Stem Cells Talking Points:

Dr. John Shea, M.D., F.R.C.P. (C)

Scientific:

• You are a member of the human race from the time of your conception (fertilization). This fact has been established scientifically since the mid eighteen fifties.
• The use of human stem cells from sources other than the embryo (somatic stem-cells or adult stem cells) has proved very successful for over twenty years and should be pursued.
• No disease has yet been alleviated or cured by the use of embryonic stem-cells.
• Embryonic stem cells can be a bit too flexible, differentiating into all kinds of tissue, some desirable and some not. When injected under the skin of certain mice, they grow into teratomas, tumours consisting of numerous tissue types, from gut to skin to teeth.
• Embryonic stem cells used in patients with Parkinson’s disease have produced tardive dyskinesia, uncontrollable movement of the limbs.
• Embryonic stem cells will be treated by the recipient’s body as foreign, and the likelihood of tissue rejection is highly probable.
• Somatic stem-cells derived from a patient are never rejected by that patient’s body.
• Common sources of somatic stem-cells are bone marrow, umbilical cord blood and placentas and umbilical cords are available.
• Umbilical cord blood is virtually free of infection by cytomegalo virus.
• There is only a one in four hundred chance of a perfect match from a non-relative bone marrow donor. Even with a suitable donor, there is an 80% risk of moderate to severe tissue rejection.
• Malignant disease successfully treated by marrow transplant or cord blood are acute lymphocytic leukemia, acute myologenous leukemia, adult chronic myologenous leukemia, juvenile chronic myologenous leukemia, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, multiple myeloma, neuroblastoma and Hodgkin’s disease.
• Non-malignant disease, successfully treated: aplastic anemia, thalassemia, Fanconi’s anemia, sickle-cell anemia etc.
• Recent somatic stem-cell research successes: cow skin cells transformed into beating heart cells in a cow (PPL Therapeutics, Scotland 2001), human fat cells transformed into cartilage, muscle and bone (UCLA and University of Pittsburgh), mouse heart damage repaired by bone marrow cells (Nature Magazine, New York Medical College, April 2001). Successful stem-cell harvesting from bone, cartilage, brain and heart, (National Post, April 16, 2001).
• A patient with host-tissue rejection will often have to be put on anti-rejection drug treatment for the rest of his/her life.
• A stem cell once separated from the embryo, which occurs spontaneously in identical twinning, can follow one of three courses:
  1. It may die
  2. It may revert to becoming another embryo
  3. It may be cloned.
• If the stem-cell reverts to becoming another embryo, it in turn, will be killed by stem-cell research.
• British researcher, Dr. Helen Hodges, says adult stem cells may prove safer and more flexible than fetal cells. Some of her work shows adult stem cells traveling to the area needing repair, whereas fetal stem cells remain where they are injected. And because patients can “donate” their own adult stem cells for treatment, their immune systems won’t reject them.
• In 1999, the journal Science reported that adult stem cells were “much more accessible and can develop into a surprisingly broad repertoire of cell types.” In the publication, Professor Prentice says that “in the last two years, we’ve gone from thinking that we had very few stem cells in our bodies and recognizing that many (perhaps most) organs maintain a reservoir of these cells”.
• Professor Prentice goes on to say that adult stem cells have shown themselves to be scientifically more successful than embryonic stem cells both because of the variety of different tissues they can become and because they are more readily available.
• Donald P. O’Mathuna, a professor of bioethics and chemistry at Mount Carmel College of Nursing in Columbus, Ohio, states that drugs are being developed to activate adult somatic stem cells.

Political:

• The idea that an embryo does not come into existence until 14 days after conception (at the time of implantation) is a fiction — pretending to be a scientific fact.
• The ‘fourteenth day’ fiction has been promulgated by obstetricians and pharmaceutical companies since the late 1970’s in an effort to promote the IUD (intra-uterine device) as a contraceptive and not, as it truly is, an abortifacient.
• The morning-after pill and the use of embryonic stem-cells are being promoted by means of the same fiction.
• Harry Blackmun (Roe Vs. Wade): “…beginning of life could not be determined.” He ignored biological science. The beginning of life can only be determined by biology, not by philosophy, theology or religion.
• 1997, 73 ‘scientists’ solicited the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support stem-cell research – none of which were human embryologists.
• December 1998, Harold Varmus, director of NIH made this statement: “…human Totipotent stem cells are not embryos.” He omitted:
  1. stem cells are obtained by death of embryo,
  2. that these cells sometimes revert back to a zygote.
• His conclusions were derived from the advice of two organizations:
  • National Bioethics Advisory Commission (no human embryologists), and
  • The Human Embryo Research Panel, appointed by him (again, no embryologists on the panel).

Ethical:

• Science has nothing to say about the value of human life.
• The human being from the moment of conception has inherent human rights which includes the right not to be unjustly killed or deliberately harmed.
• Basic moral principles should not be re-defined by public debate, vote or consensus.
• The proposed legislation by Health Minister Allan Rock, on the one hand, criticized and condemns certain morally unacceptable procedures, and on the other hand, allows them to take place, if permitted by the government.
• The use of embryonic stem-cells for research kills the embryo.
• Somatic stem-cell research involves very few moral problems.
• Concerned Women for America points out that embryonic stem-cell research, which destroys a human being, violates The Nuremberg Code, an ethical framework used to govern human research. The Nuremberg Code was formed in the wake of the atrocities committed in the name of science in Nazi Germany. The primary principle in the Nuremberg Code states, “Voluntary consent is absolutely essential.” The Code also prohibits experimentation that causes injury, disability or a person’s death. Both of these principles are violated in embryonic stem cell research.
• We must never allow human beings at the embryonic stage, or at any other stage to be used for experimentation.
• If parents of an embryo gave their consent to it being used for research purposes, but were not informed that this embryo was a member of the human species (race), their consent would have been misinformed and therefore legally invalid