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The successes of cord blood stem cell therapy are explored.
Scientists from Tufts University have been researching adult stem cells taken from bone marrow. According to a report in the Washington Post, the bone marrow cells were injected into the hearts of rats that had experienced heart attacks. Once inserted, some of the cells became new heart muscle and tissue, and others turned into new blood vessels to support the ailing hearts. Rats treated with the stem cells wound up with twice as many new blood vessels as those receiving a placebo treatment, and had lower amounts of scar tissue.
In December 2004, the Sinclair Broadcast Group produced and aired a five minute video featuring Adam Susser, a child with cerebral palsy who was blind and unable to talk prior to receiving human umbilical cord stem cells. He is now able to see and speak. According to University of Minnesota biologist Catherine Verfaillie, adult stem cells appear to be capable of changing into the many varied types of cells that make up the human body.
Congressional Members and staff were briefed by doctors recently on the successes of cord blood stem cells in treating patients like Adam. The briefing promoted the Cord Blood Stem Cell Act introduced by Representatives Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Artur Davis (D-AL). The bill will provide funding for cord blood bank collection centers and the promotion of their use. The doctors who held the briefing have extensive experience in treating patients with stem cells from cord blood as well as the patients themselves. The patients have been successfully treated for diseases such as sickle cell anemia, cancer, and bone diseases.
The newest ethical issue to make the news is that Ian Wilmut, the British scientist who cloned Dolly the sheep in 1997, has been granted a license to engage in human cloning. He plans to use the same technique, cell nuclear replacement, used to create Dolly to clone human embryos in order to study motor neuron disease (an umbrella term for a collection of illnesses such as Lou Gehrig’s disease). Before the successful cloning of Dolly, Wilmut made 300 failed attempts resulting in miscarriages and malformed offspring. Though she was hailed a success, Dolly aged too rapidly and had to be euthanized.
Professor Richard Gardner, chair of the Royal Society working group on stem cell research and cloning, told the BBC that “extending these techniques to attempt to produce a cloned baby is scientifically unsafe, ethically unsound, and socially unacceptable.”
In a January 11, 1999 article written for Time Magazine, Wilmut stated that “the debate over cloning people has largely missed the point. Overlooked in the arguments about the morality of artificially reproducing life is the fact that, at present, cloning is a very inefficient procedure. The incidence of death among fetuses and offspring produced by cloning is much higher than it is through natural reproduction – roughly 10 times as high as normal before birth and three times as high after birth in our studies at Roslin. Distressing enough for those working with animals, these failure rates surely render unthinkable the notion of applying such treatment to humans.” He concluded the article by saying, “The time required for this research, however, will also provide an opportunity for each society to decide how it wishes the technique to be used. At some point in the future, cloning will have much to contribute to human medicine, but we must use it cautiously.”
A Stanford researcher received tentative approval to create a human-mouse hybrid as long as the creature acts like a mouse and not like a human being. The researcher hopes to use the studies to learn more about various diseases that plague humans. Stanford biologist Irving Weissman’s research team would inject human cells into developing mice. Some cells would be cancerous or have other diseases while others would be perfectly healthy. While the team has no immediate plans to create the human-mouse chimera, it is a theoretical question that they say could help facilitate research. The development comes as the National Academy of Sciences is set to unveil guidelines on stem cell research and chimera this spring. Because federal law doesn’t address the issue, the Stanford team asked the research university where it should draw the line.
The status of cloning to date varies widely across the world, and most countries have no laws or regulation in place. In the United States, federal government money cannot be used for cloning projects, but there are no restrictions on privately funded research. Legislation to use or not use taxpayer dollars for funding of embryonic stem cell or cloning research is being debated by Maryland, Arizona, Washington, and Massachusetts legislators.
The United Nations voted on February 18th to adopt a resolution asking all governments around the world to ban all forms of human cloning. The decision is a victory for pro-life countries who want a complete cloning ban and a defeat for nations that favor using human cloning to create human embryos to kill for their stem cells. The international group’s legal committee voted 71 to 35 with 43 abstentions to adopt the non-binding proposal sponsored by Honduras and backed by the United States. The measure now goes to the full 191 nation assembly and is expected to be approved.
