Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

Editor’s note.  Please send me your thoughts at daveandrusko@hotmail.com.

I trust you had a great Thanksgiving. While there is never any shortage of mountains to climb, it is also true that the work of Drs. James Thomson and Shinya Yamanaka, published just before Thanksgiving, buoyed the hopes and uplifted the spirits of pro-lifers everywhere.

As you know, two teams of researchers, one at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the other at Kyoto University, were able to successfully coax ordinary skin cells to revert back to being embryonic stem cells. As the Associated Press (AP) described the work, it “builds on a landmark paper Yamanaka published last August. He found that by slipping four genes into mouse skin cells called fibroblasts, he could make the altered cells behave much like embryonic stem cells in lab tests.”
 

These cells (called iPS cells) “proved virtually identical to stem cells in a variety of lab tests,” according to the AP.

By “turning back the clock” on the skin cells, it means there is no longer an excuse to scavenge so-called “spare embryos” or cloned embryos for their stem cells, thus offering the possibility of a cease fire in the stem cell wars.

Writing on the Firstthings.com blog, Joseph Bottum shrewdly observed, “The people who turn out actually to have believed in the power of science are the pro-lifers—the ones who said that a moral roadblock is not, in point of fact, an outrageous hindrance, for scientists will always find another, less-objectionable way to achieve their goals.”
 

Two responses to were utterly predictable. Many of the usual suspects said that this “leap forward” (as the AP put it) did nothing to alter the need to continue funding controversy-laden embryonic stem cells research (ESCR). The other comeback was that no credit—none--should be extended to President Bush whose televised press conference in 2001 represented one of the most brilliant strokes of statesmanship it’s ever been my pleasure to witness.

Well, how about the alleged need for ESCR? As people who follow the science on a daily basis remind me, it’s essential to recall that Dr. Yamanaka never used human ova or embryos. He understood that there had to be another way to reprogram human cells.

Yamanaka did a great deal of research using mice embryos. When he found that there were genes that sent mature skin cells (developmentally) back in time, Yamanaka tried the technique out on human skin cells.

To everyone’s surprise, after a minimum of trials, it worked, as the technique did for Dr. Thomson, who used a different combination of genes. To repeat Yamanaka’s work never relied on human ova for embryonic stem cells.

But is praise due President Bush? You betcha. Way back in 2001, he held the line against ferocious pressure: no federal money to pay for new embryonic stem cell lines. He took a lot of heat for that--only Luddites and religious fanatics could be against ESCR—but he never retreated.

By his steadfastness, the President both affirmed that there had to be a better way and provided time to find it. There have proved to be many.

Which reminds us that in our exuberance over the new breakthrough in reprogramming skin cells, we should never forget that there are ongoing therapies that are already using a host of equally unobjectionable alternative sources, such as stem cells found in cord blood and in amniotic fluid, to name just two.

But Mr. Bush’s profile in courage accomplished something else that has been almost completely overlooked. By encouraging scientists to look elsewhere, the President was providing their consciences time to work.

In a fascinating interview with the New York Times’ Gina Kolata, Dr. Thomson spoke of his own qualms about scavenging stem cells from human embryos. “If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough,” he told Kolata. “I thought long and hard about whether I would do it.”

Unfortunately, he went for advice to two ethicists who were highly unlikely to flash a warning yellow sign, let alone a red stop sign. But what counts is that Thomson, no doubt like many others, was uneasy about his forays into uncharted ethical territory and ready to jump when given the chance.

Now he is telling Kolata that before you know it, “the stem cell wars” will be a “distant memory.” Indeed, “A decade from now, this will be just a funny historical footnote,” Dr. Thomson said.

We talk about this immensely encouraging news in the current issue of National Right to Life News. If you are not a subscriber to the “pro-life newspaper of record,” call us immediately at 202-626-8828.

Please send your comments to Dave Andrusko at daveandrusko@hotmail.com.