More stories on stem cell research in the mainstream media: this morning we have the BBC's Today programme running a 4-minute piece asking why Britain, a leader in stem cell research, is falling behind in technological transfer or medical application of stem cells – in spite – as the report said of the fact that President Bush cut off funding for stem cell research.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7747000/7747348.stm
This leaves out a crucial detail in that Bush cut off funding for embryonic stem cell research; the report as a whole failed to make a distinction between the two different types of stem cell research, even though adult stem cells are act differently on cell growth and maintenance compared to embryonic stem cells; a patient's own stem cells do not produce immune reactions when transferred to recipients, nor do they cause tumours. These are key reasons why adult (somatic) stem cells have been shown to have practical medical applications when embryonic stem cells do not.
The research project highlighted is the London Project to cure blindness, represented on the programme by Professor Pete Coffey of UCL, who is working with embryonic stem cells to find a cure for AMD (Age-related Macular Degeneration). Therapeutic applications for this research have so far not materialized, the reason being, he says, because not enough money has been given; in fact all the money comes from US philanthropists, not the UK government. What listener would against a project to cure blindness? Not I, not anyone; only one of those pro-life religious bigots, you might think. Let us investigate the UCL web page on this project is http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0706/07051602. The key paragraph on this page is:
“The radical approach of the London Project to cure AMD will involve producing a cell replacement therapy from human embryonic stem cells. Trials using patients’ own [i.e., adult] cells have proved that this approach can work.”
Why do the work, if adult (own) stem cells have already succeeded? It is a mystery, but I suspect that the joy of pure research and the scientific tour-de-force is a large part of the motivation. Ethical issues be damned. However, perhaps the £4m donation has dried up, through lack of results, and they need government funding? That the project is looking for funding can be seen by its profile on the Justgiving charity donation website, http://www.justgiving.com/londonprojectucl, where the synopsis for “London Project to Cure Blindness at UCL, Charity Registration No X6243” is:
“Supporting world class researchers in breakthrough research to develop surgical applications to cure blindness such as Age-Related macular Degeneration which affects 25% of people over 60 (12 million in Europe, 14 million in USA and countless others worldwide)”
No mention of embryos here, but there is a link to donate. Given the moral controversy over embryonic stem cell research and increasing doubts over its usefulness, shouldn’t they have mentioned what is being researched.
However, the questions the BBC Today programme interviewer, Stephanie Montague did not ask was whether embryonic stem cell research is not a discredited area of work and whether it was wasting public money to fund it; a further question would be whether work funding embryonic stem cell research was taking money away from useful research on stem cells.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7747000/7747348.stm
This leaves out a crucial detail in that Bush cut off funding for embryonic stem cell research; the report as a whole failed to make a distinction between the two different types of stem cell research, even though adult stem cells are act differently on cell growth and maintenance compared to embryonic stem cells; a patient's own stem cells do not produce immune reactions when transferred to recipients, nor do they cause tumours. These are key reasons why adult (somatic) stem cells have been shown to have practical medical applications when embryonic stem cells do not.
The research project highlighted is the London Project to cure blindness, represented on the programme by Professor Pete Coffey of UCL, who is working with embryonic stem cells to find a cure for AMD (Age-related Macular Degeneration). Therapeutic applications for this research have so far not materialized, the reason being, he says, because not enough money has been given; in fact all the money comes from US philanthropists, not the UK government. What listener would against a project to cure blindness? Not I, not anyone; only one of those pro-life religious bigots, you might think. Let us investigate the UCL web page on this project is http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0706/07051602. The key paragraph on this page is:
“The radical approach of the London Project to cure AMD will involve producing a cell replacement therapy from human embryonic stem cells. Trials using patients’ own [i.e., adult] cells have proved that this approach can work.”
Why do the work, if adult (own) stem cells have already succeeded? It is a mystery, but I suspect that the joy of pure research and the scientific tour-de-force is a large part of the motivation. Ethical issues be damned. However, perhaps the £4m donation has dried up, through lack of results, and they need government funding? That the project is looking for funding can be seen by its profile on the Justgiving charity donation website, http://www.justgiving.com/londonprojectucl, where the synopsis for “London Project to Cure Blindness at UCL, Charity Registration No X6243” is:
“Supporting world class researchers in breakthrough research to develop surgical applications to cure blindness such as Age-Related macular Degeneration which affects 25% of people over 60 (12 million in Europe, 14 million in USA and countless others worldwide)”
No mention of embryos here, but there is a link to donate. Given the moral controversy over embryonic stem cell research and increasing doubts over its usefulness, shouldn’t they have mentioned what is being researched.
However, the questions the BBC Today programme interviewer, Stephanie Montague did not ask was whether embryonic stem cell research is not a discredited area of work and whether it was wasting public money to fund it; a further question would be whether work funding embryonic stem cell research was taking money away from useful research on stem cells.
This looks like a classic example of lazy, uninformed journalism, the kind to which the so-called nation's broadcaster is as much subject as the tabloid press, if not more. The authority of the BBC and its virtual monopoly over the broadcast media, in news especially, means it has a great power to shed light on or obscure an issue, this being an example. I suspect, however, that there is an ideological agenda here in that the liberal intelligentsia support embryonic stem research as part of a gesture of support for the abortion culture and to be seen publicly to make a stand against the supposedly anti-science views of the pro-life lobby. Abortion is so entrenched in our society, a position that depends on the denial that the embryo is human life, although the moment of conception is the only contender, biologically speaking, for the beginning of human life. What better way of emphasising this than finding utilitarian reasons to treat the embryo as less than human? The irony is that the pro-embryo research people are indulging in bad science, assertions without evidence and the promotion of ideologically-motivated and non evidence-based causes such embryo research.
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