Commentary: President Bush, tear down this research wall

Human embryonic stem cells hold immense potential due to their ability to become virtually any cell in the body. As a result, scientists look to human embryonic cells for fighting a host of diseases.

There are those who object on moral grounds that such research would destroy human embryos and therefore potential human life. In reality, the most common source of embryonic stem cells are those derived from leftover frozen embryos in storage at in vitro fertilization clinics no longer needed or wanted by their donors. In the absence of any further use for them, they are normally discarded.

In August 2001 President Bush, strongly urged by his conservative anti-abortion constituency, imposed a ban on funding research on any future embryonic stem cell lines. Although he stated that federal funding would be available for research on approximately 60 existing human embryonic cell lines, he stressed there were to be no new cell lines developed. Later, it was found, very discouragingly, that only a few of the 60 stem cell lines were actually available for research.

As a result, researchers were directed to adult stem cell lines. However, unlike embryonic stem cells, their capability for differentiation is limited. Embryonic stem cells are totipotent or pluripotent. This means they can develop into virtually any cell in the body and are thus able to produce multiple potential specialized cells capable of replacing those lost by injury or disease. They are also easily grown in quantity. Adult stem cells, on the other hand, are not only restricted in the type of cells which they can generate, they have limited growth. This makes it much more difficult to grow sufficient quantities to make them therapeutically useful.

One result of these restrictions is that the National Institutes of Health has found not only a shortage of qualified scientific applicants applying for federal grants, but alarmingly, our foremost molecular biology researchers are leaving the U.S. and taking jobs in Europe and elsewhere, where they are welcomed and can comfortably work with embryonic stem cell research. Meanwhile, NIH is currently putting ten times as much money into research on adult stem cells.

The rationale for restricting embryonic stem cell research has failed to curb the enthusiasm of many Americans with debilitating or life-threatening diseases, such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes, muscular dystrophy, ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), cancer and heart disease. And while federal funding is now prohibited, private and state funding is not, and is being avidly sought.

In March the Wall Street Journal reported several privately funded efforts, including Harvard University, which has developed 17 new embryonic stem cell lines and has offered them free of charge to researchers, Stanford University, University of California at San Francisco, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

Among those who have tried to change President Bush's mind are Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers and actress Mary Tyler Moore (who suffers from Type I diabetes). Rep. Mike Castle of Texas circulated a letter among moderate Republicans calling on the President to relax the restrictions of the present policy. Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman of California, joined by Rep. Louise Slaughter of New York, said the administration had misinformed the public with the promise of 60 cell lines and interfered with science by removing Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, a world-famous molecular biologist, from the President's Bioethics Council for advocating embryonic stem cell research.

Even conservative Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah wrote to Tommy Thompson, secretary of Health and Human Services, arguing that biomedical research involving embryonic stem cells is legally permissible, scientifically promising and ethically proper. He drew the line only at implantation.

In a recent article, Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe quoted Nancy Reagan: I just don't see how we can turn our backs on this. We have lost so much time already and I just really can't bear to lose any more. Let us heed Nancy Reagan's pleas to put an end to the long goodbye.

In support of the family of President Ronald Reagan, I plead, President Bush, tear down this wall which prevents life-saving stem cell research.

Robert S. Coplan, M.D., M.P.H., has spent a half century studying, practicing and writing about medicine and issues facing the health care and biotechnology industries.

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