US President's Council on Bioethics takes no position in 400-page report - By Eugene Russo

[Murray Charters <mcharters@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

US President's Council on Bioethics takes no position in 400-page report - By 
Eugene Russo
January 16, 2004

WASHINGTON, DC?The President's Council on Bioethics released its first report 
on stem cell research at a meeting here
yesterday (January 15). But unlike one of its noteworthy predecessors, the new 
report, Monitoring Stem Cell Research,
made no recommendations and took no particular ethical or policy position.

Instead, the 400-page-plus report, which includes four chapters and several 
appendices, summarizes the most recent
developments in stem cell science, outlines the ethical issues surrounding stem 
cells?in particular embryonic stem
cells?and provides an overview of the current federal policy.

Responding to a query by one puzzled audience member, Council Chair Leon R. 
Kass said that the council declined to make
specific recommendations because the stem cell research field is young, and the 
president's policy and its
implementation are even younger. In August 2001, President Bush announced that 
under his policy, only the approximately
60-plus stem cell lines that already existed would be eligible for funding.

?It'd be premature to jump in and second guess current arrangements before we 
give them time to work,? Kass said. He
said that the council is working on a report focusing on biotechnology and 
public policy that will address issues
related to the ethics of stem cell research. He also said that an additional, 
future stem cell report may include
recommendations: ?We might revisit down the road how to proceed.?

?This [report] is a more important contribution than if we'd said 'ten to seven 
for this or against this,'? Kass told
The Scientist, alluding to the council's cloning report. In that report, ten 
members voted for both a ban on
reproductive cloning and a 4-year moratorium on therapeutic cloning; seven 
advocated a ban on reproductive cloning and
the allowing of therapeutic cloning with federal regulation.

Council member William B. Hurlbut, consulting professor in human biology at 
Stanford University, called the new
document an ?intermediate report on an emerging technology.? And council member 
Robert P. George, director of the James
Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, 
labeled the report ?descriptive not
prescriptive.? He told The Scientist that for now, making recommendations is 
difficult given the ?unbridgeable
divisions within the council? with regard to issues such as determining the 
moral status of the embryo?disagreements,
he suggested, that reflect divisions in the public at large.

Among the policy issues that the report clarifies, Kass told The Scientist, is 
the misconception that there's actually
a ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research rather than simply a 
limited number of available embryonic
stem cell lines. He said the report also clarifies the distinction between 
?available? and ?eligible? embryonic stem
cell lines. Currently, there are 78 ?eligible? stem cell lines?i.e., those 
cultured prior to the president's August
2001 announcement; the number rose since his 60-something estimate?and 15 
?available? lines?i.e., those that are not
just eligible but also adequately characterized, stable, cultured populations 
suitable for distribution to researchers.

?Let's be honest though,? countered Lawrence S.B. Goldstein, a professor of 
cellular and molecular medicine at
University of California. ?That's splitting hairs. The president with great 
fanfare tried to make the point that there
were a great number of lines available, eligible, whatever. The fact is that 
that number's really quite small. It will
support limited research.?

Regardless of how many stem cell lines are available, the real limiting factor 
for the research, Kass said?reiterating
a point made by National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Elias Zerhouni at 
one of the council's past meetings?is
?trained human capital:? the number of qualified practitioners that apply to 
the NIH for embryonic stem cell research
grants.

But Goldstein, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, told The 
Scientist that human capital and stem cell
lines are both concerns. ?They're related issues,? he said. ?If, in the 
community of scientists, there is the
perception of limited availability of reagents and funding, and there's concern 
about whether there will be long-term
prospects of this field, folks get nervous about getting into it.?

Goldstein, who is chair of the Public Policy Committee at the American Society 
for Cell Biology, also criticized the
science section of the report. ?The administration has wasted its money by 
having a duplicate scientific review,? he
said, suggesting that NIH and the National Academy of Sciences would have been 
better qualified to assemble such a
synthesis.

Links for this article:

The President's Council on Bioethics


Monitoring Stem Cell Research, Washington, DC: The President's Council on 
Bioethics, January 2004.


Human Cloning and Human Dignity: An Ethical Inquiry, Washington, DC: The 
President's Council on Bioethics, July 2002.


Leon R. Kass


S. Gottlieb, ?Compromise by Bush reinforces stem cell research ambiguity,? The 
Scientist, August 13, 2001.


E. Russo, ?US council: no cloning,? The Scientist, July 12, 2002.


William B. Hurlbut


Robert P. George


Lawrence S.B. Goldstein


American Society for Cell Biology Public Policy Committee


SOURCE: The Scientist / BioMed Central


* * *

----------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:listserv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn