The University of Nebraska Medical Center continues to offend the moral sensibilities of many Nebraskans with its insistence on conducting, and now expanding, immoral and divisive research involving human embryonic stem cells (ESCR).
The Med Center has been conducting ESCR for several years, but after President Obama expanded federal funding for the research, Med Center officials quickly pounced on the opportunity to expand ESCR at UNMC.
A few weeks ago, UNMC officials announced the creation of a new program called the Nebraska Regenerative Medicine Project dedicated to research using human embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells and other forms of regenerative medicine. Dr. Harold Maurer, UNMC’s Chancellor, defended the move by saying "This is the cutting edge, and UNMC wants to be part of that."
It may be true that "stem cell" research is on the cutting edge of medical research, but even leading ESCR researchers are indicating that the cutting edge of stem cell research is happening with non-embryonic stem cells.
For example, although they publicly defend the merits of ESCR, leading embryonic stem cell scientists like James Thompson and Ian Wilmut (who cloned Dolly the sheep) have shifted their own research enterprises to focus on non-embryonic stem cell research.
Equally compelling evidence can be found with recent funding decisions by California’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). The CIRM was established in 2004 when California voters decided to appropriate $3 billion specifically to fund embryonic stem cell and cloning research.
Last year, the CIRM funded 14 "Disease Research Team" grants with only 4 of the 14 grants using embryonic stem cells, and zero grants involving cloned embryos. This year, CIRM approved funding for 19 grants worth $67 million. According to CIRM, this year’s funding is "its second round of awards designed to move good ideas out of the lab and into the clinic." Only five of the 19 funded grants involve embryonic stem cells. Again, zero grants involving cloned embryos.
These funding decisions by CIRM are an acknowledgment that non-embryonic stem cells are likely to provide the best opportunity for helping patients. In fact, the Do No Harm Coalition for Research Ethics has provided evidence from peer-reviewed journals of adult stem cells that have provided some level of success in treating more than 70 diseases in human patients.
And the success of adult stem cells in treating human patients grows almost daily. To see a list of diseases that have benefited from adult stem cell treatments, go online to www.stemcellresearch.org or www.stemcellresearchfacts.org.
Conversely, not a single human patient has benefited from treatments using embryonic stem cells. In fact, until this year, there has never been a human trial involving embryonic stem cells. And even some ESCR advocates are concerned that it is way too soon to safely introduce embryonic stem cells (which have caused tumors in animals) into human patients.
The bottom line is that there is ample and compelling evidence that research enterprises, like UNMC’s, can be "on the cutting edge" of stem cell research without embracing human embryonic stem cell research. This evidence makes UNMC’s expansion of ESCR all the more offensive and inexcusable.
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