Human Embryo Research:  Where We’ve Been, Where We Should Go

By Richard M. Doerflinger

Washington, DC — President George W. Bush spent an impressive first weekday in office. On January 22, Mr. Bush issued a statement of support to March for Life attendees and reversed Bill Clinton’s policy of promoting abortion overseas.

His next pro-life challenge may be to take on the Clinton Administration’s ongoing plans for destructive human embryo research. At issue are National Institutes of Health (NIH) guidelines published in final form in August, authorizing taxpayer funding of research that requires killing human embryos for their “stem cells. “With swift action by the Bush Administration, these guidelines can still be rescinded before federal funds are disbursed for destructive research this spring.

Where the Policy Debate Stands

Since 1996, Congress has banned federal funding for research in which human embryos are harmed or destroyed. (The law is called the Dickey Amendment – – see below.) But once researchers announced progress in culturing stem cells from human embryos in November 1998, the Clinton Administration developed a scheme to evade this law.

Based on a legal opinion by Health and Human Services attorney Marcy Wilder (former legal director of the National Abortion Rights Action League), the NIH proposed funding research that uses stem cells from “spare”embryos at fertility clinics. These are live human embryos created in the lab by in vitro fertilization for reproductive purposes, whose parents no longer want them.

In the guidelines, NIH instructs researchers on how to obtain and kill these embryos to obtain their stem cells, in order to obtain federal grants for the research on those stem cells. The guidelines simply assert that federal funds do not pay for the killing of the embryos, even though the killing can be arranged or even performed by the federally funded researcher (and the embryos must be killed in the government-approved manner, of course).

During the presidential campaign then-Governor Bush saw through this deception. In response to a candidate questionnaire from the United States Catholic Conference, he stated forthrightly: “Taxpayer funds should not underwrite research that involves the destruction of live human embryos. “Going beyond the immediate question on embryonic stem cell research, he also stated: “I oppose using federal funds to perform fetal tissue research from induced abortions.”

Since his inauguration, the President and his spokespersons have reaffirmed his position on both issues.  Unlike human embryo research, which has never received federal funds, some forms of fetal tissue research using abortion victims were authorized by Congress in 1993 and continue to this day. Some members of Congress, such as Senator John McCain (R-Az.), have opposed embryonic stem cell research but supported fetal tissue research, arguing that the latter uses tissue only after an abortion that would have been performed anyway and did not involve the researcher.

On National Public Radio’s “Talk of the Nation” on January 31, however, that argument was rebutted by pro-abortion ethicist John Fletcher of the University of Virginia. Obviously, said Fletcher, whether you approve of fetal tissue research using abortion victims will depend on whether you approve of abortion. President Bush’s strong stand against both these forms of research is an important sign of his resolve.

In reaffirming his opposition to abortion-dependent research on January 26, President Bush also demonstrated his knowledge of and support for morally acceptable alternatives: “I believe there’s some exciting – – I believe there’s some wonderful opportunities for adult stem cell research.

I believe we can find stem cells from fetuses that died a natural death. But I do not support research from aborted fetuses.”

The Medical Realities

So what are these things called “stem cells”? And what is the difference between the embryonic variety that preoccupied Clinton’s NIH, and the adult variety noted by President Bush?

Stem cells are versatile, unspecialized cells that can reproduce themselves and also produce more specialized cells needed by the body. We all have stem cells throughout our bodies. For example, whenever we need new blood cells, the hematopoietic (blood-producing) stem cells in our

bone marrow produce more of the cells needed – – red blood cells, white blood cells, etc. But the early embryo is almost entirely made up of stem cells, which many researchers want to harvest (by killing the embryo) for experiments in repairing and regenerating human tissues and organs.

In their zeal for federal support of destructive embryo research, pro-abortion medical and patient groups have virtually ignored the growing evidence documenting the promise of adult stem cells and other alternatives. But the latest scientific findings show that President Bush’s remarks were right on target. A few examples:

* The December 1 issue of Blood rebuts claims that adult stem cells cannot be grown fast enough or long enough to benefit human patients. Researchers found that, with a little help from added growth factors, adult blood stem cells could be “maintained for prolonged periods (up to 16 weeks), and sufficient numbers were generated for adult transplantation.”

* The December 1 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience reports progress toward using adults’ own stem cells from other parts of the body to produce new nerve cells for repair of brain damage. Researchers found that stem cells from “a non-neurogenic region”in rats are not restricted in their development but can generate new nerve cells in the brain “when exposed to the appropriate environmental cues.”

* The February 2001 Scientific American reviews several studies reported at the November 2000 conference of the Society of Neuroscience in New Orleans. New nerve cells for transplants can be produced using stem cells from recently deceased adults, the scalps of living humans, or the skin of rats. So promising are these results, says the journal, that some researchers predict human clinical trials in one to two years.

* Perhaps even more astonishing, the NIH’s own National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke has confirmed that patients’ own bone marrow stem cells can be directed to generate nerve cells for brain repair. “The studies suggest that bone marrow may be a readily available source of neural cells with potential for treating such neurological disorders as Parkinson’s disease and traumatic brain injury,” says the Institute’s November 30 press release. Researchers have found “an unexpected amount of flexibility in older cells” and are excited because “bone marrow cells taken from a patient’s own body would not be rejected by the body’s immune system.”

