Stem cells, Embryonic

SEC. 509. (a) None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for--
(1) the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes; or
(2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater than that allowed for research on fetuses in utero under 45 CFR 46.208(a)(2) and Section 498(b) of the Public Health Service Act [1](42 U.S.C. 289g(b)) (Title 42, Section 289g(b), United States Code).

(b) For purposes of this section, the term "human embryo or embryos" includes any organism, not protected as a human subject under 45 CFR 46 (the Human Subject Protection regulations) . . . that is derived by fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means from one or more human gametes (sperm or egg) or human diploid cells (cells that have two sets of chromosomes, such as somatic cells).

“If one step or ‘piece of research’ of an E.S.C. research project results in the destruction of an embryo, the entire project is precluded from receiving federal funding,”

Brüstle, who is a practising Catholic, had thought hard about his own moral position. He disagrees with the creation of human embryos specifically for research. But almost all human ES-cell lines have been derived from embryos leftover from fertility treatment that would otherwise have been destroyed. Brüstle maintains that using them for biomedical research rather than discarding them is the moral imperative.

VANCOUVER -- For the first time ever, University of B.C. scientists have used human embryonic stem cell transplants to reverse Type 1 diabetes in mice with the disease, giving hope to about 300 million people around the world who suffer from the chronic disease.

A 13-member team, whose milestone work is published in the journal Diabetes, shows that after transplantation, the stem cells matured into insulin-secreting, pancreatic beta-cells. The cells automatically sensed blood sugar levels to release the right amount of insulin and a few dozen diabetic mice were gradually weaned off insulin given to them over a period of months.

Insulin is produced by beta-cells to to help the body absorb sugar and use it for energy.

“Essentially, the mice were cured of their diabetes by placing the body back in charge of regulated insulin production as it is in healthy, non-diabetics,” said lead author Timothy Kieffer.

WASHINGTON, April 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In yet another advance in adult stem cell therapy, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) today released a study in which 14 of 15 Juvenile Diabetes patients demonstrated significant improvement as a result of an adult stem cell treatment. According to U.S. Rep. Dave Weldon, M.D. (R-FL), the study is significant in that it's the first attempt at using stem cells of any kind to reverse the effects of Type I diabetes in humans.

"This is a very promising study for those who are suffering from Juvenile Diabetes," said Weldon, a Florida physician, who noted that while only a preliminary study, the treatment appears to be quite promising since 14 of the patients remain insulin-free after the adult stem cell transplant using their own adult stem cells. One patient has now gone 34 months without insulin therapy.

"It's very important that the public be told what this is: an adult stem cell success, not the much touted embryo stem cell research. Also, one of the first things I noticed was that this research was done by Americans overseas. Why? Because much of the American biomedical research community has placed an irrational reliance on embryo stem cell research above all others. Adult stem cell science in America is being crowded out and in some cases ignored. This bias is now denying American patients access to therapies that are much more promising. We need to focus on human treatments for today, not those with false hope for tomorrow."

Although the research showed that stem cells may one day provide a cure for diabetes, it also revealed hurdles to overcome before agencies like the Food and Drug Administration in the United States or Health Canada can approve the therapy.

For example, some mice developed bone or cartilage in areas where the cells were inserted, an unacceptable side-effect that future experiments must resolve.

Another obstacle is figuring out how to make the therapy work for humans so they don’t reject the cells. Mice used in the study were bred to be immuno-compromised so they wouldn’t reject the human cells as foreign invaders.

All those against stem cell research should be banned from getting any treatment derived from it. But we all know they will be first in line. Once again, religion holding back progress.

For years, actor Michael J. Fox was on the front line of the US's "stem cell wars", arguing that embryonic stem cells could cure conditions like his own – Parkinson's disease.

Last week Fox revealed he now believes that other lines of research hold more promise. "There have been some issues with stem cells, some problems along the way," Fox told ABC News. "An answer may come from stem cell research but it's more than likely to come from another area."

Obstacles include working out how to get transplanted cells to integrate into the brain, and developing "off-the-shelf" cell lines that can be used for any recipient.

Meanwhile, other avenues are speeding towards clinical trials. These include neurotrophic factors – proteins that promote the survival of nerve cells – as well as antibodies that target the alpha-synuclein protein, which may be a cause of the brain damage seen in Parkinson's.

Cash Burnaman, a 6-year-old South Carolina boy, has traveled with his parents to India seeking treatment for a rare genetic condition that has left him developmentally disabled. You might think this was a hopeful mission until you learn that an overwhelming number of medical experts insist the treatment will have zero effect.

Cash is mute. He walks with the aid of braces. To battle his incurable condition, which is so rare it doesn't have a name, Cash has had to take an artificial growth hormone for most of his life.

His divorced parents, Josh Burnaman and Stephanie Krolick, are so driven by their hope and desperation to help Cash they've journeyed to the other side of the globe and paid tens of thousands of dollars to have Cash undergo experimental injections of human embryonic stem cells.

