The ScienceBlog-osphere has been abuzz lately with the current machinations the Bush administration's stem cell policy. As Nick Anthis, Matt Nisbet, and Ed Brayton have all mentioned, the controversy stems from Bush's threat to use, for the first time, a presidential veto to block a bill, passed by the House and expected to pass in the Senate, to expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Obviously, a veto could delay that process indefinitely.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted 238-194 last year to pass the legislation, co-sponsored by Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., and Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del. If the Senate approves the bill, it will go to the president's desk.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who backs the bill, has said he will try to bring it up for a Senate vote soon.
This is a bipartisan effort (rare in itself) that is united under two main ideas:
1. Stem cell therapy hold enormous promise, and plenty of proof of concept exists
2. America, which is increasingly becoming an economy of intellectual capital, faces stiff competition in stem cell research, and needs funding to maintain its edge
Bush waxes sincere about keeping America the world's leader in research, technology, engineering, and education yet this is an arena where America has already been overshadowed by the likes of China, Thailand, South Korea, and many countries in Europe. One of the main differences is that the governments of the aforementioned countries have been given the green light by their governments, by mandate of the people, to perform the research that is required to develop stem cell therapies. Scientists have the support of their governments. While it seems trivial, it makes all the difference in the world (funding, availability of cell lines, legitimacy, clinical applications, patenting, etc). America needs to change its policy, which is currently hostile to stem cell researchers, to follow what the American people have already mandated. As Nick at the Scientific Activist pointed out:
...polls show overwhelming public support for embryonic stem cell research, including one from May 2006 that found that 72% of Americans favor "medical research that uses stem cells from human embryos," and 70% believe the senate should bring H.R. 810 to a vote.
When a President ignores a mandate from the people, factual evidence from the scientific community, a desperate clinical need for this therapy for a host of debilitating disorders, and the fact that America is falling behind in a major global-intellectual race, he is doing great damage to this country in a variety of ways.
Some may say that his "cowboy politics" are endearing, but I say "I wish I could quit you."
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Okay, I'm just a lowly electrophysiologist, so me a molecular biology don't really get on that well; but why is it so important to do stem cell research on HUMAN embryos? The veto and other legislation allready in place isn't going to stop people doing work on rodent or primate embryos is it?
Sure, when the bench scientists can actually say "look, this macaque had Parkinsons, and we squirted it with stem cells, and its improvements are better than L-DOPA" then maybe we should start kicking up a fuss about human stem cells, but we're not there yet are we. (are we?).
Maybe I'm just being short sighted...
No, the veto wouldn't interfere with other sorts of stem cell work, which is quite useful for basic science but completly useless as a therapeutic agent. The need arises as ESC are the least differentiated sort, which means they can become anything (nerves, blood, bone, organs, etc). This is not the case for other kinds of stem cells which are extremely limited in the range of what sort of therapy they could be applied to. Also, adult stem cells are much less resillient than embryonic tissue, much harder to manipulate genetically, and more likely to be rejected after transplant, etc etc. And, as you point out, it is important to do the work in animal models. It has been, and has been successful in many areas (I have a post below this one on paralyzed rats walking again).
Don't worry, it's happening. Adult stem cells are better if you can use them, since they're compatible with the adult patient. But ESCs are gonna happen.
There're lots of European countries that ban human ESC research outright. The US doesn't do that. It even federally finances certain ESC lines--which is more than the pre-Bush government did in the 90s. (yeah, really! Bush actually expanded federal funding for ESCs, he just didn't expand it enough) But it'll happen.
They're getting a lot more variety out of adult stem cells now. More and more all the time, so you can't flat out say what's possible with ASCs yet.