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Frequently Asked Questions
David Perrin, National President, Australian
Family Association, Tel. (03) 93265757
The Issue: In June 2002 the Federal
government plans to introduce legislation to ban human cloning, but
to allow scientists access to spare IVF embryos for the harvesting
of embryo stem cells for medical research.
1. What are stem cells?
Stem cells are unprogrammed,
unspecialised, master cells that can grow and change to make
about 250 types of specialised cells, like heart cells, kidney
cells, nerve cells, blood cells, skin cells, etc. There are two
types of stem cells:
- Embryo stem cells, found inside human embryos, are the
master cells that grow into new tissues and organs at later
stages of development. Some scientists want to experiment on
embryonic stem cells, that are obtained by pulling apart the early
embryo, destroying it in the process. This is highly UNETHICAL as
it destroys a human life. While some scientists claim that embryo
stem cells will provide cures for various diseases, these cells are
medically dangerous. They can cause life-threatening tumors (see
below).
- Adult stem cells occur naturally in the developing baby,
children and adults. They are found particularly in umbilical cord
blood, as well as in bone marrow, the brain etc. They are proving
to be medically safe, very successfully producing new tissues for
treating various diseases (see below). Obtaining these repair
master cells does not involve destroying human life. Their
use is ETHICAL. Umbilical cords are now being collected and stored
by the bone marrow bank associated with the Royal Children's
Hospital, Melbourne.
2. If spare IVF embryos are going to die
anyway, why not experiment on them for the good of
humankind?
We do not allow doctors and scientists to
experiment on dying human patients, and neither should we allow
experiments on embryonic human beings on life support.
Under the Nuremberg Code of 1947 on
"Permissible Medical Experiments":
- "The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely
essential;
- "The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all
unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury;
- "No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori
reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur;
except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental
physicians also serve as subjects."
Indeed, a primary responsibility of government
is to protect the weakest and most vulnerable, especially
children.
The natural outcome for an embryo not in a womb
is for it to die, just as the natural outcome for a person in the
terminal stage of cancer or major heart disease is to die. Nature
should be allowed to take its course, without scientists doing
destructive experiments either on embryos or dying patients.
3. But is the embryo a person? Is it a human
life? Don't a sperm and ovum have life also?
When a woman miscarries a pregnancy, the
reaction of herself, her family and friends is to mourn the loss of
a life. Many churches now hold annual ceremonies for women who have
lost a pregnancy. A woman does not mourn the loss of hair at the
hairdressers, or blood from a cut, or an egg at ovulation. All
these have life, but are not of themselves a human life. Further,
indications are that most women in the IVF program will not allow
their embryos to be used for medical experimentation.
Scientifically, for a "biological life" to exist
(plant, animal or human) it must fulfill four criteria: (1)
Metabolism; (2) Growth; (3) Reaction to stimuli; and (4)
Reproduction of the species. An embryo from the time of
fertilisation fulfills these criteria. Hair, blood, sperm and eggs
do not fulfill these criteria.
4. But we already accept 100,000 abortions a
year. So what is the ethical difference between aborting embryos
and experimenting on them?
To go from abortion to experimenting on live
embryos is to go further down the slippery moral and ethical
slope.
Where do we then draw the line? Scientists are
already saying that they want to go much further. They want to
create embryos only to destroy them in experiments. They want
Australia to allow cloning of embryos for experimentation, or else
we will fall behind other countries. Some want to clone human
embryos using animal eggs and human DNA! If we let the scientists
have their way, our society will go down the slippery ethical
slope.
Adult Stem Cells: Safe, Ethical, Effective
Adult stem cells come from a patient's own
tissue, or from compatible umbilical cord blood, and do not risk
rejection by the patient. Adult stem cells, particularly umbilical
cord blood stem cells, have produced many new regenerative medical
treatments to help the suffering. Consider the following cases:
(For more examples, check our News page at left.)
- A man in his mid-50s had been diagnosed with Parkinson's
disease at age 49. The disease grew progressively, leading to
tremors and rigidity in the patient's right arm. Traditional drug
therapy did not help. Stem cells were harvested from the patient's
brain using a routine brain biopsy procedure. They were cultured
and expanded to several million cells. About 20 percent of these
matured into dopamine-secreting neurons. In March 1999, the cells
were injected into the patient's brain. Three months after the
procedure, the man's motor skills had improved by 37 percent and
there was an increase in dopamine production of 55.6 percent. One
year after the procedure, the patient's overall Unified Parkinson's
Disease Rating Scale had improved by 83 percent - this at a
time when he was not taking any other Parkinson's medication!
- In Canada, younger multiple-sclerosis patients (MS) patients
have greatly benefited from treatments using their own adult stem
cells. (MS is an autoimmune disorder in which the patient's body
attacks the protective sheaths that surround bundles of nerves.)
Six months after the first patient was treated, she was found to
have no evidence of the disease. Three other patients have also
received successful adult-stem-cell grafts with no current evidence
of active disease. It's too early to tell if the Canadian patients
are in permanent remission.
- Israeli doctors inserted a paraplegic patient's own white blood
cells into her severed spinal cord, after which she regained
bladder control and the ability to wiggle her toes and move her
legs.
- British scientists found that adult stem cells in bone marrow
can turn into liver tissue, which can be used in new treatments for
liver damage.
- In the UK a three-year-old boy has been cured of a fatal
disease using stem cells from his sister's placenta.
- In February 2002, American scientists found that fat cells have
the potential to be reprogrammed to turn into bone or cartilage
cells.
- In November of 2001 it was reported that human adult bone
marrow stem cells can be grown in culture for extended periods of
time and still retain the ability to differentiate into multiple
cell types.
- In July 2001 German doctors reported that a patient's own
adult stem cells from bone marrow were used to regenerate tissue
damaged by a heart attack.
- Surgeons in Taiwan restored vision to patients with severe eye
damage using stem cells from the patients' own eyes.
- At Harvard University, mice with Type I diabetes were
completely cured of their disease. The experiment was so successful
that human trials are now planned.
- Diabetic mice treated with adult stem cells achieved full
insulin production and all lived. This is in contrast to an
experiment in which embryonic stem cells injected into diabetic
mice achieved a 3 percent insulin production rate and all the mice
died.
- In mice, stem cells from bone marrow have developed into brain
cells and heart cells.
Embryonic Stem Cells can grow like tumors
- Unsafe, Unethical, Unnecessary
Embryo stem cells have provided few, if any,
direct medical treatments. Embryo stem cells have two serious
difficulties in providing regenerative medical treatments: 1)
embryo stem cells do not come from the patient and may be rejected
by the patient's immune system, and 2) embryo stem cells are
"unstable" and can grow like tumors.
- In a report in January 2002 on the possibility that embryonic
stem cells could treat Parkinson's disease in rats, 20% of
rats injected with embryonic stem cells died from tumors formed in
their brains. (L.M. Bjorklund et al.; "Embryonic stem cells develop
into functional dopaminergic neurons after transplantation in a
Parkinson rat model," Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/99/4/2344
Jan 8, 2002).
- Tumors formed from Embryo stem cells appear to malfunction as
happens with some germ cells. Some of these cancerous growths can
be fatal. One type of malformed tissue forms into dermoids -
a solid, cystic ovarian mass that produces a mass of hair, teeth,
cartilage, bone, etc.
So why do scientists want to experiment on
embryo stem cells? Some pharmaceutical companies want to use them
for testing new drugs.
More information at
http://www.family.org.au/bioethics/cloning/
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