For the first time, an experimental treatment made from human embryonic stem cells has shown evidence of helping someone, partially restoring sight to two people suffering from slowly progressing forms of blindness.

Although the purpose of the experiment was to test the safety of stem cells injected into the eye, both patients “had measurable improvement in their vision that persisted through the duration of the study,” said Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer at Advanced Cell Technology, the Massachusetts biotech company that sponsored the closely watched experiment.

Lanza cautioned that the findings are preliminary, the improvements could disappear and complications could emerge. Nevertheless, he thinks the two cases will provide useful lessons for the field....

The researchers initially weren’t sure whether her improvement was attributable to the operation or a placebo effect. They couldn’t see clear evidence of new cells in their examination, and she said vision in both eyes was better. Further testing, however, has convinced the team that Freeman’s sight is better.

"If she is looking for a partner to take over the research, she should really be looking in Europe, France in particular has made significant advancements with stem cell research. This is another example of our government being held back because of extremists. Too often ordinary citizens suffer or die when there are cures or treatment that are held up by nothing more than politics."

Respect for the dignity of the human embryo

Respect for all stages of life

Human rights

1. Anyone who disposes of, or hands over or acquires or uses for a purpose not serving its preservation, a human embryo produced outside the body, or removed from a woman before the completion of implantation in the uterus, will be punished with imprisonment of up to three years or a fine.

2. Likewise, anyone will be punished who causes a human embryo to develop further outside the body for any purpose other than bringing about of a pregnancy.

Austria also bans embryonic stem cell research.  Denmark and Italy prohibit the destruction of human embryos for embryonic stem cells but they allow for the importation of human embryonic stem cell lines from other countries.  In fact here is a list of European Countries that, unlike the United States, ban the creation of human embryos for use in research:  Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Spain,  Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Luxemborg, Lativa, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romaina, Sewden, Slovenia, and Slokavia.  This means all these countries have banned the cloning embryos for research, which the United States has not.

Well what about in North America?  Surely Canada has more "progressive" laws than the United States?  Wrong again.  In Canada, embryos cannot be created for research and existing IVF embryos can only be destroyed for research if all parties involved (sperm and egg donors) have given informed consent.  This means that Canada has also banned cloning human embryos for research.

See the United States is backward in its polices regarding research on human embryos, but not for the reasons may people believe.  It is backward because unlike other countries it has no national policy that protects human embryos at all!

So this Christmas while we Americans are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ in a orgy of consumerism, take a moment to reflect on our country's lack of protections for the smallest of our species. Protections afforded in other more "progressive" countries that understand that even the smallest of human lives have value.

Sources:
Center for Genetics and Society's BioPolicWiki
EuroStemCell.org
Genetics and Policy Center
World Human Cloning Policies
Canadian Institutes of Health Research

While my views in connection with research are opposed to those of the Pope and the Catholic church, I am very open to dialogue.  Simply for the sake of clarity (and not in any way seeking to criticise the church), please would you tell me the scriptural basis for the Vatican's opposition to research involving fertilised human ova?  I am very familiar with how the ideas of Aristotle were incorporated into church doctrine under Aquinas, but not at all clear what the scriptural basis is or how opposition to research aimed at the alleviation of human suffering, and which cannot harm a human being (blastocysts are well short of a having a nervous system with which to suffer), squares with less abstruse requirements of the Christian life.

I am sure that many readers would welcome the opportunity for a clear elaboration.  Obviously, people will have a range of legitimate views, but it would be wonderful to highlight shared ground.

"Although human life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed."
(O'Rahilly, Ronan and Müller, Fabiola. Human Embryology and Teratology, 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, p. 8)    

"But nine months before, when you first began, you were just one little cell, even smaller than the dot at the end of this sentence. Half of this cell came from your mother's body, and the other half came from your father's body."

2270- Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.

“Once fertilization is complete, there are no isolated moments along the way where you can point at an embryo or fetus and say that it is substantially different from the way it was a few minutes, or even hours earlier.”  

2274-  Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.

"People who oppose embryonic stem-cell research want a cure as much as you want a cure, but they do not believe that you can pick healthy fruit from a poisoned tree." -- Rabbi Marc Gellman, senior rabbi of Temple Beth Torah

The company conducting the world’s first clinical trial of a therapy using human embryonic stem cells said on Monday that it was halting that trial and leaving the stem cell business entirely.

The company, Geron, said that its move did not reflect a lack of promise for the controversial field. Rather, it said, with money scarce, it had decided to focus on its experimental cancer therapies, which are further along in development.

“I deeply believe in the promise of stem cells,” John A. Scarlett, the chief executive of Geron, said in an interview. “I don’t think that promise is in any way, shape or form changed by what we’re doing.”

Still, the move is expected to be widely seen as a setback for the field, because of Geron’s central role.

