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No financial incentives for embryo donors

Commercial issues involved in stem cell research highlight the need for ethical guidelines for the disposition of spare embryos.

By Andis Robeznieks, amednews staff. Dec. 9, 2002.

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Donating spare embryos for embryonic stem cell research is ethical -- if done correctly, according to a report from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine ethics committee published last month in the medical journal Fertility and Sterility.

"It's not a new earth-shaking opinion that other people didn't know our society supported," said committee member Lori A. Marshall, MD. "Our primary goal was to help -- and, in some ways, protect -- our patients so they could donate with full knowledge of what they're doing."

Dr. Marshall, section head of reproductive endocrinology at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, said the need for the guidelines was driven in part by the Bush administration's stem cell policy.

Current policy provides federal funding only to researchers who use stem cell lines that were in existence before Aug. 9, 2001, and were developed from embryos created for fertility treatment but no longer needed for that purpose.

"Those stem cells are useful for studies, but not for clinical trials because of the way they're cultured using nonhuman tissues," Dr. Marshall said. "So it's become clear that much of stem cell research will probably be done in the private domain.

"And we know that research that's done in the private domain certainly has other motives than just science," she added. "It's done for commercial motives, so we wanted to provide guidelines so practitioners and patients understood the issues."

Some of the most important ethical issues in the donation process include consent and timing. Dr. Marshall explained that couples must not be coerced into donating, and embryos should not be donated until couples are sure they do not desire to have any more children. [...]