The Politics and Promise of Stem-Cell Research (New Eng Journ Medicine)

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Volume 355:1189-1191 September 21, 2006 Number 12

The Politics and Promise of Stem-Cell Research

Robert S. Schwartz, M.D.

On July 19, 2006, President George W. Bush exercised his constitutional prerogative to veto a congressional act for the first time in the 6 years he has been in office. The bill, passed by a Republican-controlled Congress, would have allowed a modest extension of embryonic stem-cell research. It called for federal funding to enable the derivation of embryonic stem-cell lines from fertilized eggs that are stored in freezers and already tagged for destruction. In his veto message, the President explained that, "stem cells . . . can be drawn from children, adults, and the blood in umbilical cords with no harm to the donor, and these stem cells are currently being used in medical treatments."

According to the New York Times, Karl Rove, head of the White House's Office of Political Affairs, has declared that embryonic stem cells aren't required because there is "far more promise from adult stem cells." Yet the notion that adult stem cells have the same developmental potential as embryonic stem cells, let alone "more promise," is dubious. It seems that the White House received this idea from David Prentice, a senior fellow for life sciences at the Family Research Council and an advisor to Republican members of Congress. In a report of the President's Council on Bioethics, Prentice claimed that adult stem cells can effectively treat more than 65 diseases. Not only is this assertion patently false, but the information purveyed on the Family Research Council's Web site is pure hokum.

Prentice is not alone, however. A search of the Internet easily turns up dozens of companies offering cures involving adult or cord-blood stem cells. Prominently featured on the Web is the case of a woman, bound to a wheelchair by multiple sclerosis, who received cord-blood stem cells in a private clinic in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Within minutes, she allegedly recovered her ability to walk. Such anecdotes are lures used to trap hapless patients into a treatment that has no merit whatsoever.

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On July 19, Bush missed an opportunity to show support for research on cells that do have the potential to differentiate into many different kinds of tissues. His veto thwarted new prospects for advancing embryonic stem-cell research and will result in a terrible waste: tens of thousands of fertilized eggs will be destroyed without a single one being permitted to contribute to our knowledge of cell differentiation. Fortunately, research on embryonic stem cells will proceed in a number of excellent scientific centers in this country, without federal funding and, one might argue, at a pace unfettered by the federal bureaucracy. But the lack of federal support and the political climate do hinder stem-cell research in the United States. A new center in Singapore, for example, has recently attracted gifted American investigators who are fed up with political restrictions on their research. Other countries — such as China, Sweden, and the United Kingdom — are also entering the field.

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Dr. Schwartz is a deputy editor of the Journal.

The New England Journal of Medicine is owned, published, and copyrighted © 2006 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/12/1189?query=TOC