STEM CELL SCIENCE AND STEM CELL
MORALITY
Is it 'wither' or 'whether' or not?
ADELAIDE: 3rd October -- They did not appear on the
same platform, but they are both Australians with an informed point of view and
have both spoken out publically recently on the importance of,
and issues in stem cell science: Dr. Stephen Livesey,
recently appointed Chief Scientific Officer of the National Stem Cell Centre,
and Dr. Norman Ford SDB, Director of the Caroline Chisholm Centre for Health
Ethics. Both, in their own way, are 'paving the way for the next ten years of
research' - title of the recent Conference of top scientists and ethicists in
the field held in Adelaide in the last week of September, and at which Dr. Ford
spoke.
Livesey: (The Age, Melbourne,
Sept 23rd): Stem cell technology is phenomenal. It has the potential to
address many of the most significant human diseases...a whole range of chronic
and life-threatening conditions...We're concentrating on four core areas: using
embryonic and adult stem cells to develop programs for cell and gene therapies;
combining stem cells and tissue matrix products to repair diseased or damaged
tissue; and researching the area of immune responses to stem cell
therapies.
Ford: (from his address to the
above-named Conference): Many in the community would be supportive of using
pluripotent embryonic stem cells in regenerative medicine if this could be
achieved without the serious moral problem of destroying human embryos to obtain
these precious cells. Therapies based on using adult stem cells or stem
cells from umbilical cord blood would be ethical but most adult stem cells are
not pluripotent i.e. are generally unable to contribute to most cell lines in
the body following transplantation.....one possible solution may be to look to
migrating primordial germ cells in a 5-9 weeks post fertilisation deceased human
fetus following a miscarriage in a hospital. An even better way would be
to remove them ethically from an ectopic embryo/fetus.
Ford quotes the statistic of 1/50 pregnancies being
ectopic in the USA. He goes on to discuss the sensitivities of this issue
as far as parents are concerned, but stresses that the existence and loss of
such fetuses in itself presents no ethical dilemma. He concludes by urging
that funding which is readily available for stem cell research be directed
especially to examining this proposal and confirming the usefulness and benefits
of cells thus derived.
And just how much funding is available?
Livesey has the answer to that: "Sixty million sounds like a lot of money, but
in terms of similar businesses in the US it is not unusual to spend $600
million".
