US Finalizes Stem Cell Research Guidelines

An anonymous reader writes with an excerpt from Cosmos Magazine, to wit: "The US government unveiled final rules for embryonic stem cell research, laying out ground rules for 'ethically responsible, scientifically worthy' studies eligible for federal funds. The new rules, which go into effect today, follow President Barack Obama's March 9 executive order lifting a ban on embryonic stem cell research, an order that went into effect under his predecessor, George W. Bush. ... The US National Institutes of Health's (NIH) guidelines are slightly less restrictive than those outlined in a draft document released in April in that they allow the use of existing stem cell lines, in addition to new ones derived from IVF procedures. ... The NIH received some 49,000 comments from patient advocacy groups, scientists, medical groups, and other interested parties before issuing the guidelines."

Comments

Bad Summary

[CorporateSuit]

There was no ban on embryonic stem cell research. There was a ban on the federal government using tax dollars to fund embryonic stem cell research.

Let's be accurate here.

[caladine]

The new rules, which go into effect today, follow President Barack Obama's March 9 executive order lifting a ban on embryonic stem cell research, an order that went into effect under his predecessor, George W. Bush. ...

In the interest of accuracy, I wish people would stop calling it a "ban on embryonic stem cell research".

While calling it a all out "ban on embryonic stem cell research" makes a great sound bite, it's horribly inaccurate. It was only a ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research for stem cell lines created after August 9, 2001. If you were willing to fund it yourself, you were free to do so. Bush's executive order didn't change that part at all which the misleading sound bite alludes to.

Now, with that interjected, back our regularly scheduled flame wars on this topic.

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[QuantumG]

Understand this, any institution that took federal funding for any research was banned from doing stem cell research.. so basically what you're saying is that they should have started a completely new lab, separated themselves from the rest of their scientific community, to do underfunded research. Well obviously they're just whiners.

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[interkin3tic]

Corporations set up separate legal entities all the time to mitigate liability.

If we were talking about a paper issue that would be great, assuming researchers could afford the cadre of lawyers that corporations use (which they can't). But we're actually talking about physical labs, not imaginary companies.

What exactly was stopping them from using the existing stem cell lines? I don't believe I've ever received a satisfactory answer for this other then "They just couldn't!"

Some labs may have been heavily invested in a line of stem cells created after that date. For example, switching to another cell line is incredibly wastefull if you've already spent millions on microarray analysis of a new stem cell line that happened to have been made after the magic date.

Some necessary stem cell lines have not yet been created. If you want to study an inherited disease, say one that causes brains to be malformed, you might want to study how neurons differentiate. Generating a stem cell line from an embryo that would have that disorder would be more convinient, not to mention more humane, than having carriers of the disease continually reproduce and harvesting the fetuses after they've started growing brains.

There's no guarantee that the existing stem cell lines are good for all things that ESC could be used for.

And it's an artificial distinction that pointlessly limits research in a developing field. If you have an ethical problem with ESC, using existing lines is still problematic. If not, there's no reason for the ban.

Not an exhaustive list, and I think if you searched there are plenty of people who have better answered questions like yours.

Re:Existing lines

[interactive_civilian]

A few things:

A newborn is not "self-sustaining". Hell, I know a few 30-year olds that are not "self-sustaining". What about premature babies that require incubation? They are not "self-sustaining". Are they available for experimentation?

Also, embryos in a petri dish can survive outside the womb about as long as newborn.

I suspect that the GPP was saying "self-sustaining" as in "able to survive without being directly attached to the mother's life support". A newborn can obtain oxygen and get rid of carbon dioxide and other metabolic waste without having to be connected via an umbilical to the mother. One's take on that kind of alters the scape of your other questions. A premature birth can survive, grow, and develop without being directly attached to the mother's life-support. An embryo in a petri dish cannot, as we do not have the technology or knowledge to artificially replicate a womb.

significant nervous system complexity (somewhere between 9 to 20 weeks).

9 to 20 weeks is a big range. I'm guessing you are setting it so broad because you don't know.

Again I am assuming the GPP used such a big range for a number of reasons: different individuals will develop at different rates, different people will disagree what constitutes "significant nervous system complexity", etc. Therefore your example using an exact time measurement is inapplicable.

What happens in 20 years if we find out that embryos can feel pain without a nervous system? My point is that too many times, we've thought "things" couldn't feel pain or were labeled as not or less-than human with horrific results. We should have learned by now that man is not perfect enough to decide who deserves basic rights or what is human.

This is a nonsense question. To "feel pain" you need three things: 1.) a sensor to detect damage, 2.) a transmission system to send that information to 3.) a processor to interpret that data. In mammals, this requires a nervous system. It is part of our biology. No nervous system, no pain.

May I ask a question: are you against In Vitro Fertilization? In such situations, as has been mentioned numerous times, several eggs are fertilized, a select few most viable embryos are selected for implantation, while all others which may or may not be viable are destroyed. Is this murder in your eyes? I'm not trying to jump on your case, I'm just trying to gauge your consistency.