This is good news showing what pro-lifers have said all along.  Let's put money into ethical therapies that are farther along in development. But are the patients already enrolled in the study to see if embryonic-derived cells could help spinal cord injury showing results?  No, according to Dr. Scarlett, Geron's new CEO:

So far four patients have been treated. Dr. Scarlett of Geron said that there were “no signs” that the treatment was helping the patients. But that was not expected in the initial trial, which was mainly looking at safety. And so far, he said, there had been no sign of safety problems.

No safety problems is good news for the patients in the trial.  But Geron's retreat is sure to be a rallying cry to increase federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.  If business is not investing their time and money into embryonic stem cells, then you have to question whether the federal government should be spending our money in this field.  I would prefer to see my tax dollars going to adult stem cell research is that is undoubtedly "further along in development."

You may or may not have heard that recently a European Union court has ruled that the extraction of embryonic stem cells cannot be patented because it destroys a human embryo.  The court ruled:

“a process which involves removal of a stem cell from a human embryo at the blastocyst stage, entailing the destruction of that embryo, cannot be patented.”

Greenpeace had started this case in light of the debates about the European patent law. According to the EU patent directive, patents on human body parts, human genes and permits to plants and animals. Greenpeace, a number of objections to the European Patent Office has started, including patents on human embryos in eggs from the people, on human genes and on plant and livestock concerns. In parallel, an action against the patent of Oliver Bruestle before the Federal Court lodged after this had previously been contacted directly but was willing to change particularly contentious passages in his patent relating to the cloning of human embryos for the Dolly technique.

Greenpeace takes these actions against patents on life, because the organization revived in the extension of patent rights on the nature and abuse one sees an aberration of a patent right. Therefore, the organization shall include one against patents on human genes: These obstruct proven in many cases, research and development - to the detriment of patients and physicians. Instead, Greenpeace generally occurs for a clear limits in patent law over the living world - these relate to the limits with respect to a commercial use of the human body as well as the patenting of genetic resources.

Mouse fibroblasts stained for lamin (green), tubulin (red), and DNA (blue). Flickr, GE Healthcare

The Scientist has a great article called "Skipping Pluripotency."  What is pluripotency?  Pluripotent is a term used to describe a cell that is undifferentiated.  A pluripotent cell can become most or all of the cell types in the body.  Pluripotent stem cells come from embryos, either made from IVF or cloning, that are ripped apart for the stem cell mass inside. Recently, scientists have been able to induce pluripotency.  They are able to take a fully differentiated cell like a skin cell and reprogram it back to pluripotency.  These are called induced pluripotent stem cells or iPSCs.  

The discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) in 2006 opened the door to promising research and therapeutic techniques, such as the generation of disease models and the potential to replace cells damaged by neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s. Derived from fetal or adult cells, iPSC strategies avoided the ethical issues surrounding embryonic stem cells. But they retained one critical drawback—the propensity for tumor formation. In the last 18 months, however, researchers have discovered a new reprogramming technique that could avoid that problem altogether: the direct conversion of one differentiated cell type to another.

“Skipping pluripotency provides you the opportunity to avoid any possible tumorigenic source of cells,” says molecular biologist Vania Broccoli of the Stem Cells and Neurogenesis Unit at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Italy. “We believe that we are providing now a new source of cells which have an improved potential for these treatments and can be translated in the human systems.”

In a reversal of a previous ruling, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth has rejected the case brought by two adult stem cell scientists to halt the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.  Theresa Deisher, co-founder of the Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute, and James L. Sherley, a biological engineer at Boston Biomedical Research Institute claim that their research is negatively impacted by the National Institiutes of Health funding of embryonic stem cell research.  They rightly argue that the NIH has limited funds for stem cell research.   Money that is granted to embryonic stem cell research  is not only prohibited by the Dickey Amendment but is money that could be spent on adult stem cell research instead.   The Dickey-Wicker Amendment is a very important piece of federal legislation that is part of the Department of Health and Human Services budget.  It expressly prohibits the use of federal tax dollars in any research that creates or harms human embryos.  The Dickey-Wicker Amendment was signed into law by President Clinton in 1996 and has been renewed every year since, When President George W. Bush funded embryonic stem cell research for the first time in 2001, he placed limits on which cell lines were eligible for funding.  Bush limited funding to cell lines created before August of that year.  This was an attempt to be in compliance with the Dickey-Wicker Amendment because funds could not go to any new lines where new embryos had to be destroyed.  In 2009, President Obama removed Bush's restriction which opened federal dollars for work on new embryonic stem cell lines created by destroying more embryos. 

Sherley and Deisher argued that funding embryonic stem cell research on new ESC lines is a de facto funding of the destruction of embryos.  Last year Judge Lamberth agreed with Sherley and Deisher that expanding the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research violated the Dickey-Wicker Amendment.  Lamberth wrote:

“If one step or ‘piece of research’ of an E.S.C. research project results in the destruction of an embryo, the entire project is precluded from receiving federal funding,”

Lamberth placed a temporary injunction on funds for embryonic stem cell research.  The Obama Administration appealed the decision and Lamberth's injunction was overruled by a higher court.  Sherley and Deisher then asked for a summary judgment which Lamberth announced today.  He said was bound by the higher court ruling and had to dismiss the case.  From the AP:

Lamberth said in his opinion Wednesday that he is bound by the higher court's analysis and ruled in favor of the administration's motion to dismiss the case.

