After watching Ron Reagan whore his father’s name for personal and partisan political gain at the Democratic national Convention last night, I thought we should check the current state of knowledge on stem cell research.
MYTH #1: If George Bush and the GOP have their way, there will be no scientific activity in the field of stem cell research.
FACT: Stem cell research is legal, and has always been legal through private research.
MYTH #2: George Bush and the radical Republicans have done everything they can to make stem cell research illegal.
FACT: Prior to George Bush, federal funding of stem cell research was ILLEGAL, with Bill Clinton ensuring such research remain illegal through executive order in 1994. The Clinton administration did examine and create some basic guidelines regarding stem cell research, but these were not widely debated and not implemented, thus leaving the issue to the Bush administration.
MYTH: Bush’s backwards, Christian Fundamentalist beliefs threaten the existence of stem cell research
FACT: Bush, during the campaign, was actually against any form of stem cell research (a mistake, IMHO), but later reversed course and came to favor such research.
MYTH: Bush’s decision on stem cell research has crippled the field.
FACT:Before President Bush’s Aug. 9, 2001, announcement, no NIH funds were used in supporting human embryonic stem cell research. In fiscal year (FY) 2000, $147 million and in FY 2001, $152 million funded all non-embryonic stem cell research. In FY 2002 things changed, with $10.7 million for hESC research and $170.9 million for non-embryonic human stem cell research . In FY 2003 the budget for hESC research was more than doubled to$24.8 million and non-embryonic stem cell research funding increased to $190.7 million.
MYTH: Because of President Bush, stem cell research is nearly impossible to conduct in the United States.
FACT: From a letter to concerned members of the House of Representatives, signed by by Dr. Elias Zerhouni, the Director of the NIH:
Through the President’s leadership and the extraordinary efforts of the NIH, we are making good progrss in meeth the potential of this exciting new field of science- a field that had not been federally funded prior to the President’s historic addresss toe the Nation on August 9, 2001.
As you know, 78 hESC derivations met the criteria established by the President on that date. Although some have been withdrawn or have failed to expand, many lines are currently being used for research into diabetes and Parkinson’s. Eligible lines are being used in private sector research and in research using funding from other Federal sources…
Today, much of the basic research thatneeds to be done canbe and is being supported with Federal funds under the President’s policy. In the three years since the President announced his policy, this science has advanced. Yet we still do not know with certainty what we will or will not be able to accomplish with 19lines or 23 lines or more. And although it is also fir to say that from a purely scientific perspective more cell lines may well speed some areas of hESC research, the President’s position is still predicated on his belief that taxpayer funds should not “sanction or encourage further destruction of human embryos that have at least the potential for life.”
MYTH The President’s position on stem cells is keeping medical treatment from people with horrible diseases.
FACT Stem cell research is just that- research, and much of the debate is about the promise of cures in the future:
The most promising use of stem cells is due to their ability to be modified into different functional adult cell types and serve as a potential source of replacement cells to treat numerous diseases. Thus, any disease in which there is tissue degeneration can be a potential candidate for stem cell therapies, including conditions and disabilities as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, Type 1 diabetes, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, muscular dystrophies and liver diseases…
Recently, new possibilities for the use of adult stem cells have emerged when researchers showed that cells from the bone marrow can give rise to specialized cells in a variety of tissues as different as blood, brain, muscle, kidney, pancreas and liver. One can imagine that one day, we will be able to isolate our own bone marrow cells, treat them and reintroduce them back into the body to renew or repair cells in a number of different organs.
Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), present in the bone marrow and precursors to all blood cells, are currently the only type of stem cells commonly used for therapy. Doctors have been transferring HSCs in bone marrow transplants for more than 40 years. Advanced techniques for collecting or “harvesting” HSCs are now used to treat leukemia, lymphoma and several inherited blood disorders.
The clinical potential of stem cells has also been demonstrated in the treatment of other human diseases, including diabetes and advanced kidney cancer. However, these new therapies have been offered only to a very limited number of patients using adult stem cells.
This is a sensitive issue- not a political football. Keep that in mind when you hear statements like this:
In an exclusive interview with MSNBC
David
Well, where to start. I may not know alot but I do understand NIH funding and your post is displays a profound lack of understanding regarding mediacal research in this country. NIH’s prohibition on the use of funds for stem cell research using nonapproved stem cell lines has effectively shut down large swaths of research endevors in this country.
Lets say I am a researcher that wants to use one of the newer more robust lines that was developed after George Bush’s arrbitray and scientificall uninformed descision. I contact the private holder of that line and ask them to ship it to me. Hmmm … where do I have it shipped to? My lab you say … unfortunately I purchased some of the equipment with an unrelated NIH grant, so I can’t ship it there. So instead I go out and raise the millions of dollars neccesary to build a new NIH funds free building, buy cell culture hoods and then move some of my medical students over … ack probably can’t do that since they probably funded by some combination of NIH funds, perhaps training grants. So I need to go and hire new staff to maintain the cell lines and carry out the experimental work more money more effort more barriers less research.
Do you think it is as a joke that California is considering a ballot initiative to raise state funds to pump into stem cell research. You should understand thi, they are doing it as economic investment. The cost/benefit possibilities with stem cells are worth the reletively small investment.
Best of all as a political issue this is a loser for the conservatives. There is a segment of the public for which this is a single issue that makes of breaks a candidate. The people for which it is important that it be maintained are generally already pro-life and not moveable. However, there are rebuplicans whose parents are suffering from parkinsons or whose children suffer from diabetes and to hear the president of the US shut down a promising research area for a reason that is not their principle interest galls them.
As I said in my post regarding the conservative African American physician Dr. Ben Carson, republicans dependency upon the cultural conservative community has left them shedding off others. The democratic party truly is a big tent.
John Cole
David- I think what you are describing is called ‘private research.’
David
John,
My point is that you simply don’t understand how biomedical funding works in the US today. “Private research” doesn’t exist. Perhaps you mean SBR’s “small buisiness research” nope the majority of that funding comes from NIH, NCI, NIGMS etc.
The funding requirements promulgated by NIH functionally forbid ANY mixing of funds requiring entirely seperate research infrastructure. Wasteful, duplicative and short sighted.
“Private research” is a nice concept and sounds quite admirable but in the manner of this current administration just because one wants it to be that way doesn’t me that it is.
Ever given much thought to why the first succesfully cloned mammal was done not in the US, perhaps in a ‘Rand’ian manner you just figured that was where genius struck, perhaps it has more to do with the chilling effect that religeous conservatives have had upon basic fundemental scientific research.
David
A similar sentiment was posted on the discussion at Redstate.
S.W. Anderson
FACT: Bush, during the campaign, was actually against any form of stem cell research (a mistake, IMHO), but later reversed course and came to favor such research.
I’ll just bet you’ve got some really clever reason why the above, being a Bush thing, doesn’t qualify as a flip-flop. Whereas, were it a Kerry thing it would be the flip-flop to end all flip-flops. C’mon, be honest.
On stem cell research, what David says makes sense. I’ve seen several articles and reports on TV indicating that Bush’s action has resulted in some of the U.S.’s top researchers going to Britain and elsewhere. Also, the work goes on in countries with much lower ethical standards than the U.S. To the extent Bush’s decision increases or advances that, the result may mean less regard for ethics and decency in this area, not more.
IXLNXS
Whatever you said was lost after whoring Reagans name. I mean who whored reagans name more than Republicans?
As such the rest of your argument is lost in the fact the Republicans whored Reagans name more, and any bitching about his son, a Democrat whoring the name is senseless and silly.
Fletcher
Personally, I favor unrestricted funding of embryonal stem cell research. The current restrictions make little sense. But then, to blame Bush for these restrictions, when he actually has enabled many forms of stem cell research, is the work of the clueless or dishonest.
John, you are absolutely correct. Bush’s NIH is doing infinitely more research into stem cells than under Clinton. Bush is opposed to federal funding for embryonal stem cell research on new cell lines, but not other stem cell research.
Private foundations in the US fund billions of dollars of medical research annually.
David
Fletcher,
I need to reiterate the points I made above. The issue is not private research vs public research, it is the actual implementation of NIH rules that forbids the mixing of funds. So if you are a university and part of your indirect costs (these are funds above the actual amount that is included in the grant) goes to general maintainace of a building … you can not use non-NIH approved embroyonic stem cells in that building with out risking all of the current and past NIH funding.
The effect of the Bush guidelines is to erect a huge barrier to effective stem cell research in the US.
John Cole
The effect of the Bush guidelines is to erect a huge barrier to effective stem cell research in the US.
Spoken like a true partisan.
Except of course, that since before, as I stated in the piece, it was completely illegal to engage in this research. In other words, “the effect of the Bush guidelines is to break down most or many of the barriers to effective stem cell research in the US.”
David
John,
No it is spoken like a true scientist who sees a promising line of research choked off by an administration that treats scientist like Wesley Mouch treated industrialist. Look the US science training establishment is bar none the most effective and robust program ever in training. It has mannaged mostly through dumb luck to mix the appropriate measures of academic freedom with commercial insentives to produce investigators that are driven, excited and mostly properly incentivized.
The Bush policy is sending these people overseas or worse making them conduct research with lines that are widely recognized in the scientific community as wholely inadequate. Despite what the letter from Dr. Elias Zerhouni says FDA’s approval process for biologics will have serious issues with any commericilization of any of the approved stem cells line.
Am I a partisan, sure but first I am a scientist that has watched the Republican party become hijacked by religious conservatives who take over school boards inorder to attack evolution.
susanna
David, before you get your shorts all in a wad about Republicans and science, look at the Dems and their embracing of, for example, animal rights activists who would end any use of animals in research if they could. As for not being partisan, science cannot be divorced from ethics. Choosing to pursue one course over another always requires a moral as well as practical decision-making processes. If GW opened the treasury and told scientists to take what they needed to do any research they wanted, someone somewhere in the science ranks would find something to whine about. I think the govt controls science too much through federal funding, but I also think a lot of self-serving and dishonest “science” is done or pursued by researchers more interested in fame and money than “helping mankind”. Why can’t you give credit where it’s due (Bush opening the research path) and lay a little smackdown on Clinton? I certainly hope stem cell research can achieve its promise, but I personally agree with Bush that creating potential humans in a lab for the purpose of using their cells for research is a further erosion of a regard for sanctity of life.
Cousin Dave
David, your comments are self-contradictory. You have stated (repeatedly) that NIH funding is the only possible source of funds for this research. Yet, you also claim that scientists in this area are moving overseas to do the research. Where then is the funding coming from? Further, you claim that there are no ethical implications to this kind of research. Yet, in the next paragraph, you state that scientists are moving to areas with low or no ethical constraints to continue the research — clearly implying that ethical issues do exist. Further, your comment that no private medical research of any kind exists in the U.S. is bizarre and harms your overall credibility.
As for your whining about co-mingling of federal funds, cry me a frickin’ river. I work in space research and I deal with more color-of-money issues every day that you have encountered in your entire career.