Science, politics and stem cells

When Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) -- a physician and point-man for

President Bush in the Senate -- crossed up his boss last week by

announcing his support of a bill expanding federal funding for the

use of embryos in stem cell research, the rhetoric instantly hit the

fan.

Two examples will illustrate. U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) --

who is on record as saying that the right to consensual sex within

our own homes opens the door to bigamy, polygamy and incest, among

other aberrations -- told a Los Angeles Times reporter, “Without

question, the president will veto this.... [He] understands that the

federal government should not be on the side of taking innocent human

life.”

And conservative columnist David Gelernter wrote, “Embryos are

potential infants just as infants are potential adults.... If it

seems OK to destroy embryos but not full-term fetuses, that’s only

because embryos look less human. The distinction rests not on justice

but on squeamishness.”

All of this resonated with special interests in California, where

59% of our voters last year supported a ballot proposition that

provides $3 billion in state funding for stem cell research. Those

funds are being administered by an independent citizens oversight

committee set up to govern the California Institute for Regenerative

Medicine.

One of the members of that committee and a leading international

researcher in limb regeneration is Susan Bryant, who is both a

professor of developmental and cell biology and dean of the UC Irvine

School of Biological Sciences. She also -- contrary to the recently

expressed views of the president of Harvard -- believes strongly in

the full participation of women in science and has worked diligently

to bring that about.

So what better place to turn for the scientific response to these

concerns?

She chose to give generously of her time to discuss -- in lay

language -- a matter of obvious and critical importance to her.

“I have no quarrel with any religious point of view,” she said,

“but I do take issue with the manner in which critics coming from

this place choose to recognize when a fertilized egg becomes a human

being. And how they carry this view over to stem cell research. The

embryo is but one very early step in the development of a human. The

issue is at what point in this process it becomes a human being.

“We’re talking here about a dot smaller than the period at the end

of this sentence, so small that it is invisible to the naked eye. I

strongly object to hearing this dot referred to as ‘innocent human

life.’ That dot is not in any way recognizable as human.”

Bryant’s credentials to speak out for science in this public

debate are impressive. She was recently elected a fellow in the Assn.

for Women in Science -- the highest honor the group bestows -- for

her pioneering work in limb regeneration and her efforts to bring

more women into science. She would hope to use some of the

applications of stem cell research in her own field of regenerative

medicine. And she also hopes that increased domestic production of

stem cells will enable the United States to participate more fully in

the international research now led by South Korea, China and England.

But California can’t carry that program alone. It needs the

federal support embodied in the bill now being debated in Congress --

and that means bracing the spines of enough legislators to pass it

over a presidential veto that will likely make the same arguments as

Santorum and Gelernter.

“Apparently,” Bryant said, “the people who object to embryonic

research really believe that early embryos look like small babies.

That simply isn’t true. The dot we see in the laboratory has no form

of any kind for several weeks while a single cell is turning into a

cluster that will become an embryo.

“This clump of cells is a potential human being in the sense that

you might get there from here, but there is no assurance that you

would. Development is a highly risky process, certainly not a precise

progression. Lots of things can happen in those early days. A very

large number of early embryos never make it, and there is a clear

cut-off in stem cell research between early, unformed embryos and

late embryos.”

It is ironic that charges of killing are being made against this

research that is so firmly and creatively engaged in finding means of

supporting and healing the living. This is the vision that Bryant

holds to and that the voters in California must have embraced also

when they supported stem cell research here. This vision is of the

future, and Bryant talks glowingly about it.

“Historically,” she said, “we have come through two eras of

medicine: surgical and chemical. We are just now beginning to enter a

new field of regenerative medicine that can lead directly to

replacement and repair of human body parts. We have done much of the

basic research in this new field of medicine, and we are now moving

along to applied research that is taking us into exciting areas with

almost limitless possibilities.

“That’s why our ability to produce stem cells is so vitally

important. The accessibility of embryonic stem cell research makes an

enormous difference in how quickly and effectively we progress to the

point where we can apply this new knowledge in so many different ways

to the betterment of all mankind.”

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.