Stem Cell Decision Doesn’t Quell Debate
Facing a skeptical research community, the Bush administration argued Friday that the president’s plan to fund research using human embryo stem cells would propel scientists on a course to finding new treatments for disease.
But on the day after Bush devoted a nationally televised address to the research, many scientists and patient advocacy groups said they could not yet endorse his plan. They questioned Bush’s decision to limit federal funding to experiments using only existing stem cells already taken from only 60 or so embryos.
“There’s so much more we need to know about this,” said Lawrence Soler, who led a coalition of patient advocacy groups that lobbied for federal funding. “We need to know if these cells that the president has identified are robust and useful. Until they can look at these cells, scientists are going to remain skeptical.”
In Congress, aides to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said a hearing on Bush’s plan will take place in early September, and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said he would push legislation to allow federal funding for a broader range of embryonic stem cell experiments.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson acknowledged that Bush’s decision had spawned questions about whether the 60 sets of stem cells, known as cell lines, “are adequate to conduct effective research. The answer, ladies and gentlemen, is a resounding yes.”
Embryonic stem cells have drawn wide attention because of their remarkable ability to grow into heart cells, nerve cells, pancreas cells and a wide range of other body parts. Scientists hope to learn how to mold them into replacements for the tissues that go awry in Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, diabetes and other ailments.
Corporate and university scientists have conducted some research on the cells with private funds, but Bush initially was opposed to using the significant financial resources of the federal government to kick-start the field. Bush believes life begins at conception, thus, destroying embryos for their stem cells “raises profound ethical questions,” he said in his Thursday address.
The 60 cell lines that can be used in federally funded experiments have already been extracted from embryos, using private money. “The fundamental question is, are we going to destroy more embryos as we go out in the future?” Bush said Friday on ABC-TV’s “20/20.” “And my answer to that is, we shouldn’t. We’ve got enough.”
Health Officials Start on Registry
Thompson and officials at the National Institutes of Health said Friday that they had begun building a registry of the 60 cell lines, which will take several weeks. Researchers will have to form alliances with owners of the cell lines before they can submit grant applications to the NIH. And the NIH has no power to compel owners of the cell lines to work with any researcher.
Thompson and NIH officials released few of the key details about the cell lines that many scientists want to know. They said that many of the cell lines had been created at private companies and that they did not have authority to release proprietary information about many of the lines.
Officials said they could only reveal the source of 17 of the 60 cell lines. They came from three businesses: WiCell Research Institute Inc. of Wisconsin, and ES Cell International and BresaGen Ltd., both of Australia.
They said the cell lines met several ethical and scientific benchmarks. The cell lines, they said, were created under strong ethics guidelines: All the embryos involved were donated by fertility patients, who often create more than they need in the course of trying to become pregnant and who sometimes discard the surplus embryos. The patients signed informed consent forms before donating their embryos, and none was paid for the embryos.
About half of the cell lines were created in the United States and the others in Australia, India, Israel and Sweden.
But scientists and research advocates said they need to know much more, including the conditions under which the cell lines were created, their ability to reproduce and whether they could truly grow into a wide range of body tissues.
“We know that not all embryonic stem cell lines are the same,” said Dr. Robert Lanza, a vice president at Advanced Cell Technology Inc., a Massachusetts biotechnology firm. “Some grow at a rate that’s so slow that it’s not of value. Some lines can be impossible to get neurons or brain cells from.”
Ronald Green, an ethics professor at Dartmouth College who has written widely on the issue, said that “in mouse embryonic research, about half the lines are no good. They don’t proliferate well.”
The scientist who first isolated stem cells in human embryos, James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin, said: “If there truly are 60 cell lines available, then I do feel the field will get a good start from this. But until more is known about them, I can’t say. . . . Sixty is a pretty reasonable number.”
Some researchers noted that obtaining stem cells from private companies has been a frustrating experience. Private firms often ask for certain rights to discoveries made with their cells, but researchers and universities do not want to sign away the power to control or profit from their work.
HHS Secretary Thompson acknowledged the problem but said it could be overcome. “We still have some very strong proprietary and patent issues to work through, but I have great confidence that they can be addressed.”
He said he talked Thursday to a nonprofit business that owns rights to five cell lines and was encouraged by its willingness to cooperate with researchers.
The Bush plan also might help academic researchers work with stem cells using private funds. Many universities had discouraged their scientists from working with embryonic stem cells on campus because it would mingle federally funded work with research not eligible for federal money.
Administrators worried that the NIH would penalize them for using federal money to pay even for light bulbs or secretarial help devoted to stem cell work. But the NIH is now reviewing its rules for such shared overhead costs.
In a statement, Specter said that repeated Senate hearings had shown that “more than 60 stem cell lines are necessary for scientific research to be done now and certainly what will be required in the future.”
Specter, who was traveling abroad, said he plans to push for an early Senate vote on a bill that he has sponsored with Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) that would have the effect of expanding the number of cell lines in federal research.
But a senior White House official, who did not want to be named, predicted that any attempts to alter the Bush plan in Congress will fail. “The ones who say you ought to go further are not going to find a welcome in the House, and those who say none at all are going to find a very unwelcome Senate,” said the official. Republican House leaders oppose federal funding for the research, while support for the research is strong in the Senate.
At a news conference called by a coalition of leading conservative organizations, opponents of the research expressed deep disappointment with the decision.
“On this issue, what needs to happen is a total ban on embryonic stem cell research,” said Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America. Still, many conservatives said they have no plans to abandon the president because of his decision, which they acknowledged had been pressure-packed from all sides.
And they said they hold out hope that the president will choose to take a much “stronger pro-life stand” on future matters.
Opponents of using embryonic stem cells say the government should focus on so-called adult cells, which are found in the brain, bone marrow and other body parts, as well as on stem cells from the placentas and umbilical cords. Many scientists say those cells can be fashioned into a variety of replacement tissues for patients. The NIH pumped $256 million into that research last year.
At the same time, many scientists and the NIH itself say that embryonic stem cells can grow into a wider range of body tissues than adult stem cells can, at least with current technology.
Moreover, they believe that embryo cells will yield a host of basic details about human development--the process of how a complex human body grows from a single fertilized egg.
Doctor Predicts Pace of Research to Pick Up
NIH officials said they cannot predict how many researchers will be drawn into stem cell research because of Bush’s plan, but they are optimistic.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the pace of research will speed up “enormously.”
Within a decade, he predicted, the field will produce “substantive treatments for some diseases. You’re going to see clinically relevant results.”
“This is a wonderful day for research. . . . We’re on the road to new treatments for some of the most devastating diseases,” said Lana Skirboll, associate director for science policy at NIH.
At the same time, several researchers praised Bush for lifting the cloud that had hung over the field.
“Six months ago, this was all going to be stopped [by the Bush administration], and now it’s going to go forward,” said Thomson, the University of Wisconsin researcher. “This is not perfect from a scientific view, but it’s not going to be stopped dead in the water.”
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Times staff writers Megan Garvey and Ronald Brownstein contributed to this story.
