Human Stem Cell Research: Promises and Perils, Part 3
Posted by drbob2 on Aug 11, 2008
So far in this set of blog entries, I presented some general information, noted that currently there currently 3 major types of human stem cells: adult stem cells, embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells, and detailed some of the therapeutic history and current human treatments utilizing adult stem cells. Those have recounted how some of the Promises of human stem cell research have been realized and led to a greater understanding of regenerative medicine.
As a result of adult stem cell research we have come to recognize that we are walking warehouses of spare parts, in the form of adult stem cells. The challenge is how to obtain them safely, grow them and guide them into generating the types of cells we need, and then get those reparative/regenerative cells into the right place in the patients who need them.
Now, I will point out some of the Perils of human stem cell research, those that arise from the type of research that destroys human embryos and uses stem cells derived from them. It is necessary to do this but I do so, as previously noted, from the standpoint of a Hippocratic (“First do no harm”) physician. I will discuss some of the realities of who, not what, embryonic stem cells are and what is being done to them in the name of research.
Each of us began life as a single fertilized egg, called a zygote or “conceptus” containing 46 human chromosomes, 23 from mother and 23 from father. From that single living, genetically distinct, cell came all the different types of cells, tissues, and organs that make us who we are today. How did that happen? How can one cell, with a complete genetic complement or “genome” differentiate, while nurtured in mother’s womb, into so many different cells and structures in a self-directed manner? For example, just 18-25 days after conception our heart muscle cells begin to beat rhythmically. Why and how does that happen? Just imagine the lessons to be learned by ethical researchers motivated to advance regenerative and reparative medicine?
That is a promise of stem cell research. But, unfortunately, present day research utilizing human embryos has a high cost. I find it a prohibitively high cost because embryonic stem cell research requires the destruction of a unique human beings at a very early stage in the human life cycle. Just as ethical researchers found research conducted on unwilling human “subjects” in Europe and in America tainted by the researchers’ disdain for human life, so do thoughtful scientists, physicians, and lay persons find embryonic stem cell research ethically unsupportable.
No doubt you have heard, during the publicity campaigns to require taxpayers to fund such research in California, Missouri and elsewhere, that destroying early human life is “enlightened” and promises great benefits for mankind. One TV star with Parkinson’s Disease even made a “commercial” promoting the tax funding of human embryonic stem cell research in Missouri. I have to wonder what he was thinking, since clinical trials utilizing ethical adult stem cells has, for a number of years, been treating human patients with Parkinson’s.
In trying to understand the many and unsupportable claims by proponents of embryonic stem cell research, almost all of which are duly but uncritically reported by most of the media, I found that:
- The United States already spends more on embryonic stem cell research than the rest of the world combined
- That, according to www.stemcellresearch.org as of today, there are 73 adults stem cell treatments for humans, including those in everyday practice and those in research, while there are zero embryonic stem cell treatments for humans, in practice or in clinical trials.
- That, because using embryonic stem cells derived from human beings conceived in the course of in vitro fertilization are different from the patient, the concept of therapy of patient A using embryonic stem cells without the need for powerful drugs to suppress patient A’s immune system, requires that a cell from patient A must be cloned, using a human egg donated or purchased from a woman. The cloned embryo is then grown in the laboratory until it becomes a blastula (a globe of cells which all of us once were) , then “disaggregated” (killed) for its stem cells which are grown in cell culture in hopes of forming just the type of cells, or tissues, that patient A needs.
To sum up, let me say, the wonderful way that each of us developed from a single cell is indeed astounding and thought-provoking. It is not an excuse to kill little human beings in the name of science. It is important to note that moral objections to embryonic stem cell research are not based upon its lack of usefulness to date. Even if, God forbid, it did prove to be of some use in the treatment of human patients, it would still be immoral and unethical. For example, if you are an adult were a dialysis patient in need of a kidney, it is moral and ethical to obtain a kidney from a living person who, recognizing the risks and benefits, donates a kidney for you. It is also moral and ethical to obtain a kidney from a dead person who certified their desire to be an organ donor. It is immoral and unethical for you to kill someone for their kidney.
Human embryonic stem cell research is problematic and perilous for several reasons:
- It kills little human beings at a very early stage of development.
- It requires cloning, and then killing, a human embryo to even be considered for therapeutic purpose.
- It is based on the discredited philosophy of Pragmatic Utilitarianism: “That which is (in this case may, possibly in the future) be useful is good”
- It has not generated, to date, a single treatment for human illness. This is the least forceful reason for opposing it since, even if it generated cures, it would still be immoral and unethical because it kills humans.
In reading all the deceitful and unsupportable reports by the press promoting human embryonic stem cell research, you would never get the message that there has been a very real ethical controversy even among those scientists active in human embryonic stem cell research who are aware of the lethal aspects of their work. However, when the discovery of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSC—the changing of adult human skin cells into stem cells with virtually all the properties and promises of embryonic stem cells) was announced last November, Sir Ian Wilmut, who cloned the sheep he named Dolly, reported that he will abandon his efforts to clone humans and focus on the new iPSC research.
Also, James Thompson of the University of Wisconsin, one of the two “fathers” of human embryonic stem cell research in 1998 AND one of the two researchers (with Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Japan) who developed the new iPSC techniques told reporter Gina Kolata, of the New York Times:
- That he “had ethical concerns about (human) embryonic research from the outset.”
- “I believe these results (iPSC) are the beginning of the end of this (ethical) controversy.” And
- “Isn’t it great to start a field (embryonic stem cell research) and then to end it?”
In my next entry, I plan to explore this new and most promising type of stem cell research: Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells; some of the amazing discoveries regarding them made just since last November; and how it is becoming apparent that even iPSC research may be just another mile marker on the super highway of regenerative medicine.
Remember, if you have a topic you’d like me to address, just send me an email at drbob@superhealthms.com.