A few days ago, Reuters summarized two papers published in the current issue of Nature on using mouse and rat embryonic stem cells in lieu of those from humans, which "should speed up research into regenerative medicine and help in the hunt for cures to a range of diseases." That the two papers -- one from a team at Oxford, the other from a Cambridge group -- were developed concurrently and independently "is a sign of momentum picking up in stem cell research," says the Reuters piece:

Laboratory mice have long been a favourite model for human disease but researchers have been frustrated by the fact that human and mouse stem cells behave very differently.

Now scientists think they may have cracked the problem.

Here on this blog we tend to focus (rightly or wrongly) on the stem-cell debate as a case of common sense at odds with deep-seated religious moral and/or religious beliefs. But it's interesting to think about how the use of non-human embryonic sources both (a) seems to sidestep the debate altogether, and (b) doesn't really sidestep anything after all -- just shoves the real issue out of sight, by removing it from the scrutiny of partisans (on both sides) otherwise focused on the word "human." The issue, not to put too fine a point on it, is that human life is a subset, a special case, of animal life. Hence the question: If we can comfortably come to a consensus about the use of non-human embryonic stem cells for the betterment of human life, can't we come to a consensus about the use of human embryonic stem cells for that purpose? Particularly when the cells in question are earmarked for no other purpose other than disposal?

Note that I'm not arguing here for what the consensus should be. (It would hardly be a consensus if I just told everybody what to believe, hmm?) Given a Sophie's Choice-type dilemma requiring that I save the life of a human or the life of a mouse, but not both, I'd choose the human just as I suppose most of you would. It would be fair to say that I hold human life to be sacred, just as most of you do.

That very notion of the sacredness of human life, perhaps, is where the potential for consensus is greatest. If a human embryonic stem cell is destined for the waste can anyway, why not use it instead to affirm the sacredness of human life as it is or will be lived by actual living, breathing erstwhile embryos who at some time come to term?

Labels: bioethics, embryonic stem cells, medical research, stem cell research, stem cells

Today's Tallahassee Democrat includes an op-ed column by Bernard Siegel of the Genetics Policy Institute. Headlined "Charlie Crist's stem-cell dilemma," the column rightly takes the Governor to task for his colorless stand on embryonic stem-cell research:

When President Bush dashed patients' hopes last July by vetoing the bill to lift funding restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research, then-gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist signaled his support for the science, saying he disagreed with the veto. But he was silent as to whether he supported Florida's funding embryonic stem-cell research.

Gov. Crist last month announced his support for a modest proposal that called for $20 million in funding for adult, amniotic-fluid cell and embryonic stem-cell research limited to the stem-cell lines approved by President Bush back in 2001.

Modest indeed, as such a measure simply duplicates federal policy and fails to meet the urgent unmet need - the funding of new embryonic cell lines.

Crist (whose approval rating is currently quite high, even among moderates) here embodies the dilemma faced by many elected officials: In order to win a general election -- and barring any extraordinary circumstances, as 9/11 afforded the current occupant of the White House -- politicians must seem firmly in the center of almost any controversial issue. During the 2006 gubernatorial campaign, Crist apparently positioned himself to the left of the Republican party line on the issue. See, for example, this article from the Lakeland Ledger, dated August 2006:

Crist -- whose father, a retired doctor, now suffers from a progressive eye disease -- hopes that research will soon be able to go forward without destroying embryos. Meanwhile, the state attorney general expresses lukewarm support for spending money on it with current technology.

"I'm not opposed to it," Crist said in a recent interview. "It's important that we continue to advance technologically and medically to help people."

At the time, then-Attorney General Crist was engaged in what turned out to be a not-very-close primary campaign for the GOP nomination. If you were a moderate of either party, you could project into the above passage a tentative step into the 21st century by a politician not afraid to confront the conventional wisdom of what a Republican "should" believe. If you were a conservative, on the other hand, you might see in those two paragraphs a coded message of reassurance. There was the "lukewarm," and there was the "not opposed to it" -- at least one full step short of "support it."

As Siegel's column points out, now that he's in the Governor's Mansion Crist can't have it both ways. He can support the party line (which might be summarized as "First, do as little as possible" (not exactly the Hippocratic principle you want your doctor to embrace), or he can say, in effect, Look, this is ridiculous: Let's do everything in our power to help those who are already desperately ill and those who may become desperately ill in the future.

But fence-sitting creates merely the illusion of evenhandedness, at the expense of suffering severe pain in the part of a guy's body where he wants least to suffer any pain at all (let alone the severe kind).

C'mon, Charlie. Hop off the fence onto the side of common sense and decency, away from ideology. It'll help you in the long run (as well as your dad, and the dads and moms and sisters and brothers of countless Floridians in the future).

Labels: Charlie Crist, Florida, medical research, stem cells