Vital Signs from NYTimes.com
Wednesday, December 19, 2001
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1. Vital Signs: The Stem Cell Issue
2. Personal Health: Jane E. Brody
1. Vital Signs: Controversy Over Cloning Reignites in
Congress
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When President Bush announced on Aug. 9 that the
government would pay for certain studies on human
embryonic stem cells, many Americans thought he had
settled the stem cell debate, at least until the initial
experiments determined whether the government- approved
research would bear fruit.
But now, before the first stem cell grants are even
awarded, Washington's biopolitical wars are heating up
again.
The recent announcement by a Massachusetts biotechnology
company, Advanced Cell Technology, that it is trying to
clone human embryos for stem cells has reignited a
controversy in Congress over the ethics of embryo
experiments. A debate that was virtually extinguished by
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is now very much alive. The
next battleground will be the Senate, where, as early as
February, members are expected to consider two bills
related to stem cells. One would allow a wider range of
federally financed research than the president wants. The
other, a broad ban on cloning, would effectively end
Advanced Cell's work.
"The president's Aug. 9 speech managed to confound both
sides," said Daniel Perry, executive director of the
Alliance for Aging Research, an advocacy group that
promotes stem cell science. "It was a temporary compromise
that allowed voices on both sides to be calmed
temporarily."
At the heart of the debates over stem cells and cloning
are questions that politicians cannot settle: When does
human life begin, and what is the moral status of the
human embryo?
nytimes.com
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In Tiny Cells, Glimpses of Body's Master Plan
The human body looks and works like a seamless whole, but
it is constructed of individual units too small to be
seen, some 100 trillion living cells. The designer of the
body is evolution, but its builders are the cells
themselves. They proliferate from a single egg, morph into
at least 260 different types and spontaneously organize
into a perfectly integrated system of organs and tissues.
Biologists only dimly grasp the principles of this
extraordinary self-assembly, but they are quickly learning
the habits of its principal actors, a special class of
cell known as stem cells. One kind of master stem cell
generates the infant from the fertilized egg and then, its
living sculpture completed, disappears. A class of
maintenance stem cells then assumes the duties of
replenishing and repairing the body throughout the owner's
lifetime. The fleeting creators, known as embryonic stem
cells, generate every tissue of the body, but their
successors, the adult stem cells, are generally limited in
scope to making a single kind of tissue.
Stem cells have recently burst from the obscurity of the
research laboratory into the arena of national politics,
propelled by assertions that they are either the fruits of
murder or the panacea for the degenerative diseases of
age. Obtained from the surplus embryos generated in
fertility clinics, human embryonic stem cells have not yet
been much studied because many biomedical researchers --
those supported by federal grants -- were forbidden to
work on them until President Bush's decision on Aug. 9 to
allow research with embryonic cell cultures that had
already been established.
nytimes.com
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A Thick Line Between Theory and Therapy, as Shown With
Mice
Dr. Brigid Hogan has never worked with human embryonic
stem cells -- her expertise is with mouse cells. But
patients with virtually every sort of chronic disease have
found her, and they plead for help.
"I even hear from patients whose fathers have lung
cancer," said Dr. Hogan, a professor at Vanderbilt
University School of Medicine. "They have a whole slew of
problems they think can be treated. They think stem cells
are going to cure their loved ones of everything."
If it ever happens, it will not happen soon, scientists
say. In fact, although they worked with mouse embryonic
stem cells for 20 years and made some progress,
researchers have not yet used these cells to cure a single
mouse of a disease.
Scientists say the theory behind stem cells is correct:
the cells, in principle, can become any specialized cell
of the body. But between theory and therapy lie a host of
research obstacles. Though not often discussed in public
forums, the obstacles are so serious that scientists say
they foresee years, if not decades, of concerted work on
basic science before they can even think of trying to
treat a patient.
Yet as excitement over stem cell research built over the
summer, and surged again with recent reports of
experiments with human cloning, scientists and doctors
became deluged with calls from desperate patients who saw
salvation around the corner. Somehow this research has
come to be seen as the great hope for medical science.
How, scientists ask, did expectations grow so quickly?
nytimes.com
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Use of Cloning to Tailor Treatment Has Big Hurdles,
Including Cost
Advanced Cell Technology faces more than just public
outrage in its quest to create human embryos. Its goal may
simply be impractical.
nytimes.com
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Scientists Seek Ways to Rebuild the Body, Bypassing the
Embryos
Human embryonic stem cells may not be the only source of
tissue needed to repair damaged organs. Alternative
approaches from the mundane to the exotic are being
explored.
nytimes.com
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Defining the Undefinable: The Living Cell
Much as people may wish these days for the comforts of a
few black and white distinctions -- between good and evil,
democracy and tyranny, friends and fiends -- our restless
color wheel of a world refuses to comply. And that law of
equivocation and qualification, scientists say, extends
down to the most basic distinction of all: whether
something is alive or not.
nytimes.com
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In Production of Stem Cells, Many Featured Actors but Few
Stars
Stem cell biology is a growing field with many players.
What looks like a small number of researchers to the
public is actually a large group.
nytimes.com
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Apostle of Regenerative Medicine Foresees Longer Health
and Life
Regenerative medicine is the concept of repairing the body
by developing new tissues and organs as the old ones wear
out. And Dr. William A. Haseltine is one of its principal
apostles.
nytimes.com
2. Personal Health: Weighing the Rights of the Embryo
Against Those of the Sick
By Jane E. Brody
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In theory, millions of people suffering devastating
diseases may one day be helped or even cured with
treatments derived from human embryonic stem cells. But
human embryos must be destroyed to obtain these stem
cells. So research involving them is mired in controversy,
with each side arguing passionately for the rights of the
sick or the rights of the unborn.
nytimes.com |
