Stem cell imperative
SCIENTISTS ARE doing no harm by trying to develop techniques that satisfy the concerns of those who consider work on embryonic stem cells an assault on human life. But by any reasonable definition, embryos at the earliest stage of development are not human beings, and Congress needs to approve a bill that would allow federal support for research on embryos left over from infertility treatments.
The House passed the bill in May. In July, Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, said he supported federal funding, but the Senate has taken no action as it focuses on Katrina relief, Supreme Court nominations, and appropriations bills. Amy Call, a spokeswoman for Frist, affirmed the senator's support yesterday but said consideration might be pushed off until next year. Frist, a physician, knows that disease knows no delay, and stem cell treatment has the potential to alleviate much suffering. The Senate should approve the bill this year.
Some senators are intrigued by possibilities of research that may pass muster with the prolife movement. A Senate Appropriations subcommittee held a hearing yesterday at which the issue was raised. These procedures involve taking one cell from an eight-cell embryo or rendering the embryo incapable of being implanted in the womb.
This work is still in its early stages, but even if one or the other technique proves to be a viable alternative to conventional stem cell work, it may not satisfy the opponents. The Christian Medical Association, for instance, issued a statement yesterday that said: ''The procedures do not circumvent the moral dilemmas of destroying living human beings or exposing them to harm."
The bill focuses on the several hundred thousand embryos, byproducts of in vitro fertilization treatments, that are stored at fertility clinics. Each of these is an aggregation of several hundred cells at the most primitive stage of life.
These tiny entities will be destroyed eventually. The bill would put them to morally beneficent use on research that might eventually lead to treatments for many diseases. Judith Gasson, professor of medicine at UCLA, said at the hearing: ''Embryonic stem cells must be studied to educate us on the fundamental processes and pathways that drive the growth of cancer cells."
South Korean researchers announced yesterday that they were prepared to provide American researchers with cloned stem cells. That generous offer should not be necessary in a nation with the intellectual resources of the United States. The federal government ought to provide the financial help to make the United States a leader in the field instead of allowing misguided objections to hold its scientists back.
