|
'08 Walk for Life * PICTURES FROM 2006 MARCH FOR LIFE * Pregnancy Centers          About Us Volunteer Donate Home |
Embryo-stem-cell research promises to produce medical miracles in a
host of areas. But other research avenues - including the use of cells
that don't come from human embryos - are also promising, perhaps more
so. Unfortunately, journalists and editors haven't reported this news
fully or fairly.
The Statistical Assessment Service (STATS), a non-partisan research
organization devoted to the accurate use of scientific research in
public-policy debates, has documented how journalists have fallen down
on the job on this issue.
In its recent report "Stemming the News Flow?" STATS decried a
"striking" selectivity in coverage: The media often play up
embryonic-stem-cell breakthroughs while giving short shrift to
equivalent (or even more promising) adult-stem-cell successes.
In separate experiments, scientists researched the ability of
embryonic and adult mouse pancreatic stem cells to regenerate the
body's ability to make insulin. Both types of cells boosted insulin
production in diabetic mice. The embryonic success made a big splash
with prominent coverage in all major media outlets. Yet the same media
organs were strangely silent about the research involving adult cells.
Stranger still, the adult-cell experiment was far more successful - it
raised insulin levels much more. Indeed, those diabetic mice lived,
while the mice treated with embryonic cells all died. Why did the
media celebrate the less successful experiment and ignore the more
successful one?
Another barely reported story is that alternative-source stem cells
are already healing human illnesses.
In Los Angeles, the transplantation of stem cells harvested from
umbilical-cord blood has saved the lives of three young boys born with
defective immune systems.
Rather than receiving bone marrow transplants, the three boys
underwent stem cell therapy. The experimental procedure worked. Two
years post-surgery, their doctors at UCLA Medical Center pronounced
the boys cured.
Last year, Israeli scientists implanted Melissa Holley's white blood
cells into her spinal cord to treat the paraplegia caused when her
spinal cord was severed in an auto accident. Melissa, who is 18, has
since regained control over her bladder and recovered significant
motor function in her limbs - she can now move her legs and toes,
although she cannot yet walk.
This is exactly the kind of therapy that embryonic-stem-cell
proponents promise - years down the road. Yet Melissa's breakthrough
was met with collective yawns in the press with the exception of
Canada's The Globe and Mail.
Non-embryonic stem cells may be as common as beach sand. They have
been successfully extracted from umbilical cord blood, placentas, fat,
cadaver brains, bone marrow, and tissues of the spleen, pancreas, and
other organs. Even more astounding, the scientists who cloned Dolly
the sheep successfully created cow heart tissue using stem cells from
cow skin. And just this week, Singapore scientists announced that they
have transformed bone-marrow cells into heart muscle.
Research with these cells also has a distinct moral advantage: It
doesn't require the destruction of a human embryo. You don't have to
be pro-life to be more comfortable with that.
So why does the more ethically problematic research get such better
press? Well, it sure looks like bias, conscious or not: Most reporters
and editors call themselves pro-choice on abortion. And many see
support of embryonic-stem-cell research as consistent with (or even
supportive of) this point of view.
But abortion is actually quite beside the point in this debate - there
is no pregnant woman being asked to gestate a child she does not want.
Thus, one can both support abortion rights and oppose embryonic
research without any inconsistency.
In the end, this debate turns on two questions. The tougher one is: Is
such research immoral, since it destroys human life and transforms it
into a mere commodity? The second: Can we reap equivalent medical
benefits using alternative sources?
The answer to that seems to be "yes." If the press were doing its job,
giving an honest answer to the "hard" question would be far less
painful.
[Note: Attorney and consumer advocate Wesley J. Smith is the author of
"Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America."]
Source: Pro-Life Infonet; June 24, 2001
Be a TLC Lifeguard
Before You Leave...
|