The dismissal of this suit is a defeat for those of us who do not want our tax dollars to pay for research that is only possible because of the destruction of the smallest members of our species.   But this ruling is also reminder of the importance of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment.  Many other countries around the world have laws in place that protect the human embryo from exploitation at the hands of researchers.  The United States has no such protections.  The only thing the United States has is the Dickey-Wicker Amendment which prevents only the federal government from paying for research that creates and destroys embryos.  Such research can proceed freely, just without our tax dollars.  There are many who call for the demise of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment.  Without it the National Institutes of Health will be free to fund the creation of embryos, with IVF or cloning, for express use in research. When President Clinton signed the Dickey-Wicker Amendment into law in 1996 it was a time when everyone seemed to understand that the government funded creation and destruction of human embryos was a horror straight out of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.  What a difference only 15 years makes.

Last year the FDA gave Geron approval to begin trials with cells derived from embryonic stem cells on patients with recent spinal cord injury.  Now the second trial with embryonic stem cell derivatives has begun.  This time two women with different kinds of macular degeneration have been injected with these cells in what is being called a trial to "treat" eye disease.  From the LA Times:

Stem cell clinical trials to treat eye diseases begin at UCLA

After more than 20 years of research, doctors at UCLA’s Jules Stein Eye Institute have begun treating the first patients in clinical trials for two progressive eye diseases that cause blindness: dry age-related macular degeration and Stargardt’s macular dystrophy.

The patients were given an injection of specialized eye cells that were derived from embryonic stem cells. Dr. Steven Schwartz, who is leading the trial at UCLA, performed both stem cell transplant surgeries Tuesday. The two patients are said to be recovering without complications.

Reading no further one might think that this trial is to cure these women of their eye disease.  It is not.  This is a Phase I trial which means it is for safety reasons only.  In fact, this particular trial is not designed to "treat" any blindness:

Will the patients regain vision?

The patients’ central vision is already gone. Not rescuable. So the patients we’re enrolling in this trial know they will not be getting their central vision back.

If not to restore vision, what is the goal?

This is a safety trial. It’s not designed to improve vision.

Safety is a real issue with embryonic stem cells because they are widely known to cause tumors in animal models.  So these women are volunteering for a very risky trial with no intended benefit to themselves.  Dr. Suzanne Ildstad, a researcher who is working toward using a patient's own adult stem cells to treat eye-related disorders, is concerned about the safety of using embryonic stem cells.  From an article in 2009 on the use of adult stem cells to treat macular degeneration:

Ildstad says there is growing concern in the use of embryonic stem cells. "There's been a real problem with cancer formation. I just reviewed a paper that was using embryonic stem cells in mice to try to regenerate tissue and they had 70% of mice die from teratomas (cancer), and so it's not a trivial challenge."

Basically Ildstad says "it's easier to control adult stem cells and what's happening when using embryonic,  it's been difficult to say okay, don't go further and become a cancer. Really, with cancer, what happens [is] the stem cell gets out of control."

Actor Brad Pitt expresses his endorsement of Proposition 71, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative, at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2004.

Having worked in research in the University of California system, I had my suspicions that Proposition 71 was really about getting "free money" for scientists to tinker around with the beginnings of human life and to fund human cloning in the guise of stem cell research.  I also knew that even if cures came about as quickly as the stem cell hype suggested, researchers would patent the discoveries paid for by Prop 71, then spin off companies, and charge the people an arm and a leg for the very treatments that they funded.

Now in 2011, 6 years later, there are still no cures from the embryonic stem cell research that was the focus of Prop 71.  No one in the know thought there would be, but I bet the people of California believed the hype that cures where only around the corner.  We are far from that.  In fact there has been only one FDA approved trial with embryonic derived stem cells.  And that is only approved for a handful of spinal cord injury patients and only to test for safety.  Meanwhile, adult stem cell trials for spinal cord injury have documented results.

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) the regulatory body in charge of doling out the funs from Prop 71 has had its share of problems.  Commenting on CIRM for the Los Angeles Times, Michael Hiltzik had this to say:

During its bungled search for a new chairman, the state agency that funds stem cell research has failed to address criticism that its research is too narrow and its governance overly secretive, and that it has lacked integration with the state's overall research investment....

The taxpayer-funded institute was created by Proposition 71 in 2004 to find cures for diabetes, AIDS, Alzheimer's and a host of other conditions via stem cell research, using $3 billion in bond proceeds ($6 billion including interest).

