trying to locate information on the viewpoints of
the candidatess on stem cell research -- including the Democratic
candidates as well. So far, only can find information on McCain, but I
found the following two articles which indicate the focus of debate may
be moving from the NIH to the Congress. The first is about opposing bills
on funding the research and the 4 Senators sponsoring them. The second
is long, but gives great backgound info on both the scientific and
political issues - from BOTH sides. BOth articles are from this week's
Congressional Quarterly Weekly magazine.
Does anyone have more info on these bills?
Linda Herman
CQ WEEKLY - SCIENCE
Feb. 19, 2000
Dominant Voices
By Adriel Bettelheim, CQ Staff
The upcoming debate over whether to allow federal funding of
embryonic stem cell research will be dominated by a handful of
lawmakers.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.
Specter chairs the Appropriations Labor, Health and Human
Services, and Education subcommittee that oversees the budget of
the National Institutes of Health (NIH). After initially
expressing reservations over the legal and moral implications of
stem cell research, Specter is pushing legislation with Sen. Tom
Harkin, D-Iowa, that would allow federally funded scientists not
only to do the work, but also to derive human embryonic stem
cells from embryos donated by fertility clinics. The bill would
bar the creation of human embryos for their stem cells and would
ban the use of cloning technology with stem cells to create a
human being.
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.
A champion of conservative causes with close personal and
political ties to religious activists, Brownback has emerged as
the point person in congressional efforts to bar federal funding
for embryonic stem cell research. Brownback describes draft NIH
guidelines endorsing the research as an attempt to flout a 1995
congressional ban on embryo research. "Clearly, the destruction
of human beings is an integral part of the contemplated
research," he says.
Rep. Jay Dickey, R-Ark.
The first Republican to represent southern Arkansas since
Reconstruction, Dickey authored the 1995 ban on federally funded
research using human embryos. Dickey says this should extend to
stem cell research.
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa
Cosponsor with Specter of the pro-stem cell research bill,
Harkin is one of the Senate's leading champions of the disabled
and has fought for increased funding for breast cancer research.
Source: CQ Weekly
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CQ WEEKLY - SCIENCE
Feb. 19, 2000
Senate Argues Promise and Peril Of Human Stem Cell Research
By Adriel Bettelheim, CQ Staff
Biomedical science appears to be on a collision course with
abortion politics as Congress prepares to begin debate on whether
to endorse federal funding of research on human embryonic stem
cells.
These "master cells" are capable of evolving into nearly
every kind of tissue in the body and could hold the key to curing
conditions such as Parkinson's disease and healing spinal cord
injuries. But anti-abortion critics contend that stem cell
research falls under the 1995 congressional ban on embryo
research. (1995 CQ Almanac, p. 11-58)
The issue threatened to hold up passage of a Labor, Health and
Human Services (HHS) and Education appropriations bill last September
until Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Appropriations
Labor-HHS Subcommittee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa.,agreed to drop
language endorsing the research
and take it up as a separate bill this year.(1999 CQ Weekly, p.
2294)
Specter and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, have introduced legislation
(S 2015) that would allow government-funded scientists both to conduct
the
research and to extract stem cells from embryos donated by fertility
clinics that otherwise would have discarded them. Specter has scheduled
a Feb. 22 hearing on stem cell research in the Appropriations
subcommittee.
The same day, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will close
the public comment period on draft guidelines issued in December that
endorse federally funded stem cell research but stop short of allowing
NIH-supported researchers to extract them. A group of conservative
lawmakers led by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., with support from such
abortion opponents as the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, is
pressuring NIH to withdraw the guidelines, saying they run counter to the
1995 ban and effectively encourage the destruction of human life.
Anti-abortion groups take the position that stem cells are the
equivalent of embryos and merit the same status as a human being. But in
sorting through such philosophical questions as when life begins,
lawmakers could find themselves in the awkward position of regulating a
nascent but promising branch of the health sciences.
"Stem cell research is one of the most critical issues affecting
the future of the biomedical community" Ronald M. Green, chairman of the
Ethics Institute at Dartmouth College, said in an interview Feb. 15.
"It's forcing us to rethink our ethical, moral and religious
considerations. It cuts very deep to the bone and is triggering a major
health lobbying effort."
Among those watching the debate closely are drug companies,
which believe they can use stem cells to create new anti-aging products
and cures for a variety of degenerative diseases. The most prominent
player is Geron Corp., a Menlo Park, Calif., biotechnology company that
has funded groundbreaking stem cell research at the University of
Wisconsin and Johns Hopkins University.
Scientists and advocacy groups for victims of various diseases
are strongly lobbying in favor of federally funded research, saying the
cells could be the source of healthy replacement tissue for sufferers of
heart disease and a host of
other afflictions. Advocates say the cells also offer the best
glimpse yet into the earliest stages of human development, which could
yield a new understanding of birth defects and improve the way drugs are
designed. Those in favor of federal funding for research include Sen.
Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., an abortion foe whose daughter suffers from
juvenile diabetes, and 67 U.S. Nobel Prize winners.
"The vast majority of Americans strongly support the
advancement of biomedical research through the application of
their tax dollars," said Daniel Perry, executive director of the
Alliance for Aging Research. "Surveys consistently show Americans
want to see greater efforts against serious and life-threatening
diseases."
But opponents of stem cell research say the scientists are
essentially proposing to destroy life to advance their research.
The opponents, who believe that life begins at conception, argue
that stem cells, while biologically primitive, are distinct
entities that deserve the same moral status as a person. The
critics say scientists tend to emphasize the biological aspects
of their research while downplaying the way stem cells are
extracted from embryos. And they fear advances in cloning
technology soon will lead researchers to create embryos solely
for the purpose of extracting stem cells.
"The embryonic stem cell research being proposed by NIH is
illegal, immoral and unnecessary," Brownback said at a Feb. 7
news conference. "There are legitimate areas of research which
are showing more promise than embryonic stem cell research and
which do not create moral and ethical difficulties."
Lawmakers joining Brownback in the effort to block funding
for stem cell research include 19 mostly conservative Republican
senators, among them Lott and Assistant Majority Leader Don
Nickles of Oklahoma, and several lawmakers who traditionally have
not been vocal opponents of embryo research, such as Pete V.
Domenici, R-N.M. Also in the group is Republican presidential
candidate John McCain of Arizona, who recently came under fire
from Texas Gov. George W. Bush, campaigning in advance of the
South Carolina GOP primary, for his support of fetal tissue
research.
Past Battles Recalled
In some ways, the debate recalls past congressional battles
over cloning and fetal tissue research that also challenged some
lawmakers' fundamental beliefs about life. But stem cells may
have even more profound meaning, say experts such as Dartmouth's
Green, because they offer the highest-resolution view yet of the
beginning of human development.
Stem cells are microscopic clumps of dozens of cells that
reside inside days-old embryos. When isolated in culture dishes,
stem cells can differentiate into specific types such as heart
muscle cells or brain cells. They can also divide indefinitely in
the laboratory, providing a potentially never-ending supply of
replacement parts and organs.
However, because the field of stem cell research is not even
two decades old, scientists still do not understand the mechanism
through which these master cells evolve into certain body parts,
or how they can be coaxed into becoming a particular type of
cell. With federal funding, researchers believe, they can unlock
these secrets and use stem cells for such purposes as creating
healthy insulin-producing pancreas cells for sufferers of
diabetes or new nerve cells for individuals with spinal cord
injuries.
The stem cell debate took on added urgency in 1998 after
researchers at the University of Wisconsin and Johns Hopkins
University, working separately, became the first scientists to
isolate human stem cells. The Wisconsin team extracted stem cells
from embryos donated by fertility clinics, while the Johns
Hopkins scientists extracted stem cells from the gonads of
aborted fetuses.
Both teams of scientists, unsure whether their work was
violating the congressional embryo research ban, avoided using
public funding and relied on private money from Geron and other
sources. Since then, the University of Wisconsin has created the
nonprofit WiCell Research Institute, which will sell embryonic
stem cells for research purposes.
Further complicating the debate is the fact that there are
different types of stem cells. Scientists say stem cells can be
extracted from umbilical cord blood and from adult human beings.
But those cells are not biologically equivalent to stem cells
taken from embryos and do not appear as capable of evolving into
many different cell types. Opponents of embryonic stem cell
research say more federal money should be spent on studying how
these "adult stem cells" can be harvested and used to cure
disease.
The 1995 congressional ban on embryo research was authored by
Rep. Jay Dickey, R-Ark., and bars spending federal taxpayer money
on biomedical research involving embryos outside the womb.
However, the measure did not take into account the extraction of
stem cells. Dickey has attached his measure to the annual
appropriations bills that fund NIH. But attempts to modify it to
specifically address stem cells were dropped last year as part of
an effort by Republican congressional leaders to avoid
controversial riders that might force political showdowns with
the Clinton administration. Meanwhile, NIH has temporarily halted
any stem cell research while it develops guidelines.
Observers say lawmakers on both sides of the debate have
several options. Those opposed to funding the research can try to
muster support to change the wording of Dickey's ban so that it
explicitly mentions stem cell research. Supporters can try to
endorse stem cell research by passing a stand-alone measure like
Specter's.
If no consensus emerges, as many expect, lawmakers can elect
to let the ban stand and defer to NIH on the issue of stem cell
research. Such a move would likely pave the way for federal
scientists to begin research, but only if they obtained stem
cells from privately funded entities, research institutions or
biotech companies. Opponents contend that such a policy would
flout the 1995 ban and trigger legal challenges.
With Republicans again eager to avoid controversial measures
attached to spending bills, congressional sources expect heated
debates to develop in the Senate and House over stand-alone stem
cell bills.
Spokesmen for Dickey and Brownback said last week that
neither lawmaker has immediate plans to introduce a bill banning
stem cell research. But both have reiterated that the destruction
of embryos, which they view as a clear violation of the law, is
an integral part of such research.
Advocates of stem cell research, meanwhile, are trying to
convince uncommitted lawmakers that barring federal funding for
the work will not stop scientists from extracting stem cells.
Instead, the advocates argue, it will allow companies like Geron
to proceed unchecked and control the supply and use of stem
cells. The advocates say it is far preferable to have NIH
overseeing the work because it ensures that more scientists will
apply for grants and get involved in the field.
"We believe the [NIH] guidelines as proposed will enable this
critical research to advance while simultaneously protecting the
moral and ethical sensibilities of the American people," Paul
Berg, the 1980 Nobel Laureate in chemistry, wrote on behalf of
the American Society for Cell Biology, one of the groups
supporting federally funded research.
