Last Updated: Thursday - 02/05/2009

February 9, 2009

Bio-medical company experiments with embryonic stem cells

My Glass is Half Full

By MARK PICKUP

As Barack Obama was being inaugurated as America’s 44th president, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) took no time to clear the path for the first American embryonic stem cell tests in humans. The FDA, of course, adamantly denied any connection with the timing of the inauguration.

For the better part of eight years, the Bush administration did not allow federal funding to go toward embryonic stem cell research. Other sources of stem cells were fine (and there are many), but President Bush took the high road because embryos die when their stem cells are extracted.

FROZEN EMBRYOS

Barack Obama has no such qualms: I predict that under Obama’s presidency legal avenues will soon open for science to experiment on more than 40,000 frozen embryos left over from in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments. Unscrupulous scientists will have a heyday poking, prodding, cloning and mutating unwanted embryos — all things unthinkable to previous generations.

At any rate, with the recent FDA approval, a California-based bio-medical corporation called Geron will begin human tests using embryonic stem cells to try and repair spinal cord injuries.

EMPTY PROMISES

Embryonic stem cell research comes with the grandest promises of cures for spinal cord injuries, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and a host of other conditions. So far the promise has proved empty.

Over 70 therapies have been developed for diseases and conditions using non-embryonic stem cell sources — such as stem cells taken from adult bone marrow, skin, umbilical cord blood and even cadavers. Not one therapy has been developed anywhere in the world using embryonic stem cells.

So far the promise of embryonic stem cells is empty. Many world-renowned embryologists and research scientists consider them too unstable for research or therapeutic purposes.

So why the fixation on embryonic stem cells when non-embryonic stem cells are not as problematic?

Perhaps there is some underlying need to justify why life before birth is held in such low regard. Maybe liberal agendas hope for some redeeming feature to an otherwise morally impoverished mentality that has resulted in millions of children dying before they saw the light of day. Abortion and the IVF process are two great evils of our age.

As I mentioned earlier, the Geron Corp.’s speculative human trials using embryonic stem cells to repair spinal cord injuries may have a direct impact on other conditions.

The New York Times’ coverage of the Geron trials, claimed, “The hope is that the injected cells will help repair the insulation, known as myelin, around nerve cells, restoring the ability of some nerve cells to carry signals.” If this is true, and if the trials are successful, there will be implications for a disease like multiple sclerosis (MS). It is a disease of demyelisation that has seriously crippled me.

MS TRIALS

If the Geron trials prove successful and an embryonic stem cell therapy for myelin repair is developed, you can bet an application for MS will be pursued. Why?

Multiple sclerosis is the most common neurological disease among young adults in North America. It’s a crippler, not a killer, with an average age of onset between 20 and 40 years. It destroys people’s independence and careers just as their prime earning years as taxpaying contributors are about to begin.

More than 400,000 people have MS in America, and over 50,000 in Canada. The financial implications of caring for these people for 30 to 40 years are staggering. There’s tremendous financial incentive for governments or corporations operating outside of moral constraints to fund ESC research to fund such research.

ETHICAL DILEMMA

Here’s the problem for someone like me: I do operate with moral constraints and conscience. My Christianity demands it. I cannot participate in, or take advantage of, therapies developed using embryonic stem cells. It is unacceptable for my life to get better at the expense of another.

Non-embryonic stem cell sources are fine. If, however, the therapy involves the killing of another human being in the form of an embryo then I must forego treatment, accept life in a wheelchair, and whatever lies in store for me with an aggressive, degenerative disease.

I know what it’s like to have my life devalued. (See my column in the Jan. 26 WCR, “Medical staff pronounced death sentences on the disabled.”) Why would I devalue another human life?

Is the allure of an embryonic stem cell therapy tempting? Absolutely! But I must resist and, with God’s help, I will resist. It is better to lose the use of my body than to lose my humanity.

Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 -- Western Catholic Reporter