It goes without saying that it hasn't found those cures, though not for want of spending. Nor has it managed to temper public expectations pumped up by the original initiative campaign, or resolved the persistent questions about whether its grant-making process is subject to adequate public oversight or free of conflicts of interest....

The agency is contemplating how to replenish its funds — possibly by going back to voters for a new bond issue — while pressure increases for it to show concrete progress toward disease cures.

So CIRM wants more tax-payer funds for more speculative research.  In an attempt to support research that may actually help real patients, the CIRM is funding more adult stem cell research.  This is good, but it is disturbing that CIRM does not not seem to understand that California is broke to the point where schools are considering cutting a month out of the the school year to save money.   To throw more tax payer money at unproven embryonic stem cell research is irresponsible.  Hiltzik laments that the Prop 71 funds are focused on a very narrow area of research and that all of the board have some vested interest in the stem cell research arena.  It is a bit like having the kids guard the cookie jar.  He also points out where the money is actually going:

There's no question that stem cell research is important and potentially groundbreaking. But with every budget year, the folly of generously funding research in one research field while everything else withers away grows more obvious, nowhere more so than in the state's treatment of the University of California. Plenty of the stem cell money goes to UC campuses, but plenty does not. The largest single recipient? Stanford, a private university, which has received more than $192 million of taxpayer money as of May 4. That's more than UCLA and UC Berkeley combined.

Californians did not realize that with Prop 71 they became venture capitalists funding speculative research that creates and destroys human embryos or that their money would be going to private universities like Stanford.  I am certain that they do not understand that if cures do come, they will be paying the high cost along with everyone else.  They won't be getting a break on cures from research that they funded.   I hope Californians have learned their lesson and I hope other states will learn from their mistakes.

The first patient ever the US has been injected with cells derived from embryonic stem cells.  From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

First stem cell treatment for human administered in Atlanta

Taking a landmark step, Atlanta doctors have injected millions of embryonic stem cells into a partially paralyzed patient, treating a human for the first time in the U.S. with the controversial research, officials said Monday.

The medical procedure took place Friday at an unknown local hospital and the person, who was not identified, later entered the Shepherd Center, which specializes in brain and spinal cord injuries, for rehabilitation.

While supporters hailed the treatment as a monumental medical advance, others derided it as a moral atrocity. There was some irony in Atlanta being selected as the first American site for embryonic stem cell treatment, considering there have been several legislative proposals previously calling for a research ban. Clearly there was a divide when the news was revealed.

By the headline you would think that no stem cell therapy had ever been attempted before.  But my readers know better.  Adult stem cells have been used for years to treat patients.  In fact adult stem cells have already been through clinical trials in humans for spinal cord damage.  Let me refresh your memory.  From Dr. Jean Peduzzi Nelson's, testimony to Congress on the successes of adult stem cells in 2010:

I would like to tell you about 5 patients who have been helped by adult stem cells. These patients were either part of a clinical trial, and their results are now published in a peer-reviewed journal, or sometimes a similar procedure was done in a clinical trial that is now published.

The first patient is Silvio who I met several years ago.... Silvio had a spinal cord injury at the base of his neck.  Silvio was left with no movement of his legs and minimal movement of his fingers. At 2 years after injury, he received his own adult stem cells and partial scar removal after intensive rehab failed to lead to an improvement. Today he can maintain standing position and wave without help. With a walker and short braces, he can walk over 30 feet without anyone helping him. He can now move his fingers, which he could not do before.

This patient that was injected with embryonic stem cells has recently received a spinal cord injury. They must be in a terrible state.  This initial trial is just to test safety of this treatment.  I truly hope that this treatment does not make it worse and that no tumors develop.

The California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is the body that regulates the $6 billion tax payer funding for mostly embryonic stem cell research in California.  Recently they had a poetry contest to promote Stem Cell Awareness Day and they picked this gem:

Stem C.

By Tyson Anderson

This is my body

which is given for you.
But I am not great.

I have neither wealth,

nor fame, nor grace.

I cannot comfort with words,

nor inspire to march.

I am small and simple,
so leave me this.
Let me heal you.
This is my body
which is given for you.

Take this

in remembrance of me.

There has been much to do about the sacrilegious nature of this poem because it is a direct literary allusion to the words that Christ spoke at the Last Supper.  CIRM has since apologized for its religious insensitivity.

I do not want to discuss CIRM's apparent lack of foresight. (I think they should commiserate with the people at the 10:10 Project.)  I want to talk about this poem and why I am scratching my head that they picked it to win.

This poem clearly acknowledges the sacrifice of the life of a human embryo in embryonic stem cell research.  It acknowledges that this life is "small and simple" but a life nonetheless.  It also assumes that the embryo would WANT to be sacrificed as Jesus willfully sacrificed his life.

And that is precisely what is dangerous about embryo destructive research: the ASSUMPTION that a human life wants and should be sacrificed for the greater good whether it can communicate that or not.

Who are they to decide that this embryo would have chosen to sacrifice its life instead of living its life?  And if they can do if for an embryo can they do it for you as well?

