Recently in Bioethics (SCR) Category

The American Spectator has published an article I wrote on transhumanism, biotechnology, and Reason science correspondent Ronald Bailey. An excerpt:

Bailey makes a similar sneaky acknowledgement using carefully selected language. "It is true that the proposed human animal cybrids would contain mostly human genes, but researchers have no intention of creating cow/human or rabbit/human babies," he writes.

By combining the obscure technical term "cybrid" (an egg cell from an animal that contains the nucleus from a human cell) with the common, emotionally charged term "baby," Bailey deftly obfuscates what is occurring. While the researchers are not creating cow/human babies (beings that have reached the infancy stage of development) they are creating cow/human embryos (beings that have reached the embryonic stage of development).

Denying the humanity of embryos is nothing new, of course, but the broad-based acceptance of certain biotechnologies has made such semantic evasion tactics essential.

Read the rest at The American Spectator.

In January 2006, I provided testimony before the Human Services Committee of the Illinois General Assembly on the on public funding of research involving embryo-destructive research and “therapeutic” cloning. I want to quote a length from what I said to that skeptical group of Democrats to show how fast the hype over politicized science can change in the span of a year:

We believe that human cloning poses a grave danger not only to the dignity of the human embryo but to the women who provide the eggs needed for such research. Although it is often overlooked or ignored, women are exploited in the process of human cloning research.

For years the hype over therapeutic cloning has concealed what the scientific community has known for several years: cloning will never lead to a broad range of cures or treatments. The clinical benefits of cloning are years or decades away, and genetically specific treatments will be available to only a select few wealthy patients. Even if it can be perfected, therapeutic cloning will be medicine for millionaires.

As Australia's Alan Trounson, a world expert on embryonic stem cells, told the science journal Nature Medicine, "so-called therapeutic cloning to my mind is a non-event". As a way of creating cures, he observed, "it's just not realistic." In the same article an American expert, José Cibelli of Michigan State University predicted that “therapeutic cloning is going to be obsolete."

Lost in the hype over “miracle cures” is the indisputable fact that the human cloning is simply an untenable method for treating diseases. The number of eggs needed for such purposes exceeds the supply by several orders of magnitude.

A bit of skin is all it took to transform one of the most controversial ethical issues of our time.

Dr. James Thomson and Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, working independently, are the first to show how embryonic-type stem cells can be produced directly from ordinary human skin cells, without first creating or destroying human embryos. The reprogrammed cells, the scientists report, appear to behave very much like human embryonic stem cells but were called “induced pluripotent stem cells,” meaning cells that can change into many different types.

“By any means we test them they are the same as embryonic stem cells,” Dr. Thomson says.
For the past half decade, embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) has been a hotly debated topic. Because of this I suspect that there will be four main--though potentially overlapping--groups that will react strongly to this story.

The first are those who care about the science. They will be awed by one of the most monumental discoveries of the decade. As Yuval Levin notes, this finding "will revolutionize cell biology, and get a lot of PhD level textbooks thrown in the garbage today."

The second are those who believed the hype about ESCR leading to cures. They will initially be elated -- and then dejected when they find that the real potential for ESCR is basic research and that any therapeutic uses are likely to come decades from now.

The third are those who have a financial stake in current ESCR research. They will attempt to downplay the significance of this finding. According to a recent report put out by the Rockefeller Institute, to date about $1.7 billion has poured into ESCR and SCNT from philanthropic sources. This doesn’t include the hundreds of millions granted annually by the states for cloning and ESCR experiments. There are too many people making money off embryo-destructive research to give it up without a fight.

The last two categories are comprised of people who were primarily concerned about the ethical implications. One group was honestly concerned about the moral issues surrounding ESCR and will be overjoyed that a solution to the problem has been found that has the potential to please all parties involved.

The last group is those who favor embryo-destructive research because it gives them an ethical excuse (i.e., compassion for the sick) for denying the inherent dignity of humans in the embryonic stage of life. I agree with Joseph Bottum, who says in First Things:

I have long suspected that science, in the context of the editorial page of the New York Times, was simply a stalking-horse for something else. In fact, for two something-elses: a chance to discredit America's religious believers and an opportunity to put yet another hedge around the legalization of abortion. After all, if our very health depends on the death of embryos, and we live in a culture that routinely destroys early human life in the laboratory, no grounds could exist for objecting to abortion.

ESCR has always been as much of a Rorschach test as a field of medical research. Whether a tool for unlocking of scientific knowledge, a cure for an ailing family member, a deep reservoir for government funding, a struggle for human dignity, or a stalking-horse for abortion politics, people look as the issue and see what they want to see. We'll all look at this finding and see something different. Hopefully, it will help us all see the issue a bit more clearly.

[Note: Since I'm busy with The Washington Briefing this week, I thought I'd recycle this post from April 2005.]

The following thought experiment is used to explore some basic assumptions currently held in the field of bioethics. As with any such hypothetical scenario, a certain degree of liberty is taken with what is considered within the realm of possibility. Some people may complain that I have stretched the normal boundaries of the discussion in order to make a point.

I completely agree.

Unfortunately, we live in an age in which many people consider it ethical to destroy "non-person humans" in order to use their parts for experiments in speculative medical science. When such views are so commonly accepted it's difficult to present a test case that pushes the limits beyond our society's absurd and twisted views on bioethics.

******

It begins with an old wives tale. After receiving a grant from a multi-national pharmaceutical company, a young French medical scientist begins a post-doctoral study of a peculiar practice conducted in Belgium. A guild of midwives has adapted the obscure practice of eating the placenta and used it as a cure for some forms of minor debilitating afflictions. The Belgian media reports on stories of miraculous recovery from arthritis by elderly citizens who eat a soup made with fresh placenta.

The young scientist is initially skeptical, believing a placebo effect is responsible for the "miraculous" results. But after conducting his own research the French doctor becomes convinced that further study is warranted. The public's disgust and the medical community's lukewarm reception of the claims, though, sours the pharmaceutical company on pursuing further research. Fortunately for the young physician, a Dutch billionaire who was cured of his own ailments decides to fund the inquiry.

In a remarkable medical breakthrough, scientists from Harvard and Wake Forest report that they have discovered a new source of stems cells that have the ability to create muscle, bone, fat, blood vessel, nerve, and liver cells in the laboratory. These newly discovered stem cells, which they have named amniotic fluid-derived stem (AFS) cells, may represent an intermediate stage--“halfway houses”--between embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. The research, which has been ongoing for the past seven years, was reported in yesterday’s Nature Biotechnology.

One of the primary advantages of the AFS cells is their ready availability. The cells can be harvested from backup amniotic fluid specimens obtained for amniocentesis or from “afterbirth,” the placenta and other membranes that are expelled after delivery. Anthony Atala, M.D., senior researcher and director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, says that a bank with 100,000 specimens theoretically could supply 99 percent of the U.S. population with perfect genetic matches for transplantation.

A number of factors make these cells preferable to embryonic stem cells (ESC), which have never been used for therapies. Their value could even potentially surpass adult stem cells, which are used in about seventy treatments and therapies. According to the report:

Over at RedBlueChristian I made a comment about there being no empirical evidence that embryonic stem-cell research (ESCR) will ever produce a cure for anything, much less a spinal cord injury. Andrew P. replied that I might be overstating the speculative nature of the field of research. In rebuttal he alluded to a John Hopkins study in which embryonic stem cells were used to aid in the recovery from paralysis in rats and adds.

This isn’t a guarantee that this therapy will every work in practice for humans for a given kind of injury or disease. But it certainly is empirical evidence of a (partial) cure, is it not?

Actually, it is not. Not only do such studies not provide empirical evidence for human cures but they rarely even provide empirical evidence for cures in rats. The most that can be said is that the empirical evidence supports the results of the experiment. Attempting to extrapolate from such meager animal studies to producing cures in humans is nothing more than a blind leap of faith.

Before any research using embryonic stem cells can reach the level of “empirical evidence of a (partial) cure” it has to overcome the currently insurmountable problem of tumor formation. As James Sherley, an associate professor of biological engineering at MIT, notes, the question "How soon could human embryonic stem cells be used for cures?" is pre-empted by the question "Could human embryonic stem cells ever be used for cures?":

On Tuesday, NPR�s �All Things Considered� aired an essay on embryonic stem cells by commentator Terry Smith. Smith, a former correspondent for Newshour, was recently diagnosed with diabetes and expressed his hope that President Bush wouldn�t veto the bill that had made it through the Congress.

Today they ran a rebuttal essay, though they wanted to stack the deck in Smith�s favor by choosing a completely unqualified candidate to present the opposing view. That is the only explanation I can think of for why they would have asked me.

