Stem Cell Battles
Editorial
The New York Times
August 15, 2004
Stem cell research moved to the forefront of the presidential
campaign last week. The Democratic candidates said they would ease the
Bush administration's restrictions on federal funding and
quadruple the money available. Republicans retorted that they were the first
to finance embryonic stem cell research and that the Democrats
were cruelly inflating expectations for instant cures. Just as the debate was
heating up, two developments suggested that the Democrats
were right to call for expansion of this important research.
An opinion piece in The New England Journal of Medicine
asserted that many opportunities are being missed, or soon
will be, for lack of federal grants to pursue promising avenues
of research that have just opened up. Meanwhile, British
regulators issued their first license
allowing scientists to use cloning techniques
to produce stem cells, thus opening the way for Britain
to surge ahead in the most promising
area of stem cell research.
The Democrats clearly think they hold a winning card
in stem cell research because of its potential, eventually, to yield treatments for
diabetes, heart disease, neurological ailments and a host
of other illnesses. Although religious conservatives consider
such research immoral because it requires the destruction
of very early stage embryos in the laboratory, polls show
that most Americans back the research for its
medical potential.
The Democrats have exploited the fact that the research
is supported by Nancy and Ron Reagan. Mr. Reagan
was given prime exposure at the Democratic National Convention
to argue that "the theology of a few" should not be allowed
"to forestall the health and well-being of the
many." That is why the Republicans countered with their
own weapon, the first lady, Laura Bush, who emphasized the preliminary nature of
the research - particularly in the case of Alzheimer's disease - and
deplored any implication that cures were around the corner. In a move to
head off the Democratic attacks, she stressed not the restrictions
that her husband had imposed but that he is the only president to
authorize federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, leading
to $25 million in federal grants last year. That was technically true but
glossed over the Clinton administration's preparation of far more
generous funding guidelines, which were blocked by the Bush
administration.
Mrs. Bush is surely right that some advocates of stem cell research
leave the impression that cures may be just around the corner, whereas
virtually all experts agree it will be a long, hard slog, with success
by no means guaranteed. Yet there seems little doubt that the slog will be
all the harder if the federal government, traditionally the main driving
force in basic biomedical research, hangs back from the field. The
president's policy limits federal funding to research on some 20
stem cell lines that existed three years ago. That makes it harder for
scientists to do research on dozens of other stem cell lines that have
since been created with private funds, including new lines that reflect
genetic diseases not present in the Bush-approved lines. The Bush
policy also rules out research on stem cells that are genetically matched
to a patient, the avenue that will now be explored by the British
while American researchers' hands are tied.
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