A human embryo is a human subject that cannot give informed consent to give its life in experimentation.  This was a clear mandate in the Nuremberg Code to prevent science and scientists from going beyond certain moral boundaries. We disregard the Code at our own peril.

It is telling that CIRM picked this poem.  It tells me they know exactly what they are doing: ending human life "for the greater good."  And more importantly, they are fine with it.

Hat Tip: Wesley J. Smith

There is no federal ban on research on human embryos.  It is legal to conduct therapeutic cloning in most states.  Companies and universities are free to create and destroy human embryos all day long.  I wish that was not the case, but it is.

If you believe the hype that embryonic stem research is going to save lives and want to support embryo-destructive research, then reach for your checkbook and write a check.  You are free to do so.   I am sure lots of universities and private companies working with embryonic stem cells would be prefer to receive your donation than have to apply to the federal government for funds.  Your donation may even be tax deductible.

I have been told that I need to respect the opinion that human embryos are just a mere clump of cells and full of promise for cures.  Well, respect is a two way street.  If you want embryonic stem cell research, then you pay for it. 

Don't make me, and millions of people like me who find research that relies on the destruction of human embryos morally reprehensible, support it with our tax dollars.   When you do, you are forcing your belief that a human embryo has no value on me.

Bush was attempting to fund the research without being in violation of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, signed into law by President Clinton, which states that federal dollars cannot go to the destruction of human embryos.  The Dickey-Wicker Amendment, as I have stated before, is a very important piece of legislation that stands in the way of American tax dollars being used for the creation and destruction of human embryos solely for research purposes.  The Dickey-Wicker Amendment states:

SEC. 509. (a) None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for--

        (1) the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes; or
        (2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater than that allowed for research on fetuses in utero under 45 CFR 46.208(a)(2) and Section 498(b) of the Public Health Service Act [1](42 U.S.C. 289g(b)) (Title 42, Section 289g(b), United States Code).

    (b) For purposes of this section, the term "human embryo or embryos" includes any organism, not protected as a human subject under 45 CFR 46 (the Human Subject Protection regulations) . . . that is derived by fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means from one or more human gametes (sperm or egg) or human diploid cells (cells that have two sets of chromosomes, such as somatic cells).

In 2009 the Obama administration, by Executive Order, removed the funding restrictions on embryonic stem cell research put in place by President Bush.  Our tax dollars cannot go to the actual destruction of human embryos, but Obama's policy creates an incentive for said destruction by paying for research on newly created ESC lines....from freshly destroyed embryos.

Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, today wrote a temporary injunction against Obama's funding rules saying that they are in violation of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment.  From the New York Times:

The judge ruled that the Obama administration’s policy was illegal because the administration’s distinction between work that leads to the destruction of embryos — which cannot be financed by the federal government under the current policy — and the financing of work using stem cells created through embryonic destruction was meaningless. In his ruling, he referred to embryonic stem cell research as E.S.C.

“If one step or ‘piece of research’ of an E.S.C. research project results in the destruction of an embryo, the entire project is precluded from receiving federal funding,” wrote Judge Lamberth, who was appointed to the federal bench in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan.

In other words, the neat lines that the government had drawn between the process of embryonic destruction and the results of that destruction are not valid, the judge ruled....

The Obama administration said that its rules abided by the Dickey-Wicker Amendment because the federal money would be used only once the embryonic stem cells were created but would not finance the process by which embryos were destroyed. The judge disagreed, writing that embryonic stem cell research “necessarily depends upon the destruction of a human embryo.” 

Judge Lamberth is correct, funding an embryonic stem cell line that is created by necessarily destroying a human embryo is by default funding the destruction of that embryo.

Where this puts the state of the funding of embryonic stem cell research is anyone's guess.  What I am sure of is a new assault on the Dickey-Wicker Amendment by lawmakers like Diane DeGette (D-Co), who, without any real evidence, is a true believer in embryonic stem cell research.  

Tomorrow there will be new calls to repeal Dickey-Wicker.  But without the Dickey-Wicker Amendment our tax dollars would surely go to cloning and destroying human embryos for research.  It is the last defense against a taxed funded Brave New World.

Keep your eye (and your prayers) on this one!  I'll make sure to let you know when it is time to contact your representative and urge them to uphold the Dickey-Wicker Amendment

How many times I have the read the line in the media that "embryonic stem cells hold more promise than adult stem cells" and have asked myself, "How can they know that?"  Just because embryonic stem cells become every cell in the body inside a growing embryo, does not mean they can and will become every cell type in a lab.  And even if scientists had already made all 200 cell types in the lab from embryonic stem cells (which they haven't), ESCs still have never been used to treat a single patient.  Looking at the overwhelming clinical facts, it is adult stem cells that have more promise.

But that doesn't stop our elected representatives from trying to permanently ram the funding embryonic stem cell research down our throats by introducing legislation.  Rep Diana DeGette is the worst offender.  She and others have introduced HR 4808 which would turn the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research into law so that no future President can defund it.

