Removing Restrictions on Embryonic Stem Cell Research

By Richard Earnest

Political campaigns should be about hope for our future, not fear and divisiveness. I believe embryonic stem cell research holds enormous promise for unlocking the secrets of diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and upwards of 70 other diseases -- yet federal funding is restricted because of politics. Let's remove the restrictions, and bring on the hope.

The ribbon-cutting came just weeks after a very dear friend of mine - a Squadron-mate from Vietnam days - lost his beautiful 12-year-old daughter to leukemia. It was also the 10-year anniversary of the death of my younger sister of complications from diabetes; she was 52.

The deaths of my sister and of this wonderful little girl, each of them so full of promise, so young, have caused me to give considerable thought to the issue of embryonic stem cell research. Scientists and medical researchers tell us that it offers our best hope yet to better understand the diabetes that killed my sister and for enabling bone marrow transfers for those with leukemia like my friend's little girl. Indeed, there's hope that this incredible research can help unlock the secrets of as many as 70 deadly diseases including Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, spinal cord injuries, even forms of cancer.

The issue is a complicated one, medically and ethically. Many distinguished Americans are in disagreement, and President Bush, from all reports, gave the issue thorough and deliberate consideration before concluding that federal funding should be limited to research involving only those embryonic stem cell lines identified before August 9, 2001.

But scientists tell us that most of these lines proved to be too unstable for use in research. Furthermore, all the approved lines were developed through a process that exposed them to animal cells, and therefore are of limited or no therapeutic use to humans. And it only stands to reason that these half-dozen or so viable cell lines - each emerging from a single set of cells - lack the kind of genetic diversity that can help scientists begin to understand why, for instance, my sister had uncontrolled diabetes but I've never shown a propensity for it.

It's as if medical researchers have come upon a fountain of new information, but Washington has shut off the valve. Instead of a river of knowledge, health investigators are left with just a trickle.

I'm told by our region's biotechnology community, our leading academicians and patient advocates, that the impact of these restrictions is profound. While private, commercial stem cell research is ongoing, most "basic" medical research is done in academia, with federal dollars, and that the restrictions have imposed a "hands-off" policy at academic institutions regarding all but the half-dozen or so cell lines that have been specifically allowed under the President's rules. What's more, Washington's rigid limits on funding have had a "ripple" effect: since federal dollars aren't available for embryonic stem cell research, the most promising young medical researchers tend to go into other areas, where dollars are more freely available. NIH and NSF medical research, like anything else, is market-driven - and Washington has closed most of the market.

The House of Representatives has passed legislation that would go a long way toward improving the situation -- but not far enough. The House-passed measure would allow federal dollars to be used for research using frozen embryos from fertility clinics that would otherwise be discarded. Yet scientists tell me that about half of these frozen embryos will turn out to be useless - and even those that are viable don't provide the genetic diversity that's so important to their research.

I favor going further, allowing federal dollars to be used to advance the development of new stem cell lines, including pursuing a process known as "somatic cell nuclear transfer" or SCNT. Scientists tell me SCNT holds the promise of developing new cell lines with enormous adaptability and unlimited genetic diversity -- without using human embryos. Under no circumstances, however, would federal dollars ever be used for human reproductive cloning, which is banned - and properly so.

I believe that American biologic, medical and pharmaceutical research is a national treasure, and that, with stem cell research, we stand on the threshold of medical and scientific advances that today we cannot even begin to imagine. America has never been a country to turn its back on the forward march of knowledge, and we cannot do so now. We must proceed - cautiously, of course, but unafraid. We are a nation that must always do great things, for ourselves, for future generations, and for mankind.