A rchive Date
[ 28-01-2001 ]
Category
[ Science ]
sub-Categoy
[ Bio-Ethics ]
|
[Hot button issue cools off embryo research in U.S.
By EMMA ROSS-- The Associated Press
Wednesday, January 24, 2001
LONDON (AP) -- While American scientists pioneered the recent advances in the revolutionary field of stem cell research, Britain leapfrogged ahead to become the first country to legalize human cloning for such experiments.
Bioethics experts say the reason is simple: Stem cell research, which involves destroying embryos, is too closely tied to the abortion issue for the U.S. Congress to fund research.
"It illustrates the dramatic distinction in the way we think about bioethics here and in Britain," said Glenn McGee, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania and editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Bioethics.
"The British are less worried about the fate of the embryo than about scientists abusing the technology. In Washington, it is the day of the fetus," said McGee, who has conducted comparative research on British and American approaches to genetic and stem cell research.
In the United States, "political fear of the religious right is what's holding it back and it will continue to hold it back," McGee said. "No congressman has yet taken up even one of our Bioethics Advisory Commission recommendations."
Dr. Sandy Thomas, director of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics in London, agreed it comes down to the influence of anti-abortion activists in Washington.
"We just don't have that," Thomas said. Americans "are not going to get the same green light as fast. Britain has a much more liberal approach to reproductive medicine."
On Monday, Britain's Parliament approved new regulations that legalize the destruction of embryos for stem cell research. And in what experts say is a global first, Parliament permitted cloning to create human embryos for the research.
In Britain, regulations apply equally to publicly and privately funded research.
U.S. law bans public funding of research that involves the destruction of embryos. Although the ban doesn't apply to privately funded scientists, experts say that without federal money, U.S. scientists will find it difficult to make significant strides.
"Right about now, everybody in America who works in stem cells is looking into the price of a business-class ticket to London. All the good work will move there gradually," McGee predicted.
There is no legislation in Canada regarding human cloning but there has been a voluntary moratorium in place since 1995. The federal government is in the process of formulating legislation that would set out regulations and prohibitions in the area of human cloning.
Stem cells, the master cells found in embryos that give rise to all other cells in the body, are expected to revolutionize medicine. Doctors hope they will be able to cure or treat scores of illnesses, including diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and Parkinson's disease.
Stem cells are extracted from the embryo at about three or four days old, before the cells have started to specialize to create a nervous system, spine and other features that transform the embryo into a fetus. The idea is that the growth of stem cells can be directed in a lab to become any desired cell or tissue type for transplant.
Using embryos cloned from a patient would theoretically produce stem cells that are a perfect transplant match.
However, U.S. scientists were the first to isolate human stem cells in 1999 and have discovered much of the basic science so far.
Dr. John Gearhart, a Johns Hopkins University stem cell pioneer, says the British lead isn't surprising.
"The British scientists have set the pace in this field for years. They did it first (isolating stem cells) in the mouse," he said.
The birth of the world's first test-tube baby in London in 1978 sparked passionate debate over reproductive ethics. The furore prompted a landmark scientific report on the ethics and science of reproductive medicine, which eventually led to the establishment in 1991 of the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority.
The agency keeps tight control over fertility and embryo research. The setup seems to have hit the right note, Gearhart said.
Although the new embryo regulations faced impassioned opposition from religious leaders and other campaigners in Britain, the controversy was relatively mild. Campaigners opposed to experiments on animals consistently mount larger, noisier and sometimes violent demonstrations.
"What the Americans have with abortion, we have here with animal rights," Thomas said.]
|