Stem-Cell Breakthrough? Yes! But What Was Lost?

Recently, the issue of stem-cell research has come back into the news.  The reason for this is that researchers in Japan and the United States have independently discovered a means of turning human-skin cells into cells that function something like embryonic stem cells. 

Embryonic stem cells are biologic shape shifters.  They have the potential to be turned into the cells that make up any human organ.  This means that with research these cells might be used to effect cures for diseases which are currently considered incurable, Parkinson’s disease is one promising example.  There are others. 

 In 2001, President Bush cut off all federal funding for research using human, embryonic stem cells, because the human embryos that produce the stem-cells are obtained from fertility clinics.  These embryos when they are not used in stem-cell research are destroyed.  One wonders why in makes more sense for them to be destroyed than to be used in very promising research which might some day save the lives of millions.  The reason given by the President had those who agree with him, is that according to them, using human embryonic stem cells in research is immoral. 
 

  The reason the current skin-cell research has been hailed so loudly by a few Congressional Republicans is that if this breakthrough pans out (something not fully established yet) it may get us past what the President and a few Republican legislators have seen as a moral dilemma.  

In my view, however, we should not be so quick to forget the damage that was done back in 2001.  There are a couple of reasons why I hold this view.  First, this current line of research is just beginning and, while it has a great deal of potential, it does not at the moment have the same degree of promise as does embryonic stem-cell research.  This is the view of even the scientists that have produced the skin-cell breakthrough.  They have argued that embryonic stem-cell research should be allowed to continue.   

 More important, however, is the six years of research that have been lost because, as Michael Kinsley, in Time Magazine, writes, the President and some Congressional Republicans believe that “a clump of a few dozen cells floating in a petri dish have the same human rights as you and I.”  Six years is an eternity in scientific research.  It is possible (even reasonable to argue) that those six years of lost research might have produced a cure for some currently incurable diseases.  How many lives might have been saved?  There is no way of knowing.

We citizens should hail the skin-cell breakthrough as the great scientific discovery that it is, but we should not forget that embryonic stem-cell research is still necessary.  We should be outraged by the scientific harm done by the six-year hiatus forced on us by the President and a small but extremely harsh minority of lawmakers.  I hope it becomes a serious campaign issue in the upcoming presidential campaign.   

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