The source of this article is OpinionJournal: http://tinyurl.com/6dd35
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
The (Political) Science of Stem Cells
Far from banning research, Bush is expanding federal funding.
Thursday, August 12, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
You might not know about it from listening to the news lately, [but] the President also looks forward to medical breakthroughs that may arise from stem cell research. Few people know that George W. Bush is the only President to ever authorize federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
--Laura Bush
The First Lady was way too polite: The way stem cells have been reported, you'd think we were in a new Dark Ages, with government-backed religious inquisitors threatening scientists on the cusp of life-saving treatments.
Reinforcing this misimpression are the headlines and commentators talking up a "ban" on research. "First lady Laura Bush defends ban on stem-cell research" is how the Philadelphia Inquirer spun Mrs. Bush's talk. A sampling of other headlines shows the Inquirer is far from alone: "Rethink the stem-cell ban" (Des Moines Register); "Stem cell ban stays, despite Reagan pleas" (Newark Star-Ledger); "Kerry says he'd reverse stem cell ban" (The Grand Rapids Press); "Kerry 'would lift stem cell ban' "(BBC), and on and on. You get the drift.
The problem is that the drift is wrong. As Mrs. Bush gently reminded her audience in Pennsylvania this week, far from banning embryonic stem cell research, George W. Bush is the first President to expand federal funding for it. The nearby table shows that, as a result of his decision, federal funding went from zero in 2000 to nearly $25 million today--and this doesn't include the many tens of millions more being spent by the private sector. As Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson points out, the supply of embryonic stem cell shipments available is today greater than the demand.
In other words, this is not, as Ron Reagan characterized it during his prime time slot at the Democratic convention, a battle between "reason and ignorance." It's an argument about taxpayer money and how to draw the lines around it.
On the whole this would be a healthy debate for America to have. But the Kerry campaign seems more interested in politicizing the issue by continuing to advance claims for a ban that simply does not exist. Typical was the press release by the campaign Web site this week entitled "Edwards Calls for an End to Stem Cell Ban and a Return to Scientific Excellence in America." This is no slip: It's the same language Mr. Kerry used in his radio address when he declared he intends to "lift the ban on stem cell research." And it's the same language Hillary Clinton used during her own convention speech, drawing cheers when she invoked the "need to lift the ban on stem cell research."
All these people know better. The issue is federal subsidies. The need for a Presidential decision arose from an appropriations rider passed by Congress in the mid-1990s forbidding federal funding for any research that creates, injures or destroys human embryos.
What Funding Ban?
Amount spent by the National Institutes of Health on stem cell research, in millions.
2001 2002 2003
Human Embryonic $0.0 10.7 $24.8
Human Non-Embryonic 151.6 70.9 190.7
Non-Human Embryonic 40.5 71.5 113.5
Non-Human Non-Embryonic 113.9 134.0 192.1
Total 306.0 387.1 521.1
Source: Office of Management and budget.
The President's answer was that there ought to be no restrictions on the private sector but that federal subsidies should be limited to lines that had already been harvested and should not be used to encourage the destruction of embryos. In short, it was a reasonable middle ground. It's worth noting that other countries, such as Germany, Ireland and Austria, ban even the private sector from creating embryos for stem cell research.
The potential for embryonic stem cells is that they are malleable and can differentiate themselves into needed cells. That gives them tremendous potential, but it also presents a liability because we can't yet control what these cells will turn into. In one animal study, a fifth of the mice injected with embryonic stem cells developed brain tumors.
Which helps explain why we still have not had a single human trial for embryonic stem cells. And it means that political claims that cures for diabetes or Parkinson's are just around the corner are cruelly raising false hopes.
Meanwhile there is another alternative we don't hear much about in the headlines: adult stem cells. Unlike embryonic research, adult stem cells do not get us into questions about the destruction of human life. In addition, a report in the journal Nature this summer suggests that adult stem cells may have a broader differentiation potential than previously thought.
Plainly this is one of those subjects that involves clashes of goods, in this case the sanctity of human life versus the needs of scientific research. The best way to resolve the issue of taxpayer funding is to let the American people make that decision themselves, through their elected representatives. And dealing, we hope, with the science--not just the Kerry campaign sound bites.
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