Embryonic Stem Cell Ban: Does It Matter?

Monday's injunction by a federal appeals court judge against taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research prompted reactions of glee and alarm of the kind always associated with this divisive topic -- though with those emotions amplified by the intensity of this election season.

Pro-life groups saw the preliminary stay against federal funding, issued Monday by U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, as a rare and welcome victory, and many conservatives hailed the ruling as a defeat for President Obama -- even though Lamberth's decision against Obama's 2009 guidelines allowing limited research on human embryos could invalidate even the policies George W. Bush implemented in 2001.

And for those who have invested so much hope in embryonic stem cells as bearing the promise of miraculous cures for terrible diseases and paralyzing injuries, the judge's ruling was an especially cruel turn of events.

"This is devastating, absolutely devastating," Amy Comstock Rick, immediate past president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, a group of patient organizations that has been lobbying for more federal funding, told The Washington Post.

"We were really looking forward to the next chapter when human embryonic stem cells could really be explored for their full potential. This really sets us back," Rick said. "Every day we lose is another day lost for patients waiting for cures."

While the legal wrangling will surely continue, with both sides unlikely to be completely satisfied with the final outcome, the bigger question is whether the battle is worth the cost.

New research has shown that using adult stem cells -- which are usually taken from bone marrow and blood rather than embryos -- are showing far more promise in treating diseases than embryonic stem cell research (known as ESCR).

"Adult stem cells are being studied in people who suffer from multiple sclerosis, heart attacks and diabetes," AP science writer Malcolm Ritter wrote in a deeply reported -- and little-noticed -- story earlier this month. "Some early results suggest stem cells can help some patients avoid leg amputation. Recently, researchers reported that they restored vision to patients whose eyes were damaged by chemicals."

Moreover, Ritter wrote, "transplants of adult stem cells have become a standard lifesaving therapy for perhaps hundreds of thousands of people with leukemia, lymphoma and other blood diseases" -- in other words, all the things embryonic cells were supposed to do, and which sparked such heated controversy a decade ago.

Actor Christopher Reeve, who died in 2004 as a result of paralysis after a horse-jumping accident a decade earlier, became the marquee face of the drive to use embryonic stem cells -- which requires destroying an embryo to extract the cells that could hypothetically be used to rebuild spinal cords and body organs from scratch. Actor Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, which many believe can be mitigated by stem cell therapy, picked up that banner. And even conservative leaders like Nancy Reagan, whose husband died after suffering from Alzheimer's disease, and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, have backed ESCR.

In 2004, California voters passed Proposition 71, which authorized $3 billion in state funding (which is not subject to the federal restrictions at stake in this week's ruling) for embryonic stem cell research. It is likely one of a number of taxpayer investments California voters may regret, but other states followed suit in efforts to get in early on what was expected to be a bonanza of ESCR-induced profits.

Yet it turns out that adult stem cell research, rather than ESCR, is "really one of the great success stories of stem cell biology that gives us all hope," Dr. David Scadden of Harvard told the AP. "If we can re-create that success in other tissues, what can we possibly imagine for other people?"

In April, the Vatican announced that it would donate $2.7 million to help fund research on adult stem cell therapies.

Not only could such research make good on some of the promise once reserved for stem cell therapies, but it could also circumvent the bitter and costly fight over the morality of using embryos, and which is the greater good -- protecting nascent life or extending the life of afflicted adults and children.

Another promsing process, the development of "induced pluripotent stem cells," are different from adult stem cells but also hold great hope for advancing treatments and assuaging moral concerns.

"As a substitute for embryonic stem cells, [induced pluripotent stem cells] neatly sidestep ethical dilemmas that have threatened to hold back this important area of research," W. Malcolm Byrnes, an associate professor at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, wrote in the Aug. 16 edition of America, a Jesuit weekly.

"Because of these ethical advantages, not only scientists but also leaders of the Catholic Church have embraced the possibilities they offer. Thus, both sides of a historically contentious stem cell debate appear to be on board with the new pluripotent stem cell technology."

One hurdle is that, as Byrnes writes, "Induced pluripotent stem cells still have to be tested and validated using embryonic stem cells, at least in these early stages of their experimental development. During this critical juncture, constructive dialogue between the two sides of the debate is vital to ensure a quick and ethical transition to a new era in which embryonic stem cells are no longer needed for research."

Still, so much time, money and ego has been invested in ESCR and the political battles over embryo research that it seems unlikely the hot-button issue will cool down anytime soon.

But it seems like a fight an already embattled White House doesn't need to pick.