On June 20, President George W. Bush vetoed legislation that would have greatly expanded the number of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines available for federally funded research. With this veto -- his second on this issue -- the president made clear that there was no chance of advancing federal support for hESC research on his watch. Most proponents of this research have now turned their eyes to the 2008 election, in the hope that a Democrat or moderate Republican will finally break the impasse.
If a Democrat and a sympathetic Congress are elected, this will happen. But if a Republican wins the election, the current ban on most federal funding could persist. At a recent debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, seven of the 10 Republican candidates said they would not change current federal policy. Of the remaining three, only John McCain supported expanded funding for hESC research; Rudolph Giuliani said that he supports such funding only "as long as we're not creating life in order to destroy it," and Tommy Thompson refused to provide a definitive response.
This research promises breakthrough treatments for diseases like Type 1 ("juvenile") diabetes, Parkinson's disease and many other nervous and circulatory system disorders. Since 1994, when I served on the first federal panel to recommend hESC research, I have watched year after year as political opposition blocked significant federal support. I believe that the life of Christopher Reeve and many other victims of tissue-related diseases or injuries might have been saved if this opposition did not exist. Yet now we are facing the likelihood that it will continue for another five to 10 years. What can supporters of hESC research do?
There is one significant policy direction available to us right now: We can urge our representatives in Congress to support research on ways of developing hESC lines that do not destroy human embryos. Over the past two years, scientists have developed several promising methods of this sort. One involves parthenogenesis, the stimulation of unfertilized eggs to divide and become hESCs. Another method developed by a company for which I serve as an unpaid consultant involves the extraction of a single cell from an early embryo undergoing genetic testing. That cell can be grown into two cells, one of which can be used for testing, the other to create an hESC line. Other alternatives for hESC are also under study. (I leave aside the alternative of adult stem cell research which is already well funded by the government but less promising than ESC research.)
Surprisingly, there are few supporters of this research direction. The Bush administration seems content to pass from office with its strong record of opposition to most hESC research intact. It recently rejected a grant application to compare alternative derivation methods on the grounds that their ethical and legal implications required further study (although no initiative or funding for such study has been forthcoming). On the other side, advocates of hESC research have retreated from talk of alternative derivation methods out of fear that this could distract attention from their efforts to expand funding for proven approaches that use (and destroy) spare embryos from infertility procedures. Some scientists have also spoken out against research on alternative methods, insisting that it amounts to the unacceptable use of science for the sake of politics.
None of these objections is any longer tenable. All serve to obstruct progress on the one path that is open to us to speed the development of stem cell therapies. Unless we move in this direction now, federal funding of stem cell research will be delayed for at least 16 more months, and perhaps for much longer.
A further reason for supporting this research now is that it could help us avoid moral objections to the use of future hESC therapeutics by researchers, clinicians, and patients who oppose the destruction of human embryos. Conscientious objection to the use of lines derived by current methods by individuals or religiously-affiliated hospitals could vastly complicate research and clinical decision making. Lines made without destroying embryos would be the moral equivalent of O-type blood, ethically universal therapeutics that could be used by anyone without moral qualms.
In the weeks and months ahead, presidential aspirants, some of whom currently serve in Congress, will be frequent visitors to the Dartmouth campus. This is an opportunity for members of the Dartmouth community to urge them to act now to support research on alternative methods of stem cell derivation. It is not enough to hear promises of support for hESC research once in office. We have already lost too much time.
