Hello,
I'm going to try the cow-human stem cell topic again, this time
seriously.
I found some of the source materials relating to this particular
stem cell creation at www.bioethics.gov. Displayed there are letters
by President Clinton and by National Bioethics Advisory Committee
Chairman Dr. Harold Shapiro on stem cell research. In case someone
can't retrieve them for some reason, I will reproduce them in parts 2
- 4.
The company Advanced Cell Technology created a stem cell by
removing the nucleus from a cow egg cell and inserting the nucleus of
an adult human skin cell in its place. The result was something like
an embryo cell but not exactly. As I understand it, the cow egg
environment causes the inserted cell material to revert to an early
state.
The result seems to have inspired in our President a feeling of moral
revulsion (although after Monica et. al. I don't understand this.).
Federal law states that the Health and Human Services Dept, under
which NIH falls, cannot fund creating an embryo for research
purposes. The following wording about this has been repeated in HHS
appropriations bills for the past few years:
"None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for--
"(1) the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes;
or
"(2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed,
discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater
than that allowed for research on fetuses in utero under 45 CFR
46.208(a)(2) and 42 U.S.C. 289g(b).
"For purposes of this section, the phrase `human embryo or embryos'
shall include any organism, not protected as a human subject under 45
CFR 46 as of the date of enactment of this Act, that is derived by
fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means from one
or more human gametes."
So the issue at hand comes down to whether the cow-human cell is an
embryo. According to Dr. Shapiro, the idea of an embryo implies the
"potential" to develop into a child if transferred to a uterus. No
one ever intended to do this, so we will not know whether there is
such a potential. But the Commission is about to consider the
ethical implications of the cow-human cell, and other stem cell
research, starting in January.
Such is the cow-human cell issue to date as I have been able to
reconstruct it. Did I get it right? I sense something strange,
almost medieval about it that I can't put my finger on. Does anyone
else have this impression?
For more on this and related stem cell ethics and legal issues, see
www.washingtonpost.com articles by Rick Weiss, who writes well on this
subject.
[continued]
Phil Tompkins
Hoboken NJ
age 60/dx 1990
