1617 AUL Moral philosopher weighs in on stem cell debate
austraLasia 1617

Nanog -  from the Chronicles of Narnia, or something far more significant?
Aussie SDB moral philosopher weighs in on stem cell debate

MELBOURNE: 27th July 2006 --  Already well-known internationally for his balanced and significant contribution to major ethical issues along the conception-to-death spectrum, Australian Salesian and moral philosopher Fr Norman Ford, in his capacity as Director of the Caroline Chisholm Centre for Health Ethics in Melbourne, has released a statement on the current Stem Cell debate to AAP.  This debate is currently 'hotting up' yet again in Australia, but has also been the subject of quite diametrically opposed approaches from the United States and Europe.  President George Bush recently vetoed further research in this area, and Europe went in the other direction!
    The Ford statement in its raw form could test the abilities of the normal reader - the debate tends to use terminology best understood by the medical practitioner and ethicist, but in essence, the first paragraph is clear and unequivocal and we quote it verbatim: "There is universal agreement for the use of some stem cells for medical research and therapeutic purposes.  However, there is no need to clone human embryos: human life should not be created destined to be destroyed".
    The issue appears to focus on what is known as the pluripotent stem cell.  The value of such a cell is that once introduced into the human body it adapts to its circumstances - put it in the heart muscle and it repairs damage there.  Place it in the neuronal or blood system and anyone from Parkinson's disease to an accident victim with spinal injuries may have a chance of recovery.
    An example of testing language that deals with this debate can be found in the press release to AAP: "In therapeutic cloning the Dolly procedure is used where the enucleated egg's cytoplasm reprograms a body cell nucleus back to the totipotent stage and thereby forms a  single cell cloned embryo".  Difficult as that may sound, it is crucial!  A significant proportion of the Australian population is opposed to using this process for therapeutic or research processes because these pluripotent embryonic stem cells are obtained by destroying six to seven day-old human embryos.  Whether it be through IVF or cloning the moral objection remains.
    Fr Ford points out in his statement. and this is the nub of his argument, that pluripotent stem cells can be obtained by alternative methods - and proposes that these are ethical by contrast to the 'normal' process.  The clue seems to be Nanog, nothing to do with The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis), not even the acronym for the North American Network Operators' Group (which exists), but the name of a "gene which encodes a transcription factor responsible for setting in place and maintaining cells in their pluripotent state".
    The availability of a process which does not involve forming totipotent cells or embryos to be destroyed, and which ethically manipulates existing single body cells to the point where they acquire high levels of this Nanog gene is the way forward, Ford intimates. "This would make both pragmatic and ethical sense without the need for therapeutic cloning...it would be socially advantageous to all researchers and clinicians and less divisive for the whole community".
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