Rep. DeGette is a true believer in ESC research, but once again, I have no idea why.  I am not sure she does either.  In the American Thinker today, Gene Tarne and David Prentice point out this very fact:

At that same hearing, Rep. Diana DeGette commented that "I know that these wonderful patients who are here today who have been cured by adult stem cells, mostly for blood-related diseases, would never say that somebody with diabetes or somebody with Parkinson's or somebody with nerve damage or somebody with macular degeneration -- all diseases for which embryonic stem cell research has shown promise and adult stem cells have shown no clinical promise -- no one would say those people should not be cured..."

She was zero for four. Rep. DeGette seemed embarrassingly unaware of the year-old JAMA study showing adult stem cells' efficacy for juvenile diabetes patients -- and Rep. DeGette is co-chair of the Congressional Diabetes Caucus. 

Parkinson's? In 2004, both Dr. Michel Levesque and Dennis Turner, a Parkinson's patient Levesque treated with Turner's own adult stem cells, testified regarding the positive results of the treatment. Leveque subsequently published his findings in the peer-reviewed Bentham Open Stem Cell Journal.

Nerve damage? Published studies using adult stem cells to treat spinal cord injuries include a 2006 report by Portugal's Dr. Carlos Lima in collaboration with Dr. Jean Peduzzi-Nelson of Wayne State University. They published a second report in 2009 using adult stem cells to treat more spinal cord injured patients.

Macular degeneration? Far from showing "no clinical promise," University of Louisville researchers have announced plans for a human trial of adult stem cells for macular degeneration. Rep. DeGette also seemed completely oblivious to the fact that the patient who testified was treated with his own adult stem cells for heart damage, not a "blood-related disease."

In their must-read-the-whole-thing piece, Tarne and Prentice point out other lawmakers who really do not know which end is up when it comes to stem cell science and yet still feel compelled to tell us what we need to fund.  My favorite is this gem from Tom Harkin:

In 2007, Sen. Tom Harkin  waved away evidence for adult stem cells, saying, "Scientists have known about adult stem cells for forty years, and they still haven't provided the answer for juvenile diabetes." He said this on the very day that the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published clinical trial results using adult stem cells in a treatment that reversed juvenile diabetes in patients.

Oh the irony.  But this is par for the course in Washington these days.  If you say it enough times somehow it just has to be true.  But what DeGette and Harkin and others like them do not realize is that while they argue that those against embryo destructive research are politically and not scientifically motivated, it is really they who are ignoring the science and pushing a political agenda.

Ohhh the irony.  From the Washington Post:

One year after President Obama announced he was lifting his predecessor's controversial restrictions on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research, some scientists are complaining that so far the new policy is -- ironically -- more of a burden than a boon to their work.

"The situation at the moment is worse than it was under the Bush administration," said Charles Murry, a professor of pathology and bioengineering at the University of Washington in Seattle. "Because of this, we are going to waste a lot of time."

At issue is the fate of the 21 "lines of cells" that President George W. Bush said could receive federal funding.

Bush limited federal funding to the lines that were already in existence in 2001....

Obama's attempt to loosen restrictions on federal funding was complicated by a thicket of ethical issues. Last summer, the National Institutes of Health issued detailed guidelines aimed at addressing those concerns. The guidelines included stringent requirements that any lines being studied with federal funding meet strict new ethical criteria, including making sure couples who donated the embryos for the lines' creation were fully informed of other options.

The problem is that it remains unclear how many of the original 21 lines, which researchers have spent millions of dollars and nearly a decade studying, were derived at a time when ethical requirements were less specific, leaving in doubt how many would pass muster under the tough new guidelines.

Unfortunately, this gives some researchers incentives to destroy new embryos for their stem cells which is exactly what the Bush restrictions were trying to prevent.  On the other hand, researchers are so wrapped up with trying to get funding for the Bush embryonic stem cell lines that the cry to federally fund human cloning with tax-payer dollars is relatively non-existent.  For now.

Let us not forget that according to some who want unfettered federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, the Bush lines were garbage.  Apparently not!

The controversial issue of embryonic stem cell treatment in South Dakota hits the senate floor Wednesday.

That's when the full senate is expected to vote on a bill aimed at legalizing stem cell treatments in South Dakota.

The main part of this debate is between adult stem cell treatment versus embryonic stem cell treatment.

Opponents of this bill say embryonic stem cell treatment is "not" proven to work.

But tonight we hear from an Onida, South Dakota woman who says embryonic stem cell treatment saved her life.

South Dakota native Paula Barber just turned fifty years old, a celebration she says does not think she would be having without embryonic stem cell treatment.

"M.S. is pretty much a death sentence and it has totally given me my live back."

She was diagnosed with Multiple Sclorosis back in 2001.

After trying several other treatments she says she heard about embryonic stem cell treatment being done in Mexico.

