There is no other issue throughout American history, which has produced such controversy across opinion of the general public. Not slavery, prohibition, or abortion has aroused such a significant dispute regarding specific dilemma, than cloning with stem cell research did. Embryo research or “research cloning” debate united and simultaneously separated scientific convictions.While one group of scientists seems inhospitable to particular research goals, others scientific associations announce that they will "go offshore" if stem cell research is outlawed in the U.
S. The most bizarre example is from a prominent American researcher and infertility expert, Jamie Grifo, who at the 2003 annual meeting of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, announced an experiment he sponsored in China because the research could not legally or ethically be conducted in the United States. From the critical standpoint and in the light of problems contemporary society experiences with various diseases, stem cell research should be supported by government and commercial initiatives as a viable resolution for pressing health dilemma.Stem cell research could facilitate medicine in repairing the brain, replace muscle, heal wounds, or regenerate livers, kidneys, pancreas, eyes, and ears. Furthermore, it could help to reverse the effects of degenerative disorders such as osteoporosis, atherosclerosis, Parkinson disease, Alzheimer disease, and diabetes. In July 2004, Roman Reed, paralyzed in a football accident ten years ago, spoke at a hearing for Senator Deborah V Ortiz, helping to pass legislation making California a stem-cell-friendly state: “Take a stand with us…in favor of research for cure.
Take a stand so one day, everybody can” (Lancet, 219). According to Newsweek, in America 4. 5 million individuals suffer from Alzheimer disease, and this astonishing number is expected to spike to 16 million by 2050 (Kalb et al, 42). Although modern medicine tries to improve diagnosis and treatment with brain imaging, medications and even an experimental vaccine, all known therapies address symptoms only and are unable to stop the disease and cure patients.On the contrary, the stem cells in a 5-day-old embryo can develop into particular “specialized cells” which can help to “repair” damaged heart, brain, or kidney cells, which are now powerless to repair themselves.
At the same time, in the United States, thousands of embryos are discarded each year because In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) couples cannot use all of their embryos. A couple may create 300 embryos in an attempt give birth to one child.Miraculously, these embryos can give a hope for millions of people with incurable diseases that could at least in theory benefit if some of stem cell approaches were to come to fruition. However, now researchers harvest them from embryos that fertility clinics would otherwise discard (Komaroff & Daley, 54).
However, this supply is finite, so experts have to find new sources of stem cells. The successful creation of human embryonic stem cells in 1998 opened the door to an important new area of biomedical research.The combination of human embryonic stem cell (HESC) research with the technique of somatic cell nuclear transfer first described in a mammal in 1997 provided scientists with additional research options. In the short run, HESC research is likely to facilitate the understanding of normal and abnormal cell differentiation and human development, including a better understanding of disease. In the longer term, researchers hope to provide new approaches to therapy for diseases like juvenile onset diabetes or Parkinson's disease and for injuries to the brain or spinal cord.Research on embryonic stem cells, particularly in the area of animal embryonic stem cells, has been progressing rapidly in recent years.
The first evidence of the therapeutic value of cloned stem cells was published in a medical report three years ago. In 2002, researchers from the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, restored some immune function in immune-deficient mice by implanting genetically engineered cells generated by mouse embryos.The results were not extraordinary, but they provided primary evidence for the plausibility of such therapy. Subsequent reports provided additional sings for hope. In 2002, researchers from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, indicated that neurons derived from embryonic stem cells actually function in rat models of Parkinson disease, secreting dopamine and reversing Parkinson symptoms.
Furthermore, research conducted by the scientists at Columbia University in New York succeeded in turning cultured mouse embryonic stem cells into functioning motor neurons.The scientists induced the stem cells to differentiate first into spinal progenitor cells and then into motor neurons by mimicking the chemical signaling pathways used in vivo during neurogenesis. The work conducted by scientists could result in new ways to repair diseased or damaged components of the central nervous system, such as the spinal cord. In 2003, during the project funded by Geron biotechnology company, scientists made paralyzed rats to walk again after transplanting nerve cells derived from human embryonic stem cells.Encouraged by these astonished results, scientists have predicted that trials on people with recent spinal cord injuries could start in 3 years.
The majority of scientists believe that embryonic stem cells represent the most promising source of stem cells for modern medicine, because they are the most flexible stem cells, are less likely to be genetically altered or contaminated and can be produced in abundance. However, there is also the possibility that alternate sources of stem cells could replace the acute need for embryonic stem cells.In order to make these alternate sources therapeutically viable, scientists have to overcome some important challenges. For instance, adult stem cells, nonembryonic, are difficult to isolate, purify, and grow. However, if certain substantial progress would be made in the area of adult stem cells, it would calm down the moral and ethical controversy surrounding stem cells. Some scientific experiments with adult stem cells-found in bone marrow, umbilical cord blood, body fat, and certain organs-have revealed that these cells may be a plausible alternative to embryonic stem cells.
In 2002, scientists at University of Minnesota showed in their study that adult bone marrow cells can differentiate into a wide range of cell types, something that had previously been revealed only with embryonic stem cells (King, 52). In 2003, scientists at Oregon Health ; Science University inserted bone marrow stem cells into mice with liver disease, and the cells combined with liver cells through a method known as cell fusion, in which 2 or more cells combine to form one cell containing extra genetic material, which subsequently reversed the liver damage (King, 52).Simultaneously, individuals, governments, cultures, and religious traditions have considered it important to review their policies and moral judgments on human embryo research in the light of these new developments. That controversy of the situation is well illustrated by the February 2004 announcement of a South Korean team that they had derived an embryonic stem cell from a human embryo created by somatic cell nuclear transfer, the first in the world.The announcement almost immediately led the South Korean government to suspend further cloning research until national regulations had been decided upon. The lead researcher, veterinarian Woo Suk Hwang, initially threatened to exercise the regulatory arbitrage option, saying, "If Korea were to prohibit therapeutic cloning, we would go to other countries where it is permitted - Singapore, mainland China, maybe Great Britain.
But my hope is that the Korean government will give us the license to do this kind of research. If they don't, we will move" (Dreifus, D1).Two weeks later, however, Hwang suspended his work and was waiting for the government to determine if he could continue it, saying that he wanted ethical guidelines and that he and his team had agreed that they would not transfer the HESC technology overseas without the government's permission. Three months later, in May 2004, serious questions were raised about the ethics of the stem cell research experiment itself, including the sufficiency of IRB (Institutional Review Board) ethical review, and the quality of consent given by the women who donated their ova to the project.The Korean researchers have denied any wrong doing - but both they and leading scientists understand that if research cloning has any future anywhere in the world, the researchers will have to follow what are already generally accepted ethical guidelines. Unlike economic arbitrage, which depends for its success almost exclusively on the possibility of profit, ethical arbitrage, at least in HESC, may be much more complex.
The American Society of Reproductive Medicine believes research cloning should be outlawed.This is what makes HESC such an important bioethics issue on the international scene: it provides the world with an opportunity to come to agreement on a bioethical issue, and by adopting a treaty outlawing research cloning, to set a precedent that the world can build on to develop universal principles of bioethics, especially in the area of human experimentation. For those who are unsure of the human rights arguments, and this includes many scientists, agreement to ban HESC can nonetheless come from its inherent dangerousness to resulting children.Common and powerful argument is that stem cell research, assuming it could ever be safe, commodifies children. According to many ethical considerations, the research treats children as goods, made-to-order kids, which is dehumanizing to children.
Because research cloning commodifies children, it tends to undercut their human rights. The Europeans have a term called human dignity, and their position is simply that HESC is an affront to this human dignity.Americans are not that comfortable with the term of human dignity, although it is the basis of human rights and the basis for all the international covenants on human rights. And, historically, there would be an argument that humans have rights because they have dignity.
Nonetheless, articulating what human, dignity actually means remains a challenge. The core anti-argument is that by commodifying children people dehumanize them and treat them like pets; like interchangeable products we can manufacture to our specifications and theoretically reject if they do not meet with the specifications.As evident, there are several distinguishable approaches in regard to stem cell research, in particular political and scientific. Science News Online’s J. Travis states, “human embryonic stem cells could shine a light on such mysteries as how developing cells commit to becoming neurons or other types of cells” (Travis Par. 21).
Dr. Brigid Hogan who was the scientific co-chairwoman and principal author of a National Institutes of Health agreed to an interview with Nicholas Wade of the “New York Times on the Web”.In the interview, Wade gives an idea of the potential of embryo research when she speaks of Dr. Hogan’s research, “With a group of 11 people, including graduate and postdoctoral students, she is trying to reverse-engineer the mouse by analyzing the genetic program that guides its development from an egg” (Wade, “In the Ethics,” C3). With this information and research, scientists are able to take out and also put in certain genes (Wade, C3).
The medical profession, as well as future patients will benefit from this breakthrough.J. Travis writes, “If similar efforts prove successful with human embryonic stem cells, they could eliminate the use of bone marrow tissue or umbilical cord blood to treat blood disorders such as leukemia” (Travis Par. 16). Many possibilities have developed due to the new research. The potential good that may come of this new idea is grand.
In addition, the researching of embryo opportunities is far from over. There are many breakthroughs in store for science.As society gets used to the idea of stem cell research, more progress will be made. The scientific and medical opportunities stem cell research can bring to society are inevitable.
While throughout the world in laboratories, scientists develop new revolutionary options of embryo research, broadening its practical applications, the public and political debate on this issue goes on. Directions can change, and society indeed should discuss the ethical questions in order to expand consideration of the possible options.In regard to scientific and ethical viability of stem cell research, society should be aware that medicine does not conduct research on fully developed, living human beings that deliberately kills them even though such research is possible. The core idea of stem cell research is to resolve health problems of existing living beings, whose lives are at stake. Stem cell research does not contain any “science in the name of science” idea.
It has specific and noble goal, and the necessity of the research will become evident with the further progression of human diseases and health needs.
