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OPINION: Bush's Ban On Stem Cells Puts Country At Risk Published on Friday, November 21, 2003 EVERYONE IN THIS COUNTRY INVOLVED in the scientific community agrees that the next great economic expansion will involve the biotech industry. That expansion has really just begun. The coming biotech revolution will be fueled by the development of stem cell research, which is now in its earliest stage. The United States has always been a leader in this field; within San Mateo County, leading the way is South San Francisco with Genentech and other biotech corporations housed there. That's why it was unfortunate to see Singapore receive a $5 million grant to develop a cure for diabetes using stem cell research, which under normal circumstances would have gone to biotech firms in the United States. In August 2001, President Bush announced his decision to limit federal funds to 70 stem cell lines that he said were an ample amount to carry out such research. But it later turned out that of the 70 lines, only 11 could be used for research and the other 59 could not. Many scientists agree that the decision by Bush was a political one taken for religious reasons and not a scientifically based decision. Last week, a medical ethics panel said it would be unethical and risky to treat people with the embryonic stem cells approved by Bush for federally funded research because these cell lines were initially grown on mouse cells. According to the panel, that could expose humans to an animal virus their immune systems could not fight. While research into stem cells is progressing overseas, the U.S. appears to be slipping behind because of the limited number of stem cells available for federal funding. Earlier this year, the director of the National Institutes of Health called on the president to lift his restrictions. Anti-abortion groups say stem cell research is tantamount to murder because it starts with the destruction of a human embryo to recover the cells. The 11 lines that have the approval of the president were developed in the presence of mouse cells that provided needed growth factors. That means stem cells from human fetal tissue must be either funded privately in research or done outside the country. And that is exactly what is happening as foreign countries begin to fund human fetal tissue stem cells. In the meantime the president takes care of religious concerns at the expense of science and the lives and health needs of many Americans. SOURCE: The San Francisco Examiner, CA http://tinyurl.com/w414 * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn