Federal funding restrictions fuel stem cell research debate

Leaders in scientific, political and business arenas all have a lot to say about the president's policies on stem cell research.

By Andis Robeznieks, amednews staff. Oct. 1, 2001.

Talk concerning embryonic stem cell research has hardly quieted since Aug. 9, when President George W. Bush announced that the federal government would fund such research but would restrict it to 64 existing stem cell lines.

Since that time, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report calling for fewer restrictions, and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson testified at a U.S. Senate hearing that perhaps only 24 or 25 of the existing stem cell lines were fully developed and presently suitable for research.

Though discussion continues, President Bush said the debate is over. "The statement I laid out is what I think is right for America today," the president told reporters in mid-August. "And any piece of legislation that undermines what I think is right will be vetoed."

Speaking before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in early September, Thompson sought to dispel criticism that the president's research guidelines were too restrictive and the supply of available stem cell lines insufficient.

"So far, the National Institutes of Health has identified 64 stem cell derivations that meet the president's eligibility criteria," Thompson said.

"The president never spoke about or drew any limits on these lines based on where they were in their development. Furthermore, we have consistently said that these lines are at various stages of development.

"But unfortunately, and I believe unfairly, some are choosing to engage in word games or hear only parts of the story," Thompson added.

Stanford takes a financial hit

One of the loudest critics of the president's policy has been Netscape founder and former Stanford University electrical engineering professor Jim Clark.

Clark blasted Bush's policy in an Aug. 31 New York Times essay and also announced, as a protest, he would suspend the remaining $60 million of a total $150 million pledge he had made to Stanford to fund bioengineering and biomedicine programs.

The effect of the president's policy, Clark wrote, was that the United States was forfeiting its leadership to other nations.

"Restricting stem cell research for even a few years simply means that scientists in the United States will not be pioneers," Clark's essay stated. "Biologists are at the threshold of the most important set of discoveries in history, and rather than teach and lead, our politicians react and follow a conservative few."

At the same September hearing, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.) voiced similar concerns.

"Many in the scientific community are concerned that the president's decision establishes restrictive conditions on this critical research and will delay development of cures for dreaded diseases for many years -- at the cost of countless lives and immeasurable suffering," Kennedy said at the hearing. "Failing to seize this unprecedented medical opportunity would be a tragic betrayal of the hopes and dreams of the millions of patients who expect us to do all we can to develop these new cures."

Let's look on the bright side

Presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters congressional critics may be missing an important point.

"From the president's point of view, what's foremost important for Congress to remember is that -- under what President Bush announced -- for the first time, we are now a nation that is going to spend federal research dollars on stem cell research," Fleischer said. "It was previously prohibited, and according to the National Institutes of Health, there are some 60 to 64 lines that can receive funding for stem cell research, which is a dramatic step forward from where our nation was just one year ago, in advancing the cause of science and research in whether or not there is hope for breakthroughs in disease."

The report that stirred the latest controversy was released Sept. 11. It was written by a National Academy of Sciences panel chaired by Johns Hopkins University professor of oncology and pathology, Bert Vogelstein, MD.

According to NAS spokesman Bill Kearney, the document was written and reviewed before the president announced his policy and was not revised in response to the announcement.

In a statement released by the NAS, Dr. Vogelstein said research on adult and embryonic stem cells holds promise for treating and perhaps curing a variety of diseases, but noted that problems may occur if research is limited to existing stem cell lines.

"We also believe that new embryonic stem cell lines will need to be developed in the long run to replace existing lines that become compromised by age, and to address concerns about culture with animal cells and serum that could result in health risks to humans," Dr.Vogelstein's statement read.

The committee's report also called for the National Institutes of Health to create an advisory body of scientists, ethicists and other stakeholders to ensure that proposals for federal funding to work on embryonic stem cells are justified on scientific grounds and meet ethical guidelines.