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Science Versus Ideology
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HROUGHOUT MODERN HISTORY, sci-
entific advances have run up against religious, philosophical, and ideological dogma. Science, with its focus on objective reality divorced from belief, inevitably overcame dogma, but often not before a lot of damage was done. The Bush Administration's position on the use of federal funds to support research involving human embryonic stem (hES) cells—an ideological position posited on opposition to abortion—is colliding with rapidly advancing science. Announced on Aug. 9, 2001, the policy limited funding to research on the handful of hES cell lines then in existence. The policy never made much sense. It is difficult to discern the moral distinction between an embryo destroyed before Aug. 9, 2001, and one destroyed after that date. However, by not shutting down stem cell research altogether, the policy attempted to satisfy scientists and patients' advocates who understand the potential of stem cells in treating human diseases while placating abortion opponents who decry the destruction of any human embryo regardless ofwhy it was created. Already it's clear the policy isn't going to work. And the continuing scientific advances are what have rendered the ideological position untenable. All of the hES cell lines that researchers may use federal funds to work on were created using mouse embryonic fibroblast (MEF) feeder cells to support them. That was the pre-Aug. 9, 2001, technology for growing hES cell cultures. As always, though, technology advances. Last September, researchers in Singapore reported growing hES lines on feeders derived from both human fetal and adult feeder cells[NatureBiotechnol., 20,933 (2002)}. Earlier this year,Johns Hopkins researchers reported using human adult marrow cells as hES feeders [Stem Cells, 21,131 (2003)}. W h a t difference does it make? All of the approved hES cell lines have been exposed to MEF cells, raising the possibility that mouse pathogens could be transferred to humans if the cells were ever used clinically From a clinical perspective, the approved cell lines qualify as xenotransplants, the use ofwhich in humans is governed by
the Food & Drug Administration. FDA's April 2003 final guidance on xenotransplantation products in humans runs to 60 pages. It imposes severe restrictions and reporting requirements on all xenotransplants in humans. Late last month, Sen. Arlen Specter (RPa.) wrote to President Bush urging him "to expand your ... policy regarding human stem cells so that new stem cell lines that have never been exposed to animal cells can be safely used to create treatments and cures that will improve the health of millions ofAmericans." Ifthere were no alternative to hES cells grown on MEF feeders, then their use in treating a serious human illness could be defensible. Since there now is an alternative, the use of such cells in humans could never be ethically justified. Research policy primarily based on ideology rather than science inevitably leads to clumsy bureaucracy, and the Bush Administration's policy on hES cells is no exception. The National Institutes of Health Feb. 28, 2 0 0 2 , "Strategies for Implementing Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research" states: 'At first glance, the transition from policy formulation to growing cells in a researcher's laboratory might seem simple. However, few issues related to hES cell research are straightforward." There are many reasons to allow researchers to develop new hES cell lines. For one, only 78 cell lines meet the current policy's criteria, and only 11 of those are actually available to researchers. That's far too few to provide the diversity required for eventual clinical applications. But a pressing reason is that the logical outcome of the current policy is that the kinds of treatments many scientists believe stem cells will enable will, in fact, be developed—in many cases by U.S. researchers—but they will only be available in other countries. The policy will eventually have to be changed. The only question is how much damage to the U.S. biomedical research community will be allowed to occur before that happens.
Managing editor
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C & E N / MAY 5,
2003
