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 dult-Stem-Cell
Breakthrough!" the headlines should have screamed. "Stunning
Discovery Could Mean No Need to Use Embryos in Research." Unfortunately,
with the notable exception of a front-page story in the Boston
Globe, the mainstream media has significantly downplayed this
potentially exciting scientific discovery.
Here's the
scoop: As originally reported late last year in the medical journal
Blood, Dr. Catherine M. Verfaillie and other researchers
at the Stem Cell Institute, University of Minnesota, have discovered
a way to coax an adult cell found in the bone marrow to exhibit
many of the attributes that supposedly make embryonic stem cells
irreplaceable to the development future "miracle" medical
therapies. While there is still much research to be done, "multi-potent
adult progenitor cells" (MAPCs) appear to be versatile, that
is, capable of transforming into different types of tissues. (In
a culture dish, the cells can be coaxed into becoming muscle, cartilage,
bone, liver, or different types of neurons in the brain.) They are
also malleable, meaning they can do so relatively easily. They also
exhibit the "immortality" valued in embryonic cells, that
is to say, they seem capable of being transformed into cell lines
that can be maintained indefinitely. At the same time, these adult
cells do not appear to present the acute danger associated with
embryonic stem cells: the tendency to grow uncontrollably causing
tumors or even cancers.
This should
be a big story considering the intense controversy over embryonic-stem-cell
research (ESCR) and the coming attempt in the United States Senate
to outlaw human cloning (S.790). Indeed, the New York Times
and Washington Post consider embryonic-stem-cell research
so important — including the manufacture and use of human-clone
embryos in such experiments — that both have repeatedly editorialized
in favor of turning the throttle full-speed ahead on this immoral
endeavor. Yet, when the potentially crucial discovery of an adult
cell that could make embryonic destruction and therapeutic cloning
unnecessary comes to light — and just at the time when the
United States Senate is about to argue whether to outlaw the cloning
of human embryos — other than the splendid Boston Globe
article, the story has been significantly underplayed.
The New
York Times story written by Nicholas Wade with Sheryl Gay
Stolberg ran deep inside the paper (page A14), under the headline,
"Scientists Herald a Versatile Adult Cell." While the
Times headline and reporting focused upon the actual story,
it failed to provide many of the significant details found in the
Boston Globe reporting, and as a result, the story lost much
of its punch.
The Washington
Post smothered the importance of the story altogether in
a story bylined by Rick Weiss that ran on page A-8. Headlined, "In
Senate, Findings Intensify Arguments on Human Cloning," the
actual discovery itself is barely described. The first mention of
it comes in the fourth paragraph, which focuses primarily on a statement
by Verfaillie downplaying her own discovery so as not to interfere
with the pro-cloning and ESCR research agenda. Indeed, the primary
thrust of the Post reportage focuses on the reasons why this
discovery should not deter destructive embryonic research.
The story was
also covered by relative brief wire-service reports and in a much
better story in New
Scientist magazine.
In any event, with such muffled coverage, it is unlikely that news
of the breakthrough will receive the concentrated television coverage
essential to a story reaching critical mass. As a consequence, most
Americans will probably never hear about it or understand its potential
importance.
This isn't
the first time that major breakthroughs in adult-stem-cell research
have received under-whelming coverage. Indeed, a discernable pattern
has developed in the mainstream press regarding these issues. Scientific
breakthroughs involving embryonic cells generally receive the full-brass-band
treatment, with front-page coverage that often leaps to the all-important
television news. Meanwhile, you can usually hear the crickets chirping
when scientists announce a breakthrough in adult-stem-cell research,
or, as in the Post story, the reportage places more emphasis
on why the breakthrough should not deter destructive embryonic research
than on the actual adult-cell experiments.
There are many
examples of this phenomenon. Here are just a few:
 On
July 19, 2001, the Harvard University Gazette reported that
mice with Type 1 diabetes (an autoimmune disorder) were completely
cured of their disease using adult stem cells. This was accomplished
by destroying the cells responsible for the diabetes, at which point,
the animals' own adult stem cells regenerated the missing cells
with healthy tissue. Dr. Denise Faustman told the Gazette,
that if the therapy works out in humans "we should be able
to replace damaged organs and tissues by using adult stem cells,
thus eliminating, at least temporarily, the need to harvest and
transplant stem cells from embryos and fetuses." If this accomplishment
— a compete cure of a devastating disease — had been obtained
using embryonic cells, the headlines would have matched those seen
on V-J-Day. But I know of no general media, either press or electronic,
which reported the story.
