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> Subject: ARTICLE: Debate over stem cells deepens > From: Murray Charters <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 04:11:28 -0700 Philadelphia Inquirer Wednesday, July 11, 2001 Debate over stem cells deepens Medical school scientists are creating embryos for research, instead of using fertility-clinic leftovers. Many are troubled. By Marie McCullough INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Scientists at Eastern Virginia Medical School have inflamed 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 American team to announce it is 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 sitting 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 antiabortion Republicans seem sympathetic to that argument. Stem cells - which can be extracted from fetal tissue and certain adult cells, as well as embryos - can grow into any kind of human tissue and hold the promise of therapies for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and many other diseases. But abortion foes, notably the Catholic Church, 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 Bush is preparing to decide whether to allow federal financing of stem-cell research and if so, under what conditions. His decision would not apply to privately financed scientists like those at Eastern Virginia Medical School's Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine, in Norfolk. For their study, published today in the journal Fertility and Sterility, the scientists recruited young, healthy donors of eggs and sperm. The donors gave explicit consent to the creation of embryos for stem-cell research rather than pregnancy. 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 more 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 money would not be an inducement, sperm donors were paid only $50 and egg donors, who endure hormone shots and minor surgery, were paid $2,000. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the professional association of fertility 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-financed stem-cell research. But the idea troubles many people. Indeed, the Clinton administration backed away from National Institutes of Health guidelines proposed in 1994 that would have allowed the creation of embryos for research. President Bill Clinton decided federal financing could go to embryonic stem-cell research, but only if the cells were extracted by privately financed scientists using excess embryos donated by fertility clinics. That Clinton compromise is under review by President 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." "The moral problem with making embryos for research," University of Pennsylvania ethicist Arthur Caplan wrote in a 1996 journal article, "is that as a society we do not want to see embryos treated as products or as mere objects, for fear that we will cheapen the value of parenting, risk commercializing procreation, and trivialize the act of procreation." Glenn McGee, another Penn bioethicist, said yesterday that the Virginia researchers' rationale had no moral sway. "The idea that because no one intended a pregnancy, it's OK is no more useful as an ethical argument than it would be as birth control," he said. John Robertson, a University of Texas lawyer and cochairman of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine's ethics committee, praised the ethical review that preceded the Virginia study. But he added: "I think the timing is terrible. It comes at a time when those who are against embryonic stem-cell research will say, 'Look what will happen.' " Marie McCullough's e-mail address is [log in to unmask] SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2001/07/11/front_page/STEM11.htm * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn