An enduring liberal myth, that of the Republican “war on science,” got a subtle rebuke this week when the first and only patient to receive FDA-approved embryonic-stem-cell therapy publicly revealed his identity. Timothy J. Atchison, a 21-year-old nursing student, had been partially paralyzed in a car crash. Six months ago, scientists at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta sought to test on him the safety of a drug concocted from stem cells of the kind derived by destroying a human embryo.
Are you surprised to learn that this was the very first such clinical test of embryonic-stem-cell research (ESCR)? The news story about Timothy Atchison reminds us that unlike therapies from morally unobjectionable adult stem cells, embryonic stem cells so far have not cured anyone of anything.
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“The Republican war on science” is a catchy phrase coined by journalist Chris Mooney in a 2005 book of the same name. According to the pervasively influential mythology, religious and other conservatives stand athwart medicine — and good science in other fields, too — in a campaign to force their antiquated beliefs on other people.
Well, let’s see now. Successful medical research has tangible results. People are healed, or they are not. From the hype that ESCR has received since 2001, when President Bush limited federal funding for it — a move reversed by President Obama — you might think it has shown the capacity to perform miracles. If so, you’ve been deceived.
Perhaps deliberately. In Minnesota right now, state GOP lawmakers are trying to ban the cloning of human embryos, a technology tied to embryonic-stem-cell research. Critics of the legislation say it’s just another instance of the war on science. To prove it, they brought forward a woman, Trisha Knuth, whose little boy, Charlie, has been relieved of a horrific skin disease by a stem-cell transplant.
The only problem with this story is that the therapy that healed Charlie uses adult stem cells, from a donor. Yet when Charlie’s mother testified impassionedly to the Minnesota legislature, you had to search carefully in media reports for the information that her son’s healing actually had no connection with embryonic stem cells.
“That happens all the time!” an exasperated Dr. Theresa Deisher told me. Deisher is the Stanford-trained biotech researcher whose lawsuit last year shut down government funding of ESCR for 17 days. I discovered that the controversial scientist, profiled recently in the journal Nature as the “Sarah Palin of stem cells,” works just up the street from me in Seattle. “People are treated with adult stem cells and they twist the story to promote embryonic stem cells,” she said.
Deisher’s lawsuit pointed to legislation passed yearly by Congress, the Dickey-Wicker amendment, that forbids government funding of research that entails the destruction of human embryos. In August, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in her favor. The case will probably be resolved by the Supreme Court.
Deisher argues that far from being in conflict with medicine’s mission, traditional moral concerns are strongly in line with it. Embryonic-stem-cell research, ongoing for 30 years and lavishly funded by the National Institutes of Health, has no record of healing. Yet morally unproblematic adult stem cells have worked wonders — notably in other countries. U.S. federal funding for trials of novel treatments using these less politically correct stem cells has lagged.
Another researcher, neuroscientist Jean Peduzzi-Nelson of Wayne State University, testified before the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee in September about the peer-reviewed but underreported advances that have been made using adult stem cells. In Portugal, several years before Timothy Atchison’s accident, a young man paralyzed by a severe spinal-cord injury was healed to the point of being able to walk 30 feet unassisted.
In the United States, too, reports the New England Journal of Medicine, patients suffering from corneal blindness can now see, and others suffering from sickle-cell anemia have gone years without symptoms. In 2003, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, a man with multiple sclerosis received adult stem cells, and his symptoms disappeared in four months.
We can do well, helping people to get well, by doing good and refraining from doing harm to innocent life. How unfortunate that when it comes to treatments with adult stem cells — for stroke, diabetes, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and other maladies — the government is reluctant to make an adequate investment.
The dilemma that pits medicine against conservatism or science against religion is as false as the one that, in the climate debate, seeks to put capitalism and the environment in conflict. In a false dilemma, alternatives and gradations are arbitrarily excluded. That’s a technique of manipulation popular with activists seeking to drive a wedge between their political opponents and the public.
The real war here is not a war on science. It’s a war on truth.
So why do scientists prefer embryonic stem cells? This piece doesn't say.
That happens *all* the time.
"Human embryonic and adult stem cells each have advantages and disadvantages regarding potential use for cell-based regenerative therapies. One major difference between adult and embryonic stem cells is their different abilities in the number and type of differentiated cell types they can become. Embryonic stem cells can become all cell types of the body because they are pluripotent. Adult stem cells are thought to be limited to differentiating into different cell types of their tissue of origin.
"Embryonic stem cells can be grown relatively easily in culture. Adult stem cells are rare in mature tissues, so isolating these cells from an adult tissue is challenging, and methods to expand their numbers in cell culture have not yet been worked out. This is an important distinction, as large numbers of cells are needed for stem cell replacement therapies.
"Scientists believe that tissues derived from embryonic and adult stem cells may differ in the likelihood of being rejected after transplantation. We don't yet know whether tissues derived from embryonic stem cells would cause transplant rejection, since the first phase 1 clinical trials testing the safety of cells derived from hESCS have only recently been approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
"Adult stem cells, and tissues derived from them, are currently believed less likely to initiate rejection after transplantation. This is because a patient's own cells could be expanded in culture, coaxed into assuming a specific cell type (differentiation), and then reintroduced into the patient. The use of adult stem cells and tissues derived from the patient's own adult stem cells would mean that the cells are less likely to be rejected by the immune system. This represents a significant advantage, as immune rejection can be circumvented only by continuous administration of immunosuppressive drugs, and the drugs themselves may cause deleterious side effects."
I classify myself as a fundamentalist Christian. The issue is not the validity of science but the application of it to means that have moral implications. The science behind weapons of mass destruction is not a moral issue. Neither was the end product. How and whom the WMD was used against was. Even if stem cell research was 100% effective the use of it in lieu of alternatives would still be reprehensible. Science is not on trial. The circumvention of moral issues in the name of science is. If the first prototype of my DNA isn't classified as life, a replication of it on my murder victim would be legal justification to prosecute me and perhaps justify the death penalty. The threshold of life is based on the accumulation of a magic number of DNA strands? I believe that metastatis is defined as the biological basis for life. First DNA has that property
The problem with limiting research of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and trying to replace it with adult stem cell research is that you actually do limit what medical achievements can be made in the long run for people. Adult stem cells lack the totipotency of embryonic stem cells (they cannot be directed to change into as many different types of cells). Right away, that puts a cap on the potential uses of those cells, which is not there with ESCs.
In terms of the argument that not much clinical work has been done with ESCs: Of course less has been done with ESCs than adult stem cells- the government for most of the time ESC research has been around put strict limitations on its use. In fact, not much has been done with either Adult stem cells or ESCs yet; both are nascent branches of research, having only been around for a decade or so. It takes time to go through the research pipeline before getting to clinical trials. But why on earth would you want to place a limit like this on what can be achieved down the road?
Unfortunately, when it comes to stem cell research, many on the 'right' have turned out to be in favor of government-based restrictions which is usually the folly of leftists.
Another point is that even though ESC research was limited for a while in the US (and may be again) by law, it still has gone on in many other places in the world. Should that continue, they will enjoy the medical benefits of that research to a greater extent that we will here.
Like most government intrusions, the US is shooting itself in the foot over this one.
Mike, other than your statement that scientists prefer ESCs, which I will take with a whole shaker of salt, we don't know they do. The clip from NIH only states differences between the two, ESC being better on some parameters, and it appears, ASC better on one, very important characteristic, rejection by the host.
Oh, and why is it largely unknown if ESCs will be rejected? Because few successful therapies have been developed using them, which is, if you had read carefully, the whole point of this article.
One last thing. The lab I worked in a few years ago, where cloning was part of the daily routine? Those scientists preferred working with ASCs. How do I know? They told me.
The government does not prevent any private embryponic stem cell research. Bush's ban was only for the use of federal monies. Any amount of private money can be used and the government does not interfere.
There are over 60 cures and therapies that have been developed from adult stem cells. The are exactly zero (0) cures or therapies developed from embryonic stem cells.
If embryonic stem cell research showed any sort of reasonable promise private industry would be all over it and ready to reap the rewards. In this case particularly since the research costs are not high, relatively speaking.
The ultimate truth of this situation is that the left is desparate to find even one good reason to kill the unborn. If embryonic stem cells could be shown to produce some sort of useable medical treatment then the left would have found their holy grail; a reason to kill the unborn.
Their quest is foolish anyway. Someone such as myself is not prepared to kill a child to save my skin. I have a medical directive which states that under NO circumstances am I to receive any treatment or therapy derived from embryonic stem cells.
I will have to answer for my actions and killing a child to save myself is not something I want to have to explain.
All I did was post a link and some language. I did that because Klinghoffer's piece leaves a nagging question unanswered: why would scientists want to do ESC research in the first place if ASC research is better?
The link answers the question, if scientists really need pluripotentiality. Eristic answers the question too, if you wish to believe that scientists sit around thinking, "How can we please our liberal friends by killing more babies?" JoeWI answers the question too, if lower rejection rates of ASC materials is dispositive.
"I will have to answer for my actions and killing a child to save myself is not something I want to have to explain."
Except you wouldn't have to answer for it in the first place. These are embryos already being destroyed by fertility clinics. They are going to be destroyed whether we use the stem cells or not. I say use the stem cells. Its a lot less morally troublesome than some animal testing. That embryo was never going to have a life.
Creating human beings (which an embryo is - see Robert George) to harvest is immoral, period. This slippery slope is so slippery, the fall will be irreversible. Using (the most helpless) human beings for scientific experimentaion - how the heck did we even get here? Creepy, man; really, really creepy.
eristic: Well, luckily for me I don't believe in any of that so I can enjoy a life free from cancer, recover from spinal cord injuries, and grow giant bird wings and soar through the air. All thanks to the wonders of embryonic stem cells.
Embryonic stem cells: Totally worth the price of destroying embryos that were already being destroyed.
"Embryonic stem cells: Totally worth the price of destroying embryos that were already being destroyed."
And why should I worry about people euthanizing the terminally sick as they are just going to die anyway?
How about killing and then harvesting the organs of life without parole prisoners who are just going to die anyway?
As Keynes said, "In the long run we are all dead." True, but I think I would prefer living in a society where people are not looked upon as cattle to be killed for the benefit of others, even if those 'cattle' were going to die anyway.
The godless, who will consume anyone and anyhing to get whatever they want, will also reject any information that stands between them and what they want. To include truth. Whatever that is.
So your best argument is that because bovines are not treated well then the unborn have no right to expect any better?
BTW, I treat the born as well as I do the unborn so I have no excuse. Do you abuse the born? At least you would be adhering to your own argument. If not, then what is your excuse?
BTW, you did not answer my questions. Since your heart bleeds for the angusses of the world should we kill and harvest the organs of prisoners or kill the terminally ill?
