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31 July 2006
Stem Cell Research: Killing It Softly
by Serena Mackesy
 So: George W. Bush and that veto. Aside from the breathtaking hypocrisy of a man who has personally approved the execution of juveniles; justifying anything by spouting off about the "inherent dignity and matchless value" of human life, what's it all about, then?
Set aside the rhetoric in the announcement speech and the decision is not quite as sweeping as initial reports might lead one to believe. America hasn't banned stem cell research. American taxpayers already fund it, and quite generously at that. It's just that George has put America - made sure America stays, more accurately - in a position where the greatest likelihood is that research will grind to a halt. Because what George actually vetoed was federal funding of research on new "redundant" embryos.
The issue is this. The way the law stands at the moment, stem cell research is sort-of-only-partially OK. A bill passed in 2001 allowed for federally-funded research, but only on stem cell lines that had already been harvested from embryos that had since been destroyed. So, once that bill was passed, research could only be done on stem cells that were already, as it were, in the system. And as stem cell research was fairly much in its infancy back then, the embryos involved barely even scratch the surface of representing the broad variety of the human animal. This is important and we'll get back to it. Anyway, the 2006 bill, passed by Congress, basically allowed the resumption of research on cells taken from new embryos. This is what Bush vetoed.
To be fair to the guy, he also signed into law something called the Fetus Farming Prohibition Act of 2006, which basically stops people from creating - and creating for profit - fetuses specifically for purposes of research. Current stem cell research is largely based on embryos created for IVF treatments, which, unused, have to, by law, be destroyed. They are not harvested, as opponents of stem cell research occasionally try to suggest, from aborted fetuses. But this, of course, is where the moral grey area comes in nonetheless. Because whether you belong to the Every Sperm Is Sacred brigade (and the Vatican, for starters, has, after all, condemned both IVF and stem cell research as "gravely evil acts") or the Bunches Of Cells Don't Have Souls brigade, there's something just a bit too Aldous Huxley about the concept of people deliberately starting off the reproductive process for cash with no intention of any of it reaching the conclusion originally intended by nature. Even I, and I'm firmly on science's side in the Science vs Superstition debate, find it too much by a queasy mile. But I suspect that Dubya has got the two issues mixed up and additionally, that he's based his decision on scientific assumptions that are way out of date.
Firstly, let's understand that stem cells are individual cells. Although an embryo is basically a bunch of stem cells, a stem cell is not an embryo. A stem cell has the capacity to multiply and turn into anything it wants to: a lung, a brain, a heart, a pair of diamond earrings, whatever. We don't really know how it does it, or what makes it choose to do it, which is after all the sort of stuff that requires research. But here's the thing. Back in 2001, we thought, in our customary overoptimistic way, that stem cells were going to be the magic bullet. We were going to grow new livers for transplant patients, patch-up Parkinson's, rid the world of diabetes and cure cancer. The Brave New World was upon us - again. And any old stem cells would do. The theory behind the 2001 act was that the extant 60 strands already harvested in the U.S. before the gate slammed shut were going to be the daddies of every cure for every ailment that couldn't be knocked on the head by a dose of antibiotics. It's on this underpinning that Bush's "you've got enough, don't ask for any more" veto balances its wobbly legs.
However, it hasn't turned out like that. Bush only mentioned 21 stem cell lines in his recent speech - the other 39 were found to be unusable. So now we're down to just over a third of the original great white hopes. And expectations of total global health cures any time soon are rapidly receding into the middle distance. There have, in fact, been some spectacular experimental backfires, with some embryonic stem cells multiplying to form cancerous tumors. But the fact remains that, as well as the research being fundamental to our learning about the primary functions of the human body, which in its turn will lead to massive changes in how we treat and heal it, there have also been significant discoveries. A recent study published in Nature concluded that where scientists had previously thought they'd seen the miraculous sight of new specialized cells, what they were actually seeing was stem cells bonding with pre-existing adult cells. It's clear that this bonding in itself is potentially beneficial, helping to heal or at least strengthen weak physiological functions. Scientists have, for instance, used them to reverse the course of Parkinson's disease in rats. Not halt, reverse. Anyone who's had to witness the suffering of another human being afflicted by a degenerative disorder will be singing with joy at this news.
 Here's the problem with the veto. Twenty-one stem cell strands is not going to cure the world. Even if we could (and we're a long, long way off doing anything of the sort), say, grow a kidney in a Petri dish, that kidney would only be usable by transplant patients compatible with that particular kidney. They're not going to be a universal fit, like, say, a silicon heart valve. They will still be beset with the same problems inherent in transplant surgery. You have a 1 in 20,000 chance of being a bone-marrow match, for instance, with a random passerby in the street. And at the moment, and for the foreseeable future, in the U.S. at least, there are only 21 of those "people" available.
The question surely has to lie - unless you belong to that sector of society that believes that IVF and other forms of fertility treatment are wrong in themselves - in individual moral judgment. The fact is that the embryos under discussion in this bill, if not implanted - successfully or unsuccessfully - into a womb, will be destroyed. They will no longer exist. The question is whether, as an individual, you believe that each embryo is in fact a human being. Put it this way. If there is an equivalency in the status of an embryo, it is probably a great deal closer to that of someone who is brain-dead and being kept alive artificially on life-support. It - and they - would be unable to sustain life without our intervention. It has long been standard practice in the medical world, if the individual in question has failed to write a living will, to ask the next-of-kin for permission to harvest their organs while they are still on life support to provide life for other people. Some people can bear to do it, others can't. I know that if it were a question raised in my family, if there were no future for them, but a potential future for others as a consequence of them, I would have no hesitation in giving my permission. The thought that George Bush would feel empowered (and morally better equipped) to make that decision for me makes my hair stand on end.
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