Instead of having you read one of my standard laborious essay-posts, I�ll ask that you listen to one instead: Applauding Bush's Veto on Stem Cells (The byline still says "Terry Smith" but this is the link to mine.) The piece has a more narrative, touchy-feely quality than most of what I write (it is, after all, NPR). But it also contains large chunks of things I�ve said�and re-said�in past posts. I confess to be an irredeemable self-plagiarizer.

Though I have a face for radio, I certainly don�t have the voice for it. I do have to say that the producer, Ellen Silva, did a rather admirable salvage job on the mess I gave her. Say what you will about NPR (and I�ve said much before), the people that work there are incredibly patient, friendly, and professional. I was very impressed.

Let me know what you think about my audio essay, Mr. Smith�s counter, the President�s veto, or NPR.

This week the Senate is expected to approve legislation already passed by the House that will expand federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. If it passes, President Bush will veto the legislation, a move that should be praised by pro-lifers, fiscal conservatives, and anyone who values science and ethics.

If corporations asked the government to fund research into hydrogen-fueled cars by over-hyping their potential while denigrating the alternatives (i.e., electric cars), the watchdogs in the media would be writing Pulitzer-winning exposes. Yet embryonic stem cell research, which currently consists of bad science and even worse ethics, is given a pass. The hype and outright dishonesty surrounding the support of this research instead of adult stem cell research is scandalous -- and has been abetted by the mainstream media. (Former Science Editor Tim Radford of the UK's The Guardian even admitted at a recent conference that he and his fellow science journalists hype stem cell research to sell more newspapers.)

Since they can't even cover the obvious story-behind-the-story, the media are even less likely to report on the Congressional hypocrisy of creating a law to circumvent one that they themselves have passed. Yet that is what the current legislation intends to do.

In 1996, former Arkansas congressman Jay Dickey attached an amendment to the Health and Human Services Appropriations Bill that prohibits the use of federal funds for research that destroys or seriously endangers human embryos. The Dickey Amendment, which has been reimplemented every year since �96, reads:

None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for�
(1) the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes; or
(2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater than that allowed for research on fetuses in utero under 45 CFR 46.208(a)(2) and Section 498(b) of the Public Health Service Act [1](42 U.S.C. 289g(b)) (Title 42, Section 289g(b), United States Code). For purposes of this section, the term "human embryo or embryos" includes any organism, not protected as a human subject under 45 CFR 46 (the Human Subject Protection regulations) . . . that is derived by fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means from one or more human gametes (sperm or egg) or human diploid cells (cells that have two sets of chromosomes, such as somatic cells).

While the law is rather straightforward, the Clinton Administration was able to find a way around it. They reasoned that if private funds were used to destroy the embryo then it would clear the way for government funding. They would allow the private sector do the dirty work and then slip them funding for their efforts. Although this violates the clear intent and spirit of the law, it was nevertheless ruled to be a �legally valid interpretation.�

Men willingly believe what they wish. -- Julius Caesar

Stress causes ulcers.

Until a few decades ago, almost everyone � even medical experts � considered that simple claim to be true. Even after Drs. J. Robin Warren and Barry J. Marshall discovered that the main culprit was not stress but bacteria, few people were convinced enough to change their opinion.

Driven to frustration by the refusal of his colleagues to accept the conclusion, Dr. Marshall used his own body as a test case and drank a beakerful of Helicobacter pylori. The nasty bacterial brew did indeed cause an ulcer and two weeks later Marshall began taking the antibiotic tinidazole. His symptoms resolved within twenty-four hours.

Like most of us, Marshall�s fellow doctors held beliefs that were false. But because they did not themselves suffer from ulcers, it was a comparatively "low stakes" belief; the price they paid for believing it was relatively low. They only changed their minds after it became worth it to do so.

How do we decide whether we should change our minds about a belief? �Economics provides a simple, almost trivial sounding, answer,� says economist David Cox. �Believe something when the benefits of believing outweigh the costs, otherwise don't.�

[Note: This is the second part in an examination of the moral implications of using altered nuclear transfer as as a moral means of attaining embryonic stem cells for research. Part one can be found here.]

In order to determine the moral status of the biological artifact (BA) produced by altered nuclear transfer, we need to find an analogically similar entity with a matching "fact pattern". If the BA is found to resemble an entity with a recognized moral status (i.e, the human embryo) then it is should also be worthy of such recognition. But if the BA is more akin to non-living matter (i.e., malignant tissue growth), then we should find no moral objections to using it as a means of acquiring embryonic stem cells.

