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ASRM BULLETIN
Volume 3, Number 9
May 24,
2001
Cloning and Stem Cell Update
While Washington today is in a bit of a tizzy from the news of Senator Jeffords (I – Vt) departure from the Republican party and the resulting Democratic take over of the Senate, the wheels continue to turn on both cloning and embryonic stem cell research.
Cloning
Despite the initial furor following the Cloning hearings in both the House and Senate in March, there has not been much serious legislative movement. The limitations of current law regarding potential FDA regulation of cloning, and the political pitfalls involved in attempting to fix it or laid out in an excellent article in the Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61636-2001May22.html.
Stem Cell Research
Congressional action is much hotter on the stem cell issue.
ASRM is founding member of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical
Research (CAMR) a coalition of medical , scientific and patient advocacy
groups as well as research institutions supporting embryonic stem cell
research.
From the CAMR website at http://www.stemcellfunding.org/
you can get information and even contact your members of Congress to
support stem cell work.
The CAMR recently unveiled a poll showing
overwhelming public support for government funding of stem cell research.
The CAMR press release is below.
In addition, on Capitol Hill on
Wednesday, Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) a strong supporter of stem cell
research held a remarkable hearing. Specter had asked each of the NIH
institute directors to provide him information on the potential uses of
embryonic stem cells in their fields. Their responses were apparently
delayed and possibly changed by political appointees within the Department
of Health and Human Services. A summary of that hearing is below the
information on the stem cell poll.
The Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research (CAMR) today released new national survey results that finds overwhelming public support for federal funding of stem cell research. The following press release was issued this morning by CAMR. More information is available on the CAMR web page at http://www.stemcellfunding.org/. Detailed survey findings are available in PDF format at http://www.stemcellfunding.org/fastaction/CAMR_SURVEY.pdf.
Survey Finds Overwhelming Public Support For Federal
Funding
of Stem Cell Research
Backing Comes from a Spectrum of Religious Affiliations and Ethical Perspectives
Washington, DC-May 23, 2001 - After hearing both
sides of the issue, public support for human embryonic stem cell research
is overwhelming - 70 percent - and includes surprisingly strong backing
from fundamentalist Christians and abortion opponents, according to a
national opinion survey released today.
The survey shows solid
support for continued federal funding of stem cell research, which
scientists believe may lead to cures for many deadly diseases, and
indicates that President Bush and members of Congress can reap significant
public approval for decisions that advance the federal commitment to the
search for life-saving medical cures.
"This survey shows beyond a
doubt that the American people have a strong sense of the promise of
embryonic stem cell research and that they want it to go forward," said
Lawrence Soler, chairman of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical
Research (CAMR).
The Coalition called on the Administration to
release federal funds for all types of stem cell research to the National
Institutes of Health, under the NIH ethics guidelines now in
place.
"These results confirm that many Americans feel that this
research holds enormous promise for saving lives, and that we should view
it from a personal perspective rather than a political one because it*s
not a pro-life, pro-choice issue. I agree. Tens of millions of Americans -
and my family and I are among them - know the pain and loss of cancer and
other life-threatening illnesses. This research gives us great hope and it
deserves our support," said Connie Mack, former Republican Senator from
Florida.
Survey participants were asked their initial opinion
of stem cell research that comes from fertilized eggs, then given a series
of arguments used by both supporters and opponents of the research.
Seventy-seven percent indicated initial support. After hearing further
arguments on both sides, the results showed continued, strong overall
support - 70 percent. Participants strongly supporting the research
outnumbered those strongly opposed by 3 to 1. Respondents strongly favored
NIH funding for stem cell research by 2.5 to 1.
"Not only do the
American people support stem cell research, but leading scientists, Nobel
laureates, and several policymakers from both sides of the aisle agree
that the research is one of the most promising avenues to curing
debilitating diseases. The Administration should allow federal funding of
all types of this research to go forward immediately," said Mary Tyler
Moore, International Chairman of the Juvenile Diabetes Research
Foundation. Ms. Moore has had juvenile diabetes for over 30
years.
The survey - designed to extract more detail than in
previous polls about public attitudes toward the role of embryonic stem
cell research - also showed surprisingly strong support among participants
who described themselves as Catholics, fundamentalist Christians and
abortion opponents.
"Stem cell research holds the promise of hope
for 100 million people living with incurable diseases from diabetes to
heart conditions to Alzheimer*s to Parkinson*s, ALS, MS, and spinal cord
injury. It
will affect the entire American family," said Christopher
Reeve, Chairman of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, who was
spinal cord injured in 1995. "I believe this is why we find in this new
survey such strong support from people with such diverse religious and
ethical beliefs."
Support for the research among Catholics
outstripped opposition by more than 3 to 1 (72 percent to 23 percent) and
among fundamentalist Christians by almost 2.5 to 1 (63 percent to 26
percent). Both groups also favored, by wide margins, support by President
Bush and members of Congress for the research.
Among participants
describing themselves as pro-life, more than half favored stem cell
research (56 percent) and NIH funding of the research (57
percent).
The survey of 1,010 adults was conducted May 10-13
by Caravan OCR International for the Coalition, a group of 49
organizations and universities involved in seeking cures to such
life-threatening illnesses as cancer, diabetes, Lou Gehrig*s disease,
Parkinson*s disease, spinal cord injuries and heart disease.
For
media inquiries, please contact:
Julie Kimbrough, Juvenile
Diabetes Research Foundation, 212-479-7536.
Maggie Friedman,
Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, 973-379-2690 x15.
Summary of Specter Hearing by Matthew Davis
Washington
FAX
SPECTER ANGERED BY HHS INTERCEPTION OF STEM CELL RESEARCH INFORMATION LETTERS CARRYING INFORMATION HE REQUESTED FROM NIH DIRECTORS WERE SENT BACK FOR REVISION
Having asked top officials at the National Institutes of
Health for their scientific assessment of embryonic stem cell research,
the chair of a Senate funding panel reacted angrily yesterday (May 23) to
efforts by Bush administration officials to delay the responses while they
sought revisions.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-PA, who chairs the Senate
Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related
Agencies Subcommittee, demanded to see the original drafts of responses
from NIH institute directors to written questions he submitted earlier
this month requesting scientific perspectives on potential uses of stem
cells derived from human embryos.
Specter was miffed that officials
from the Department of Health and Human Services sent at least some of the
responses back to NIH for revision before they were passed on to the
subcommittee. Officials would not say which institutes HHS singled out or
precisely what they wrote that raised administration
concerns.
Specter said he wants the administration to produce the
original documents.
“I want to see what those (original) responses
are, whether they’re based on science and (whether) maybe somebody did not
like the answers,” Specter said in remarks at the hearing, which was
supposed to focus on NIH’s FY 2002 budget but ended up being overshadowed
by the stem cell questionnaire controversy.
The panel’s senior
Democrat, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-IA, said if Specter wished to subpoena the
originals, he would support the request.
HHS officials claim that
in seeking the revisions they simply wanted to make sure NIH institute
directors were not straying beyond their areas of expertise. Officials
denied there was any effort to dilute the responses. Acting NIH Director
Ruth Kirschstein said some institute directors who were asked to review
their responses sent them back unchanged.
Suspicions that politics
played a role in the request are based on the fact the Bush Administration
is opposed to federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research,
while Specter strongly favors it and wants to give NIH legislative
authority to support such work. (see Washington Fax
4/10/01a)
Abruptly summoned to the witness table for questioning,
HHS Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs Scott Whitaker told
Specter there was “no intent on the part” of HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson
or HHS staff to “withhold information or control information that was sent
to you.”
Whitaker said HHS was simply exercising standard policy,
which is to review all agency submissions to Congress. He said when HHS
returned responses for review, it “made no specific request to modify any
of the letters.”
“We made a generalized request that we thought it
best that the letter be focused on the science and the science only,”
Whitaker said.
Kirschstein characterized the administration as
questioning whether certain institute responses -- she did not identify
which institutes were singled out -- “ranged more broadly than the
missions of that institute.” She said HHS officials asked whether the
“institute directors would consider narrowing their focus to their own
mission.”
“I had a meeting with the institute directors and asked
each of them to review what they had said and if they wished in any way to
modify the letters based on whether they thought they were more broad
ranging than focusing on the particular missions of the institute,”
Kirschstein told Specter. “Each institute director reviewed their letter.
And some made changes and some didn’t.”
Specter was particularly
angry that, due to the effort to seek revisions, Specter’s staff did not
receive the answers to the stem cell questions until the late in the day
Tuesday, which gave him little time to review the information prior to
Wednesday’s hearing.
“I’m not very happy that mid-day the day
before this hearing we did not have these letters,” Specter said. “There
are other things on my agenda, like the voting of the United States Senate
on the tax bill. So I intend to get to the bottom of what’s going on
here.”
One source close to NIH’s dealing with the stem cell issue,
a person who backs federal funding for stem cell research, said he would
be surprised if there was anything in the original responses that strayed
beyond strictly scientific assessments. He said NIH officials are “so
nervous about this issue that they are being very careful with everything
they say and write.”
“I would doubt that they would write anything
that is not based on the science,” he said “so it makes one wonder: what
is the concern?”
--Matthew Davis
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