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> Subject: NEWS: Created embryos eyed for research > From: Murray Charters <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 23:01:58 -0700 DETROIT FREE PRESS Created embryos eyed for research Decision by Va. team fuels stem cell debate July 11, 2001 BY MARIE MCCULLOUGH KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS PHILADELPHIA -- Scientists at Eastern Virginia Medical School have fueled the debate over stem cell research with the news that they are creating human embryos for the sole purpose of extracting the cells. The group is the first U.S. team to announce they are using embryos made to be sacrificed for the research, rather than frozen embryos left over from infertility treatments. The distinction is important because an estimated 100,000 embryos are in fertility clinic freezers, most destined to be thrown out. Several prominent bioethicists argue that using these surplus embryos for stem cell research is morally preferable to discarding them or keeping them frozen indefinitely. Even some leading Republicans opposed to abortion seem sympathetic to that argument. Stem cells -- which can also be extracted from fetal tissue and certain adult cells -- can grow into any kind of human tissue.The cells hold potential for therapies for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and many other diseases. But abortion opponents have opposed any research that involves destruction of a human embryo -- even if it consists of just a few cells in a lab dish. Amid intense lobbying from all sides, President George W. Bush is preparing to decide whether to allow federal funding of stem cell research, and if so, under what conditions. His decision would not apply to privately funded scientists like those at Eastern Virginia Medical School's Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine, in Norfolk. For their study, published Tuesday in the journal Fertility and Sterility, scientists recruited young, healthy donors of eggs and sperm. The donors gave consent to the creation of embryos for stem cell research rather than for pregnancy. Out of 40 embryos that grew from 110 fertilized eggs, three stem cell lines were developed. (The researchers have since developed three more cell lines from 30 additional embryos.) Ethical review boards at the medical school and at Norfolk General Hospital approved the rationale for creating embryos solely for research. Besides giving more control over the quality of those embryos, the process ensured that donors knew from the start that their genetic material would be used for research and not for pregnancy. "The investigators in our program felt it was more ethical for the donation to be that of" eggs and sperm "and not embryos," wrote Susan Lanzendorf, the lead author of the study. To make sure that money would not be an inducement, sperm donors were paid only $50 and egg donors were paid $2,000. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the professional association of infertility specialists, approves of made-for-research embryos. And in Britain, health officials recently announced that cloning technology could be used to make embryos for government-funded stem cell research. But the idea troubles many people. The Clinton administration backed away from proposed 1994 National Institutes of Health guidelines that would have allowed the creation of embryos for research. The administration decided that federal funding could go to embryonic stem cell research, but only if the cells were extracted by privately funded scientists using excess embryos donated by fertility clinics. This Clinton compromise is now under review by Bush. James Thomson, whose University of Wisconsin lab first isolated embryonic stem cells in 1998 using leftover fertility-clinic embryos, said making embryos for research "is the kind of thing not allowed under the current NIH guidelines. This would make a lot more people uncomfortable." SOURCE: DETROIT FREE PRESS http://www.freep.com/news/health/stem11_20010711.htm * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn