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Stem Cell Research THE WASHINGTON POST THE WASHINGTON POST Tuesday, May 8, 2001 A number of recent breakthroughs in cell research lend urgency to the decision President George W. Bush must soon make about federal funding for research involving human embryos. The White House is debating whether to overturn Clinton-era rules that would begin to allow funding for this research, which focuses on the powerful and versatile "stem cells" that are found in just-fertilized human embryos and that can develop into any of the body's tissues. Recent advances show that scientists are closer to the elusive goal of inducing those cells to develop into specialized cells that could reverse the ravages of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, juvenile diabetes, spinal cord injuries and other maladies. But the existing ban on federal funding for research that would apply those advances to humans could delay the cures for years as well as drive research overseas. Some experiments - such as a recent report that mouse embryonic stem cells developed into "islets" that produce insulin - are so promising that it seems unthinkable to keep the field off-limits to the country's best research minds. But opposition to the funding also remains ardent, and the issue is being watched closely as a signal of how the president will balance other policy and ethical considerations with his desire to please anti-abortion forces. A 1998 law bars federal funding for any research that harms or destroys a human embryo. But the embryos used in stem- cell research are exclusively those left over from fertility procedures in private clinics - embryos that would be destroyed anyway and that have no chance of developing into human beings. Guidelines written last year by the National Institutes of Health would allow funding if the federally funded researchers did not themselves destroy the embryos and if strict rules were followed to get donors' consent and to make sure embryos were not created specifically for research purposes. The rules strike a good balance between competing ethical concerns. Opposition to them even among abortion opponents is far from unanimous; Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson is on record praising the first scientist to derive human embryonic stem cells, and many pro-life senators voted against the 1998 ban. Opponents have seized on reports of another promising front in the research, the possibility that adult tissues may also contain stem cells, to argue that the embryo research is not so significant after all. It is too soon, though, to say which of these promising lines of inquiry is the right one, and for which diseases; adult stem cells might accomplish some tasks, while others, such as regenerating cell types lost in Parkinson's and juvenile diabetes, might need the embryonic variety. The president should let the research go forward, with the appropriate, stringent guidelines in place. Steering science away from a potentially life-restoring line of inquiry is the opposite of pro-life. - THE WASHINGTON POST. http://www.iht.com/articles/19131.htm ********** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn