Behind the Stem Cell Breakthrough

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/01/opinion/01sat1.html

Editorial
Behind the Stem Cell Breakthrough

Published: December 1, 2007
The stunning announcement by Japanese and American research teams that they have obtained highly promising stem cells without having to destroy an embryo could help free scientists from shackles that have long hobbled their efforts. It is especially important for a critical field of research that is far behind where it could have been if the Bush administration and Congressional conservatives had not thrown up so many roadblocks.

Many of those same people are now lavishing praise on President Bush for supposedly spurring this advance through his adamant opposition to destroying embryos. That claim is so far-fetched that it needs closer scrutiny.

To understand the administration’s deleterious impact on this promising research, one has to recall the political landscape of the late 1990s. Congress had already barred federal support for research in which human embryos are created or destroyed, making it necessary for scientists to seek private funds to get the most important stem cell research started.

In 1998, two teams of American scientists, using corporate funds, announced that they had derived stem cells from human embryos for the first time. Scientists prize such cells because they have the potential to turn into any of the body’s 220 cell types, raising the possibility that they could ultimately be used to regenerate damaged tissues and cure a wide range of degenerative diseases. Religious conservatives deplore the research because tiny, days-old embryos are destroyed.

The Clinton administration, stepping gingerly, started a process to finance work on embryonic stem cells, provided the stem cells were first derived with private money from surplus embryos at fertility clinics. The first grant applications were about to be reviewed when President Bush entered the White House and ordered a halt.

His new policy, portrayed as a statesmanlike compromise, permitted federal support for research using only a small number of stem cell lines that already existed, crimping the field from the start. Worse yet, scientists had to ensure that no federal money ever came near their privately supported embryonic stem cell research. No sharing laboratories or equipment that were bought, even in small part, with federal funds. No collaborating with federally supported scientists. It was a mess that persuaded many scientists to avoid the field altogether.

Now researchers have learned to reprogram human skin cells to behave in many respects like embryonic stem cells. If this pans out, it could sidestep the controversies, open the way for a vast infusion of federal funding and avoid the vexing problem of how to obtain the large quantity of human eggs needed for embryonic stem cell work. It could attract far more scientists because the new technique is easier to master, and there would be no bureaucratic obstacles or denunciations.

The researchers still say that it would be premature to abandon embryonic stem cell research, which remains the gold standard for measuring how valuable the new cells will be. The new techniques also use factors that can cause cancer, making them unsuitable in current form for therapy.

Any claim that Mr. Bush’s moral stance drove scientists to this discovery must be greeted with particular skepticism. The primary discoverer of the new techniques is a Japanese scientist who was not subject to the president’s restrictions. The senior scientist on the American team told reporters that the political controversy and Bush restrictions set the research effort back about four to five years.

With so much time to make up, we hope the next president will quickly jettison all restrictions on stem cell research. This is too important for any more delays.