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.
All the latest on Orange County from Orange County.
Get our free TimesOC newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot.