HEADLINE: Patients suffer while debate
over embryo cells rages
BYLINE: Stephen L.
Cohen
BODY: In the 4 years since
Dolly the sheep was cloned, human cloning has come
closer to reality. In fact, some fertility specialists recently
announced plans to do just that.
The news
rightly elicits passionate debate over the ethics of human cloning. But such debate obscures the real magic at
hand, which involves a different kind of cloning: therapeutic
cloning. This has nothing to do with cloning humans, but everything
to do with saving lives.
The
goal of therapeutic cloning is to replicate human tissue, not human
beings. This could revolutionize the fight against disease by giving
us new sources of cells that could be used to regenerate organs in
patients suffering from many intractable conditions, such as
diabetes and Parkinson's disease.
Unfortunately, the battle over cloning people, or "reproductive cloning," threatens to spill over into tissue cloning. A bill before Congress would ban both reproductive and therapeutic cloning.
Soon, the issue will come to a head, when the
Bush administration decides whether to ban federal support for
research using cells from embryos. Its decision will have an
enormous effect on many patients' lives.
The controversy now stifles key research in both
government-funded and corporate labs, says Robert Lanza, who
conducts cloning research at Advanced Cell Technology Inc. Instead
of using human cells, public and private researchers work with ones
from animals, which avoids controversy yet handicaps research. This
needlessly slows progress in treating life-threatening cardiac and
neurological conditions, and it hamstrings the efforts of Lanza and
his academic partners at institutions such as Harvard, the
University of Pennsylvania and the Mayo Clinic.
Not the same
Yet reproductive and
therapeutic cloning are completely different -- both in their goals
and in their potential to benefit society. Therapeutic cloning uses
an early human embryo as a source of stem cells, which have a
remarkable ability to grow into various kinds of tissue. These cells
hold vast potential to cure disease because they may be able to
repair damaged tissue in numerous organs, from the pancreas to the
brain. This is in contrast to reproductive cloning, in which an
embryo is implanted into a womb in order to conceive a child.
Therapeutic cloning could prove vital to the
health of millions of Americans. Imagine: Scientists might overcome
the deadly problem of tissue rejection in organ transplants by using
stem cells from a patient's own body. They might discover new
treatments for incurable diseases and find new ways to reduce the
suffering associated with strokes, spinal-cord injuries, epilepsy
and heart disease.
Core of the
controversy
Embryonic stem-cell research is
controversial because it requires the destruction of early human
embryos. The key question is whether you consider these microscopic
embryos -- about 100 cells -- human beings. It's a difficult
question, made more so by the announcement this week that Virginia
researchers have become the first to create human embryos just to
harvest their stem cells. But at this primordial stage of
development, such a tiny cluster of cells bears no resemblance to a
human being. True, it's a potential human being, but it's
literally only 100 cells away from being a sperm and an egg. And it
will never become a person unless it is implanted in a woman's
body.
One could argue that even sperm and
eggs are inviolable, but scientists already are exploring ways to
manipulate eggs to prevent neuromuscular abnormalities in children.
Isn't this a worthwhile goal?
The fact is
human beings who are desperately ill urgently need the possible
cures this vital research could provide. If we have to choose
between these live patients and a microscopic cluster of cells,
would choosing the cells truly be respecting human life?
Embryonic stem cells now appear to offer the best hope of
improving -- and saving -- many lives. With Britain's recent
decision to allow therapeutic cloning, stem-cell research continues
to move forward abroad, offering new hope to people with incurable
diseases. Meanwhile, the USA still bans federally funded research in
this area, leaving countless patients in dire medical straits,
waiting for a cure.
Stephen
L. Cohen, a syndicated columnist specializing in health issues, also is a member of USA TODAY's board of
contributors.
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