So she traveled to Tijuana to start getting treatments.

Of course this report comes just as South Dakota lawmakers to considering making embryonic stem cell research legal in South Dakota.

I find this woman's claim highly doubtful.  The FDA has yet to approve any trial using embryonic stem cells in the United States.  It is possible that some crazy man in Tijuana is injecting unsuspecting patients with embryonic stem cells.   More likely, Pamela was treated with adult stem cells and is either confused or lying. 

But because of sloppy or deceptive journalism no one can fact check this assertion that she was treated with embryonic and not adult stem cells.  The name of the doctor or the clinic that treated her is not in the report.  Convenient.  I did some research and found several clinics in Tijuana that are offering stem cell treatments.  Not one is using embryonic stem cells.  Stem Cell Biotherapy is using cord blood stem cells.  The Regenerative Medicine Institute is using a patients own bone marrow stem cells to treat M.S.  Same with ProgenCell.

On a greater level is the journalistic irresponsibility of KSFY by not checking to see if stem cell treatments in Tijuana are considered safe.  A quick look would reveal complaints of Americans about their treatments in Tijuana.  From the Washington Post:

Barbara Hanson and Jeannine Richardson discovered the risks after a trip to a stem cell clinic in Tijuana, Mexico, last year.

The women, who met in an online support forum for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, learned of a company called Stem Cell Biotherapy, which has offices in Agoura Hills, Calif., and advertised online. Hanson says one of the company's doctors, Burton Feinerman, told her he had taken 10 COPD patients to Tijuana and all had improved enough to discard their portable oxygen tanks.

But a week after traveling to Tijuana at Feinerman's direction and getting injections, both women spiked fevers and developed flulike symptoms. Richardson was hospitalized for eight days after returning home to New Hampshire.

"It was like the worst pneumonia I'd ever had," said Hanson, who lives near Denver. "It was so bad I honestly thought I was going to die." Hanson believes the injections made her and Richardson sick...

Stem Cell Biotherapy has brought a lawsuit against Casey Navabi, their founder and former President, mentioned in the above Post article, for fraud, embezzlement and impersonating a doctor among other things.

Hat Tip: Jivin J

Supporters of the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative, passed in 2004, held out hopes of imminent medical miracles that were being held up only by President Bush's policy of not allowing federal funding of embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) beyond existing stem cell lines and which involved the destruction of embryos created for that purpose.

Five years later, ESCR has failed to deliver and backers of Prop 71 are admitting failure. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the state agency created to, as some have put it, restore science to its rightful place, is diverting funds from ESCR to research that has produced actual therapies and treatments: adult stem cell research. It not only has treated real people with real results; it also does not come with the moral baggage ESCR does.

To us, this is a classic bait-and-switch, an attempt to snatch success from the jaws of failure and take credit for discoveries and advances achieved by research Prop. 71 supporters once cavalierly dismissed. We have noted how over the years that when funding was needed, the phrase "embryonic stem cells" was used. When actual progress was discussed, the word "embryonic" was dropped because ESCR never got out of the lab.

I also love how the word "embryonic" is either added or deleted depending on the desired effect.  AS a result of ESC failures, Prop 71 money is going to where it should: adult stem cell research.  And here is where Investors Business Daily tells us what they REALLY think:

It is ESCR researchers who have politicized science and stood in the way of real progress. We are pleased to see California researchers beginning to put science in its rightful place.

Hat Tip: Jivin J

Prop 71 was a California proposition that the tax-payers of California swallowed whole.  They were told by advocates and celebrities if they approved the $3 billion for cloning and embryonic stem cell research, cures would be theirs.  Never mind that is was simply easy funding for scientists at Stanford, UCLA and UCSF to tinker with human life at its earliest stages.  Never mind that no one had actually been successful in cloning a human embryo and extracting stem cells.  Never mind that embryonic stem cells had not even treated one patient.  The advocates cried that it just HAD to be funded.

Prop 71 passed back in 2004.  In 2009, human cloning for stem cells is overshadowed by induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells), embryonic stem cells still have not received FDA approval for human trials, and the California tax-payers are holding the bill.  And while these funds are now being put toward more ethically sound stem cell research, California is falling apart and cannot afford it.  From Dan Walters opinion piece in the San Jose Mercury News:

As the week began, a legislative committee heard state Treasurer Bill Lockyer describe, in blunt terms, why the state finds it increasingly difficult to market its bonds. Briefly, its budget is chronically unbalanced, it has floated too much debt, and it's now forced to pay higher interest rates on its debts than many Third World nations....

Meanwhile, a commission that hands out stem cell research money from a $3 billion bond issue tripled the salary of its part-time vice chairman, former Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres, to $225,000....

So we're squandering our limited debt capacity on nonessential things such as stem cell research and bullet trains while our existing infrastructure is crumbling, demand from an increasing population grows, politicians' credibility is almost nil, and bankers deservedly treat us like a Third World country.

Way to go, California.