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Facts on Stem Cells
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Contributor | RP |
Last Edited | RP Aug 23, 2004 05:19pm |
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Category | Analysis |
Media | Newspaper - Washington Post |
News Date | Monday, August 23, 2004 06:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
Description | As much as we might wish it to be otherwise, no non-embryonic sources of stem cells -- not stem cells from cord blood or from any "adult" sources -- have been shown to have anything like the potential to lead us to viable treatments for such diseases as juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's and spinal cord injury that stem cells derived from very early embryos do. The science here is unequivocal: Access to embryonic stem cell lines is essential to rapid progress in stem cell research.
The embryonic stem cell lines the president approved for federal funding three years ago, all of which were derived before August 2001, are clearly inadequate to advance stem cell science, let alone to take that science from the bench to the bedside. There are too few of them, no more than 21. All of the approved stem cell lines were prepared using mouse cells and thus pose a risk of contaminating human subjects with mouse viruses.
We are losing ground to other countries with less restrictive policies on embryonic stem cells. This month British government officials announced the first license to use cloning techniques to generate a human embryo to produce stem cells that might be used for the treatment of disease. Other nations are investing heavily -- hundreds of millions of dollars -- in embryonic stem cell research. The United States stands to lose substantially in the global economy of intellectual property and biotechnology. |
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