Some Hope on Stem Cells
In July, President Bush vetoed legislation to expand federal funding of stem cell research. Will he reconsider? Supporters of the research (including some at the National Institutes of Health, who have broken with the Bush administration on this issue) believe it would accelerate if the NIH was given the funding to take the lead in a new federal effort. Private and state-by-state initiatives should be applauded, but private firms naturally wish to profit from their research and are not inclined to disseminate results that would help competitors. The disparate state efforts are simply no match for the kind of funding and brainpower the NIH could focus on the most promising initiatives through its merit-based national peer review system. A national stem cell program could:
ÃÂÃÂÃÂ Organize teams to tackle complex problems.
ÃÂÃÂÃÂ Evaluate the diseases most susceptible to attack.
ÃÂÃÂÃÂ Ensure the transparency of research.
ÃÂÃÂÃÂ Establish the most widely accepted ethical guidelines.
ÃÂÃÂÃÂ Pinpoint when treatment should move from the research phase to human trials.
ÃÂÃÂÃÂ Save the expense of laboratory duplication.
Profound moral questions have been raised by stem cells. Is an embryo in a petri dish a living person with all the relevant moral attributes? Does that capacity exist only after the embryo is transferred into a woman's womb? Does a human embryo in a fertility clinic that is inevitably bound for destruction have the same moral status as millions of children and adults who might be doomed to death or disablement?
If we can arrive at a means of finally extracting human embryonic cells without destroying the embryo, which can continue to be used for implantation, it seems to me that would solve the moral dilemmas this issue has confronted us with and open the way to federal funding.
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