Moral Stem Cell Research Makes New Gains

The news couldn’t be more exciting — and depressing at the same time. Most likely, you have a relative with one of the progressive diseases that plague humanity, diseases like Parkinson’s or diabetes. You want progress in curing or at least ameliorating symptoms of disease. But, you want the research to be moral and not rely on the destruction of human life.

Here’s the exciting news. On a steady and regular basis, scientists complete studies and release information on gains made using adult stem cell research — the moral kind. Here’s a sampling:

• A Canadian group published a study showing that bone marrow stem cells can slow and potentially treat patients with Lou Gehrig’s disease.
• U.S. scientists were able to coax a stem cell derived from ordinary skin cells into becoming three types of heart and blood cells in mice, bringing science closer to treatments for heart disease.
• Australian scientists report that adult stem cells taken from a patient’s nose placed into the brain of a rat resulted in dopamine-producing brain cells. This is an important development for potentially treating Parkinson’s disease which occurs when the brain doesn’t produce enough dopamine.

Now for the depressing part. In spite of the tremendous progress made in treating real patients with real diseases using ethically-sound adult stem cell research, money continues to pour into life-destructing embryonic stem cell research. Some scientists forge ahead into the precarious world of human cloning. Designer babies are one step closer with news that scientists have genetically altered a human embryo.

Bottom line is that there are no rules out there. Despite centuries of thought and reasoning to protect human subjects from experimentation, many scientists are coming up with their own definition of who is human.

This is a time when we can have it both ways. We can cure or ameliorate disease without reliance on the destruction of human life. It makes me giddy to think of it. Now we need more scientists to catch the wave.

Barbara Lyons