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for the first time since becoming secretary if Health and Human
Services, Tommy Thompson is dangerously off message. According to
the Washington Post, at a lunch yesterday with Post
editors, Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson said
of federally funded embryonic stem-cell research, currently under
review by the administration, "Everything is on the table." "I think
there is an answer there that we are all working on that is going
to allow research to continue with some moderations, but one that
will be hopefully satisfactory to the various views that are very
polarized at this point."
The Washington Post's story this morning says that, "Many
anti-abortion activists oppose stem-cell research because they argue
it is akin to experimenting on the unborn, but the politics of the
issue are far more complicated, said several administration aides
close to the discussions." The article notes that several pro-life
Republicans support federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research.
The Post clearly seems to agree with Thompson when he says
that, "You have a lot of people touting one or the other, but there
has not been the basic, pure scientific review as to whether or
not one is better than another."
Although the Washington Post's Rick Weiss, who co-wrote this
morning's piece with White House reporter Ceci Connelly, has been
the best reporter on these issues, the invaluable Statistical Assessment
Service (STATS) has been critical of the mainstream media's coverage
of the stem-cell debate; it ought to forward its findings to the
Secretary of Health and Human Services.
"Eagerness to publicize embryo-related breakthroughs is understandable,
but as the political stakes were elevated, the subsequent silence
on non-embryo developments was striking," STATS says of the last
few months of stem-cell coverage by the mainstream media.
As STATS notes in its latest
newsletter, when the latest season of stem-cell coverage really
began in late April, all the major papers played up "breakthroughs"
in embryonic stem-cell science. It became a favorite talking point
among pro-choice and pro-embryonic stem-cell advocates, including
commentators Anna
Quindlen and Richard Cohen. Missing from these stories, however,
was the fact that one of those major "breakthroughs," involving
diabetes, had been more successful over a year earlier using adult
stem cells.
And then, in May, when the science journal Cell reported
on experiments showing the greatest evidence thus far that adult
stem cells are as flexible as embryonic stem cells, a claim that
advocates of embryonic stem-cell research deny, the coverage was
lacking. What could have been a useful educational point, and an
important contribution to the policy debate, was buried in the scientific
literature, wire reports, and pro-life bulletins. (Kudos to Reuters,
which did its job, noting that "their achievement…could overcome
the ethical obstacles of using stem cells derived from embryos.")
On the same day, a report in Nature described how researchers
were able to take brain cells from human cadavers up to age 72 that
were viable 20 hours after death as an alternative source of cells.
Reuters found the story worthy but the Washington Post, New
York Times, and Wall Street Journal did not.
And the good news for adult stem cells marches on. A balanced report
in Science this month suggests that adult stem cells found
in bone marrow are versatile and can likely form any cell type.
Unfortunately, Tommy Thompson, who has worried
pro-life activists on the issue of stem-cell research for some
time, seems to get his news from the mainstream media. Or, quite
possibly, like many, he just doesn't understand the issue and its
implications.
And so, Thompson seems to find himself at odds with the White House,
although his aides have long played down any reports of division.
Unfortunately Thompson doesn't help them much. Yesterday he complained
to the Post about the endless vetting process this issue
has required. Earlier this year, he told a Senate committee that
he found the ban on embryonic stem-cell research "troublesome."
(A Thompson staffer quickly claimed that the secretary had "meant
to deliver precisely the opposite message.") In the first weeks
of his tenure as secretary of Health and Human Services, Thompson
suggested that although he was personally in favor of embryonic
stem-cell research, he knew his place and would make the president's
position his department's policy. He wound up telling the Associated
Press that he had in his short time in office already "learned the
hard way" that as a Cabinet officer "you're working for the president
and not for yourself." But, in truth, it's a position he does not
seem to be at all comfortable with.
"Hopefully we'll come up with a decision that's going to allow for
the continuation of research, which is very important, and at the
same time take into consideration the legal and the ethical questions
that have to be considered," Secretary Thompson said yesterday.
But stem-cell research has been ongoing even while federal funding
for embryonic stem-cell research has been put on hold. So, Thompson
seems to be saying that we should lurch full-speed ahead with embryo
research, likely from "surplus" embryos from fertility clinics (which
in the land of compassionate conservatism, could be put up for adoption
to infertile couples). Trouble is, that's not what the president
campaigned on.
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