Bush ponders idea on stem cell study
Proposal based on unproven theory
08/05/2001
Chicago Tribune
WASHINGTON – President Bush, eager to find middle ground on the volatile issue of embryonic stem cell research, is considering an unproven scientific theory that stem cells can be taken from a human embryo without destroying it.
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Mr. Bush's top political strategist, Karl Rove, and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief counselor, Mary Matalin, met separately recently with Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., to discuss Mr. Bartlett's claims that the stem cells used in scientific research could be "cleaved" from the embryo in a way that would allow the embryo to reform and, possibly, still be implanted in a woman's womb.
"This is a solution that I believe everyone in Congress can support to the perplexing controversy concerning embryonic stem cell research," Mr. Bartlett, a former physiology professor at the University of Maryland and a one-time researcher at the National Institutes of Health, said in a letter he circulated on Capitol Hill.
The White House continued to grapple with the stem cell issue during a week marked by several legislative victories before the president's departure for Texas for a lengthy working vacation.
So far, however, the ability to cleave cells while preserving the human embryo is an untested theory. Activists on both sides of the debate said the White House's pursuit of such an untried scientific technique is an indication of how eager the administration is to find politically safe ground on an issue viewed as a defining event of Mr. Bush's short tenure.
The White House confirmed the meetings, and Mr. Bartlett's staff said there had been several follow-up discussions.
But there was no indication from the White House when Mr. Bush would make a decision on Mr. Bartlett's proposal or what alternatives he is studying on federal financing of stem cell research.
Even as the White House weighs Mr. Bartlett's proposal, researchers have said that the techniques he advocates are untested and potentially overly burdensome to scientists.
The abortion foes Mr. Bush would seek to appease with such a proposal are lining up against Mr. Bartlett's plan, insisting there is no guarantee that embryos wouldn't be destroyed, an act they equate with abortion. One group, American League for Life, conducted a news conference Friday near the White House to deride Mr. Bush for "selling out" conservative voters by breaking a campaign promise in even seeking a compromise.
Embryonic stem cells, which have been available to researchers for only the last three years, can be manipulated to create tissue, blood and nerves and have excited millions of people with their promise of new treatments for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, juvenile diabetes and other diseases.
What Mr. Bartlett proposes is that a small part of a days-old embryo could be carved away before the embryo is implanted in a woman's womb. Stem cells would be taken from the cleaved portion of the cell cluster. The remaining embryo would be allowed to rejuvenate and, if the timing is precise, be implanted.
But even the researchers Mr. Bartlett consulted caution that the technique is only "theoretically possible." No one has taken stem cells from a human embryo without destroying it.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services
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