On
June 15, 2001, the Globe and Mail (Canada) reported a wonderful
story that could provide great hope to people with spinal injuries.
Israeli doctors injected paraplegic Melissa Holley, age 18, who
became disabled when her spinal cord was severed in an auto accident.
After researchers injected her with her own white blood cells, she
regained the ability to move her toes and control her bladder. This
is the exact kind of therapy that embryonic-stem-cell boosters only
hope they can begin to achieve in ten years. Yet, is has
been accomplished in the here and now, and other than the Globe
story, I know of no other reportage.
In
December 2001, Tissue Engineering, a peer-reviewed journal,
reported that researchers believe they will be able to use stem
cells found in fat to rebuild bone. The researchers are about to
enter extensive animal studies. If these pan out, people with osteoporosis
and other degenerative bone conditions could benefit significantly.
Yet, other than appearing on an online health newswire, I have seen
nothing about it from the mainstream press.
All of this begs an intriguing question: Why is there so much less
interest in adult/alternative-stem-cell-research successes stories
among the media than they exhibit toward embryonic advances? After
all, "the science," were all that mattered, the visibility
and coverage of stories like those related above would at least
equal the attention given to ESCR stories. And therein lies the
rub. I don't think that science is the primary issue driving the
extent and depth of news coverage. Media culture is.
It is no secret
that most members of the media are politically liberal and adherents
to a rational materialist worldview. They are also (generally) emotionally
pro-choice on abortion. Because the cloning/ESCR issues force us
to dwell on whether unborn human life has intrinsic value simply
because it is human, the issue tends to be viewed by journalists
through a distorting abortion prism.
This is very
unfortunate. Abortion is factually irrelevant to this debate: The
legal reason abortion is permitted is to prevent women from being
forced to do with their bodies that which they do not wish to do,
e.g. gestate and give birth. But in cloning and ESCR, no woman is
being forced to do anything with her body. That is one reason why
people on both sides of the abortion divide oppose ESCR and human
cloning. For example, Judy Norsegian (author of the feminist tome
Our Bodies Ourselves) and the liberal public-policy advocate
Jeremy Rifkin both oppose therapeutic and reproductive cloning.
But that fact
hasn't sunk in. And so the news sources the media uses to present
the case against cloning/ESCR are usually people they can damn (in
their eyes) with the label, "opponent of abortion." Thus,
it appears that the same dynamics that lead the New York Times
and other media outlets to refuse to use the term "partial
birth abortion" when covering that issue, are at play in editorial
decisions about how to report upon this one.
I think another
part of the explanation for the shallow coverage of adult-stem-cell
research is the media's obsession with "credentials."
When scientists say that embryonic stem cells offer far greater
hope for future medical therapies than do adult cells, journalists
take one look at their curricula vitae and believe them wholeheartedly.
Never mind that these biotech spokespersons may be as ideologically
driven to their opinions in favor of research as the "usual
suspects" in the pro-life movement are to theirs opposing it.
And never mind that the incomes of some of these scientists may
depend on continued funding for ESCR and/or cloning. And never mind
that events have disproved their repeated assertions that future
cell therapies cannot be derived in any way other than through embryonic
sources. And never mind that President Clinton's National Bioethics
Advisory Commission, which first urged the government to fund ESCR,
stated that such experiments are "justifiable only if no less
morally problematic alternatives are available for advancing the
research" — a state of affairs we have surely now reached.
And forget that Big Biotech has the same profit-driven agenda as
other industries that are viewed so skeptically by the media such
as Big Tobacco and Big Oil. The multiple university degrees and
rational materialistic credentials make what the biotech researchers
say more "true" then whatever cloning/ESCR opponents may
argue — regardless of the actual evidence.
Finally, clout
in public-policy disputes usually boils down to money. Quite often,
reporters don't find stories; stories find reporters. That is how
PR firms make the big bucks; being paid quite handsomely to alert
journalists to stories their clients' want covered. In this fight,
Big Biotech's very deep pockets almost guarantee coverage that is
skewed in favor of destroying embryos in experiments and permitting
the creation of human-research clones. Or to paraphrase an old saying,
he or she who has the gold gets to spin the story.
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