Because the BA is �embryo-like�, the natural comparison would be to the normal human embryo (the stage of development between fertilization and the end of the eighth week.). But unlike an embryo, the BA is not, at any stage of the process, a living being. Because of its altered genetic structure, it is incapable of becoming a human embryo.

As the PCB chairman Leon Kass explains, �what we're talking about here is not an organism and not a being in the same way as a cyst or a mole is not a being. It's not just that it will not develop further. It's not the developing thing. It's a thing - there is growth that takes place here but it is not an organism.�

In his magisterial work �Orthodoxy�, British journalist G.K. Chesterson describes a field bordering a cliff�s edge on which children �could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries.� The children could play safely, protected by a wall that prevented them from going to far and falling to the waves below. Once the protective fence was knocked down, though, their joyous play was lost. �They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased.�

At a recent meeting of the President�s Commission on Bioethics, Dr. William B. Hurlbut, a physician from Stanford University and member of the panel, invoked this metaphor as an example of how the �boundaries of our moral concern� protect the human organism:

Right now, and even more in the future, if we don't define these moral boundaries clearly, we're going to impede forward progress in science or many people are going to feel like moral purposes are being violated, moral goods are being violated. We need to do that hard work of defining these boundaries, but I think the meaningful boundary is the integrated human organism at all of its stages...When I looked at the scientific facts � and I didn't come in like some rubber stamp agent of this counsel to do what somebody told me to do � I looked as plainly as I could and I simply could not think � could not agree that the early embryo was, as some scientists are saying, an inchoate clump of cells. It's a living whole human being.

This recognition that human life begins at conception has naturally led Hurlbut to reject the present techniques for acquiring embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Harvesting ESCs requires that human embryos must be �disaggregated and destroyed� violating the inherent dignity of humanity and removing the meaningful boundary that protects the inviolability of the individual.

But Hulburt believes that there is a morally acceptable means for procuring ESCs, a technique known as �altered nuclear transfer.� According to the Stanford professor, scientists could inactivate genes necessary for the development of an embryo and then remove the resulting remaining cluster of cells, or teratomas, and restore the inactivated genes in order to produce usable stem cells.

�The issue of research involving stem cells derived from human embryos is increasingly the subject of a national debate and dinner table discussions,� said President Bush in a 2001 speech announcing his policy on embryonic stem cell research. Three years later the discussion and debate has not only increased but is becoming more confusing and contentious. Unfortunately, the complexity of the issue and the peculiar terminology used often prevents many citizens from developing a fully informed opinion on the matter. To help, in some small way, redress that problem, I�ve compiled a brief primer, a �least you need to know� guide�, that helps clarify and explain the questions most frequently asked about stem cell policy.

To those unfamiliar with the topic, this should provide brief non-technical answers to many of the important questions surrounding the policy. For those who are well versed in the controversy, I hope this will be a useful reference source to help you explain the issue to others.

John Kerry thinks you�re ignorant. He thinks that the average voter is so completely uninformed that he can make outlandish and ridiculous promises and many voters will simply nod in agreement. He is, of course, absolutely right. Most Americans are so completely uninterested in details that they will not even know when they are being duped.

Take, for example, Kerry�s recent promise to lift the partial ban put on embryonic stem cell research that President Bush initiated with an executive order three years ago:

This not the way we do things in America," Kerry said in the Democrats' weekly radio address. "Here in America we don't sacrifice science for ideology. We are a land of discovery, a place where innovators and optimists are free to dream and explore."

To those who pray each day for cures that are now beyond our reach," he said, "I want you to know that help is on the way."

The Democrats believe that with ESC research they have hit on lucrative �wedge issue� and have been pressing the theme since their recent convention. According to Slate.com writer Timothy Noah, the speakers at the convention used the term stem-cell 20 times � twice the number of times that they used the term �unemployment� and ten times as often as they mentioned the phrase "woman's right to choose." Hillary Clinton, in a typical Clintonesque manner, even went so far as to claim that �We need to lift the ban on stem cell research�� even though there is no such ban.

But the Democratic leadership knows that most voters aren�t likely to bother learning the facts. Even otherwise smart people like Noah and Glenn Reynolds fall for the canard that Kerry passes off on ESC research. But it wouldn�t take much effort for them to discover that Kerry is lying. After all, the executive branch doesn�t control the ban on funding � that responsibility belongs to Congress.