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the Stem Cell Page time and ignorance are the enemies |
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HR810: A post mortem |
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As the President used his first ever veto to put off federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, he again delays potential treatments, therapies and cures for 100 million Americans. Worse yet, his delay may well constitute a death sentence for many. No doubt, should therapies and cures be ultimately discovered, there will be those who will have lost loved ones just before a treatment eventually becomes available in the mainstream.
There would also be those who contract a dreaded disease just prior to the introduction of a preventative measure, leaving them alive but with reduced function, lifelong disability or some form of permanent residual effect that might otherwise have been negated. I know this first hand. My sister contracted polio shortly before the vaccine was introduced. I think about it often, though to this day it remains an unspoken topic in our family.
One cannot help but wonder how future generations will judge Bush’s 2001 executive order, which prohibited federal funding of embryonic stem cell research on lines created after his announcement. And how will history view his inaugural veto, reserved for proposed life saving legislation, after a veto-less string of over 1100 bills? What good could possibly come of all this?
Actually, some good already has:
· It wasn’t so long ago that the mention of stem cells on main street was met with a quizzical look. But the issue has now been vaulted to front page news, a lead story. The phrase “stem cell” is now known by virtually all Americans, even if not yet fully understood by some. · Polls indicate substantial and continuing growth in American approval of embryonic stem research, climbing from 68% last year to its current 72%. · 591 medical associations, research institutions, disease foundations, and patient advocacy groups wrote letters of support of HR810 and, perhaps more telling, none wrote in opposition. · 80 American Nobel laureates have voiced public support for embryonic stem cell research and, again, none have publicly opposed. · Despite falling short of the two thirds super-majority required to override Bush’s veto, both houses of Congress are drawing ever closer to doing so. · During the Senate debate, David Prentice’s infamously false list of 65 diseases currently being “treated” by adult stem cells was debunked. (This caused Senator Brownback to perform so much sidestepping about the false claims that Arthur Murray, American Bandstand and Soul Train should send him letters of commendation.)
[Thanks go out to Bill Neaves, President and CEO of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, Shane Smith, Ph.D., of the Children’s Neurobiological Solutions Foundation and Steve Teitelbaum, M.D., of the Department of Pathology and Immunology at Washington University who provided the debunking data. Click here to read their letter. Click here to read their back up data. The Stowers Institute issued a press release on the matter. Click here to read the release.]
Still, there were many squandered opportunities in the Senate debate. During the first day, Brownback displayed a graphic with pictures of embryos next to famous people. There was an embryo next to Mother Theresa, one next to John Kennedy. Another was next to Martin Luther King and finally, one next to Ronald Reagan. His point, of course, was that had their embryos been destroyed, the world would not have had the benefit of their lives. Never mind that the excess embryos in IVF clinics targeted by HR810 could never become a person and never mind that their only future was destruction.
I anxiously awaited a counter-graphic on day two. I imagined that graphic with four Petri dishes and, next to the first three, a biohazard symbol, a flame, and a toilet representing the embryos’ destined disposal. The fourth would be next to a microscope and a medicine bottle, indicating the alternative: research leading to a potential treatment or cure. To my disappointment, that counter-graphic never materialized.
More frustrating was that this debate occurred in the year marking the 50th anniversary of the world’s first successful adult stem cell treatment - the bone marrow transplant - performed by Dr. E. Donnall Thomas in 1956 and for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize. Thomas has been outspoken that stem cell science should be left to the scientists - and politicians should not obstruct it’s unfolding. More poignantly, he was among the Nobel laureates who signed a letter to President Bush, which included the following statement:
“Some have suggested that adult stem cells may be sufficient to pursue all treatments for human disease. It is premature to conclude that adult stem cells have the same potential as embryonic stem cells -- and that potential will almost certainly vary from disease to disease. Current evidence suggests that adult stem cells have markedly restricted differentiation potential. Therefore, for disorders that prove not to be treatable with adult stem cells, impeding human pluripotent stem cell research risks unnecessary delay for millions of patients who may die or endure needless suffering while the effectiveness of adult stem cells is evaluated.”
This went at least unmentioned, if not entirely unnoticed. And given that adult stem cell research has now continued through six decades, yielding only nine FDA approved treatments and receiving many times more federal dollars than its embryonic counterpart, someone should have said:
“Human embryonic stem cells were first isolated in 1998, a mere eight years ago. Before anyone in this chamber prejudges their therapeutic value relative to adult stem cells, we should give them equal opportunity and for a similar span of time. Let us untie the hands of embryonic stem cell researchers, provide them unfettered opportunity and at least equal funding for the next fifty years and then compare notes.”
The antiquated views of numerous members of the bill’s opposition in the Senate was particularly distressing. Jim Bunning’s (R-KY) singular sentence is a good example:
"Just because the budding lives would not survive does not mean that we should ghoulishly conduct experiments on them."
This argument was recycled directly from the long settled, if not forgotten, debate of organ transplantation - today considered routine. That sort of archaic thinking makes clear that Bunning is trying to hurdle the nation forward - into the 1930’s.
The HR810 debate also unveiled new allies too numerous to mention here. But among my favorites was octogenarian broadcaster Paul Harvey, who delivered a terse, two sentence report on HR810:
“The Senate today is likely to pass and send to the White House a money bill to pay for stem cell research but the President will veto. But he can’t possibly want to.”
Certainly the embryonic stem cell research advocate community is disheartened by the failure to garner sufficient votes in the Senate to manifest a veto proof super-majority. That might have spurred the House to come around, but not this time, I’m afraid. We must constantly listen, learn, hone our skills and be better prepared next time. And make no mistake about this - there will be a next time and it will be soon.
Still, we can take some comfort in the knowledge that the votes in both houses grow closer to reflecting proportional national sentiments, the direct result of continuous pressure by constituencies across the country. It demonstrates that, slowly as it may seem, we’re nearer to winning.
In the upcoming election season America has the power of the ballot box at its disposal. A pro stem cell shift of only four Senate seats will claim that body. And every seat in the House is in play in November.
Each of us has the opportunity to advance the cause by sustaining political pressure, keeping embryonic stem cell research at the forefront of political dialogue. We must persist in engaging friends, family, neighbors and coworkers. We must continue to call, email and fax our representatives, and write letters to the editor. Most importantly, we must elect our representatives as if lives depend upon it.
After all, for 100 million Americans and their families, for patients today and patients to be, for those born and yet unborn, lives do indeed depend upon it.
- Jeff Eisen
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