Stem Cell Advance Shows More Research Needed, Not Less

Update III: A Stem Cell Breakthrough — No Thanks to Mr. Bush

Update II: Leshner and Thomson: Bush Stands in the Way of Stem Cell Research

Update: Prominent Stem Cell Researcher Praised By Bush Rips White House’s Stem Cell Policies

Madison, Wisconsin - James A. Thomson, the UW-Madison scientist who led the team that announced in 1998 the generation of stem cells from human embryonic cells, is an admired figure across the world.

Stem cells can become any of the differentiated cells of the human body and hold the promise to developing treatments and possibly cures for such ailments as diabetes, muscular dystrophy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease), and other degenerative conditions.

The possibilities are staggering, and stem cells are hope for the millions of people suffering from cruel and life-destroying illnesses.

Unfortunately, the same small band of rigid, anti-rational dogmatists (which includes President George W. Bush) who rave against federal funding for embryonic stem cell research in favor of Bush's stem cell policy, have now declared the issue moot after the announcement in November of Dr. Thomson’s and a Japanese team’s generation of stem cells from adult, non-embryonic cells.

Representative of this clique is Charles Krauthammer.

Krauthammer quotes Dr. Thomson: “If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough.”

Krauthammer goes on to praise President Bush and his unyielding opposition to embryonic stem cell research.

The verdict is clear: Rarely has a president -- so vilified for a moral stance -- been so thoroughly vindicated. … Because the moral disquiet that James Thomson always felt -- and that George Bush forced the country to confront -- helped lead him and others to find some ethically neutral way to produce stem cells. Providence then saw to it that the technique be so elegant and beautiful that scientific reasons alone will now incline even the most willful researchers to leave the human embryo alone.

Ridiculous.

Judicious researchers like Dr. Thomson have thought through the moral implications of using days-old, tiny embryonic cells (destined to be destroyed at fertility clinics) to generate stem cells, and have arrived at the opposite conclusion from that which Krauthammer and the religious right disingenuously posit.

Stem cell research is in its infancy and though the research has been set back years by Bush’s stubborn policy, no stem cell researcher is calling for the abandonment of embryonic stem cell research.

The new stem cell techniques are brand-new, retain possible cancer-causing risks, and would be unsuitable at this point for any therapy, much less cures.

The arguments against embryonic stem cell research were irrational when Bush and the religious right made them in 2001, and they remain so today.

The small circle of anti-embryonic stem cell research fanatics should be seen as the cruel Luddites that they are.

No compromise need be made with this tiny minority of the American public.

The promise and hope of scientific inquiry generally and stem cell research specifically should be rekindled by the next American administration.

Embryonic stem cell research and new techniques ought to become the Manhattan Project for the next century.

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