* Use of bone marrow stem cells to repair damaged bone and cartilage is already in human clinical trials, at Osiris Therapeutics in Baltimore and other centers. The February 1 New England Journal of Medicine reports on successful efforts by Italian and Russian researchers to repair “large bone defects” using these cells. By growing patients’ own stem cells and placing them on porous “scaffolds” shaped to bridge the gaps in their bones, the researchers were able to restore limb function to three patients with serious bone defects in record time, with no complications or problems up to 27 months afterward.

Problems With Embryonic Cells Emerge

Reviewing the recent startling advances in adult stem cell research, even the December 1 issue of Science (journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which supports destructive embryo research) admits that “easily accessible cells from bone marrow might someday be used to treat a wide range of neurological diseases– without raising the ethical concerns that accompany the use of embryonic cells.” And this article admits something even more significant: “In contrast, the human embryonic stem cells and fetal germ cells that made headlines in November 1998 because they can, in theory, develop into any cell type have so far produced relatively modest results.”

“Relatively modest”is a euphemism. The results reported by the Geron Corporation at the November neuroscience meeting in New Orleans are deeply disturbing.

The Geron researchers reported that when they transplanted human embryonic stem cells into rats’ brains, the cells “did not readily differentiate into brain cells.”  Instead, “they stayed in a disorganized cluster, and brain cells near them began to die.” This even occurred if the embryonic cells had partly differentiated before being transplanted.

Earlier reports that these embryonic cells might not be easy to control — that they might produce tumors or other harmful growths when transplanted into patients — had been dismissed by some embryo research enthusiasts.

Now the leading corporation funding embryonic stem cell research in the United States, which has more experience in this field than anyone else and has aggressively lobbied and testified for federal funding, has confirmed these reports. The Science article noted that “Geron researchers seem no closer than other groups to devising therapeutic uses for stem cells.”

This article notes that human embryonic cells have even proved harder to grow in culture than once thought — much “trickier”to keep alive than the mouse embryonic cells which had raised some researchers’ hopes. This is especially ironic because embryo research advocates have denied that adult stem cells can be grown to produce sufficient quantities of cells for transplants. Now adult stem cells are proving easier to grow than many thought, and embryonic cells proving far more difficult.

Slowing Progress?

A final irony came to light on January 31, the day of the aforementioned “Talk of the Nation” radio debate on stem cells. On that program, Dr. John Gearhart of Johns Hopkins University, insisted that adult stem cells are no substitute for the pioneering work done by himself and others using stem cells from human embryos and aborted children. He lamented that a failure to provide federal funding for such lethal research will greatly hamper medical progress.

But on that same day, his own university announced it had received an unrestricted $58.5 million cash grant from an anonymous donor, to be used primarily for Dr. Gearhart’s approach. Deplorable in its own terms, such an influx of private funds into lethal research rebuts any charge that researchers need to coerce conscientiously opposed taxpayers into underwriting their work.

To add one last twist, the Johns Hopkins press release noted that this private grant will fund embryonic stem cell research but will also “extend that work into adult stem cells as a source of tissue,” because in many devastating diseases those cells “offer the best hope for patients.” The Johns Hopkins scientist quoted here on the great promise of adult stem cells was… John Gearhart.

The remarkable promise of adult stem cells, the concession even by supporters of embryonic research that adult cells may prove the safer and more beneficial route, the moral problem created by destroying human life for research, and the highly questionable legality of the Clinton

Administration’s guidelines for embryo research — all these factors should make George W. Bush’s decision on funding embryonic stem cell research one of the easier ones of his presidency.

Footnotes:

Current Law Prohibits Federal Funding of Embryo-Destructive Research

As discussed in the above article by Richard Doerflinger, the Clinton-Gore Administration promulgated guidelines for federal funding of research in which human embryos will be killed in order to obtain their “stem cells.”  Operating under these guidelines, the federal National Institutes for Health (NIH) are accepting grant requests for such research, with a March 15 deadline.

However, the Bush Administration has begun a review of the issue.  As Mr. Doerflinger discusses in his article, it is hoped that the review will conclude that the type of funding proposed by the Clinton Administration guidelines is clearly in violation of federal law.

Since 1996, a provision of the DHHS appropriations bill has flatly prohibited federal funding of any “research in which” a human embryos are harmed or placed at risk.  This law is known as the “Dickey Amendment,” after its author, former Congressman Jay Dickey (R-Ar.).

The Dickey Amendment was renewed for Fiscal Year 2001 on December 21, 2000, when President Clinton signed a consolidated appropriations bill that contained the DHHS appropriations bill for FY 2001 (HR 4577/HR 5656), which is now Public Law 106-554.  The pertinent language is Section 510, which is reproduced below.

The Dickey Amendment 

SEC. 510. (a) None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for–

(1) The creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes;
or
(2) Research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater than that allowed for research on fetuses in utero under 45 CFR 46.208(a)(2) and section 498(b)  of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 289g(b)).

(b) For purposes of this section, the term `human embryo or embryos’ includes any organism, not protected as a human subject under 45 CFR 46 as of the date of the enactment of this Act, that is derived by fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means from one or more human gametes or human diploid cells.