Stem Cell Research

The only way to obtain embryonic stem cells is to kill the living human embryo. The embryos killed for their stem cells are about a week old and have grown to about 200 cells.

There are other ways of doing stem cell research. We can use adult tissue, placentas or umbilical cord blood. They are much more likely to work, and it would be more ethical.

Catch-cry: “Embryonic stem cells are the most effective for treating disease.”

In reality, they’re not. Embryonic stem cells have not helped a single human patient or demonstrated any therapeutic benefit. By contrast, adult stem cells and other ethically acceptable alternatives have already helped hundreds of thousands of patients and new clinical uses expand almost weekly.

Conditions for which embryonic stem cells have helped human patients:

NONE

These cells have never helped a human patient.

Two quotes from a workshop sponsored by the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine in Washington DC, Stem Cells and the Future of Regenerative Medicine (22 June 01):

“There is no evidence of therapeutic benefit from embryonic stem cells.” Marcus Grompe, MD, PhD, Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics, Oregon Health Sciences University. Dr Grompe is an expert in cell transplantation to repair damaged livers.

“There is no experience with embryonic stem cells in humans and very little in mice … all claims of therapeutic benefit from embryonic stem cells are conjectural.” Bert Vogelstein, Professor of Oncology and Pathology at John Hopkins University, Chairman of the Institute of Medicine’s committee studying stem cell research.

Current clinical uses of adult stem cells to help human patients

(Refer http://stemcellresearch.org/currenttaps.htm)

Catch-cry: “Most people support stem cell research”

Of course they do - but what type of stem cell research do they support? Stem cells that come from adult tissue, placentas, or umbilical cord blood can be retrieved without harming the donor. The only way to obtain embryonic stem cells, however, is to kill the living human embryo. Typically, poll questions do not make this distinction.

(Refer http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2001/01-101.htm)

When a survey was undertaken in the United States in 2001, people were asked if the government should fund stem cell research which requires destroying human embryos. 70% said No. And when asked to choose between funding stem cell research including embryonic stem cells vs stem cell research without embryonic stem cells, people supported the latter approach 67% to 18%. (International Communications Research, 8 June 2001). Would the Australian people be very different?

Catch-cry: “Excess embryos are going to be discarded anyway”

Today, parents can preserve “excess” embryos for future pregnancies as well as donate them to other couples. In a recent study 59% of parents who initially planned to discard their embryos after three years, changed their minds and chose another pregnancy or chose to donate to infertile couples. (New England Journal of Medicine, 5 July 2001.) The Australian experience has been that couples are very reluctant to consent to their embryos being used for destructive research.

What’s more, we now know that the scientists have themselves moved on to creating human embryos solely to destroy them for stem cells. So much for the “discarded” argument.

But what scientists or parents might do with the embryos is not the issue. The issue is: Should the government allow (and use taxpayers’ money for) research which requires destroying human embryos?

Catch-cry” “Human embryos aren’t really human beings yet”

The testimony of modern science is clear on this point. “At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilised ovum (zygote), a new life has begun.”

(Refer Keith Moore, Essentials of Human Embryology (Toronto: Decker, 1988), p2; Ida Dox et al, The Harper Collins Illustrated Medical Dictionary (New York: Harper, 1993), p 146; TW Sadler, Langman’s Medical Embryology (7th ed, Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins 1995), p3; Bruce Carlson, Patten’s Foundations of Embryology (6th ed, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996), p3.

Let the Australian people support
medical research that everyone can live with