November 30, 2007

Created Stem Cells: No Magic Ethical Bullet Here

Posted by Eric at 1:06 am | Category: Biology, Ethics, Links, Literature, Politics, Science

There’s been a lot of media hullaballoo about the whole creation of human stem cells from skin cells, which is really just a confirmation of the research from last year on mice.

For some reason, some people, like this Washington Post editorialist, seems to think that this research side-steps the whole embryonic stem cell morality debate, that it “vindicates” George Bush’s decision to fight embryonic stem cell research.

It doesn’t.

The stem cell research from mice showed that these “created” stem cells can grow to become a whole embryo and organism. Let’s assume for a moment that in this respect, human biology is similar to mouse biology (it’s not far-fetched). If the newly created stem cell can grow to be a new person, doesn’t that mean it has a “soul”? So, then is it bad to do research on such a cell?

If, theoretically, this technology is perfect and can actually transform a skin cell to a good stem cell, then that stem cell would be no different from an embryonic stem cell, and all the same morality rules apply here (regardless of whether you are for or against it). This isn’t some sort of magic morality bullet. No ethical dilemmas are resolved here. You can’t support this sort of research and be against embryonic stem cell research, because this is embryonic stem cell research.

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7 Responses to “Created Stem Cells: No Magic Ethical Bullet Here”

  1. anthony quinn Says:
    November 30th, 2007 at 3:09 am

    to whom it may concern:

    i sense a religious undertone in the blurb i read, ive said this before and i cant stress this enuf on the subject of abortion [for example] its set in motion on this planet,like greed ,and it wont slow down. as long as people get lazier ,there will be abortion doctors makin money on them. do you understand what im saying???? so do everyone a favor and shut your mouth, cause parylyzed people like me, dont give a fuck about you and your “MORAL DILLEMA” doctors find a solution to embryonic research that millions could benefit and you find a another hurdle to put up!!! ‘GOD IS AN IMAGINARY FRIEND FOR GROWN UPS” do not ever,ever under estimate that statement. u pathetic, BLIND, useless to me and millions others, degenerate!!! now this is the best part , ive got you thinkin…..wow hes really frustrated and maybe clinically depressed??? wrong, being in a chair you are more in tune with what goes on around you,its like losing sight and your other senses heightend, you realize that the world is more black and white, that people would rather stress themselves to the max with simple problems. then pathetic people like you bring in the moral issues. i read an interesting poll last spring,where north americans are “losing the faith ” when it comes to religion,that made my day. SO heres a scenario, we could say GOD is the intelligent designer,then why would he make our bodies susceptiple to a disease like cancer??? “oh” you say, he takes them so they can be angels and help him!!! then why make those people, evan children suffer for lenghts of time with this horrific disease??? intelligent design??? no, a well designed, lenghty, historically drawn out hoax!!!!!

  2. Apollo Says:
    November 30th, 2007 at 9:08 am

    I think the most hilarious part of all this is that President Bush was so quick to take credit for the discovery. I think that beats Al Gore’s assertion that he created the Internet.

    [Also, Eric, did you activate the "text message comment" feature? The above comment sounds like it was written on someone's cell phone in a fit of indignant rage.]

  3. Eric Says:
    November 30th, 2007 at 10:06 am

    I’m didn’t even know that there was a “text message comment” thing.

    In any case, I’m not really sure I understand your point, anthony. I support embryonic stem cell research fully, and I’m saying that those who are uncomfortable with such research shouldn’t take this new research as a “workaround” to their own moral discomfort.

  4. Miya Says:
    December 1st, 2007 at 9:49 am

    I definitely agree with your point, but I don’t know that the anti-ESC research arguments are sophisticated enough to attribute potential personhood (or whatever you want to call it) to the stem cells themselves. It seems the debate is focused more on the fact that to get those stem cells, one has to kill a ball of them that somehow has a collective identity as a potential person. So in that sense the new technology would sidestep some ethical issues by not originating in an embryo. It seems the question that remains for research is more technical/logistical - will these new stem cells be able to do everything we need them to in a way that obviates any current or future need for those derived from embryos? I cringe every time someone announces a new technique for obtaining stem cells, even though this one sounds much more promising than previous ones, because I worry that it will narrow rather than broaden the scope of techniques available to research by giving (Bush/Religious Right/etcetera) the chance to outright ban embryo-derived stem cell research. What do you think about the technical aspects of this new technique? The NYT article highlighted the oncogenic problems with using retroviruses for gene delivery, for example…

  5. Eric Says:
    December 1st, 2007 at 10:38 am

    Perhaps you’re right about the anti-ESC movement being focused on the embryos rather than the personhood of the individual cell, though, this research does have theological considerations about “souls” and their origins without procreation.

    But still, I don’t know if this sidesteps any of the ethical considerations of destroying embryos, since thousands of embryos are destroyed every year in fertilization clinics. One can’t be against embryonic stem cell research without also being against in vitro fertilization clinics.

    As for the technical aspects, using retroviruses is a standard gene insertion technique. That the genes inserted (at least for one group) are oncogenic is not surprising, since tumor cells often exhibit de-differentiation as well. I think mainly this research is not useful therapeutically, but as research into the “stem cell program” that distinguishes stem cells from normal cells. Once we can figure out what exactly is different about these cells, one can perhaps pick out better targets that aren’t so oncogenic.

    For therapy, at least for now, nothing beats using embryonic stem cells in the first place.

  6. anon Says:
    December 1st, 2007 at 7:31 pm

    I guess my point is a reiteration of Miya’s. I don’t know much about stem-cell biology, but I am under the impression that the reason for wanting stem cells is not for the purpose of directing those stem cells to become embryos, but rather to direct them to become other kinds of cells, such as nerve cells, muscle cells, insulin-producing cells, etc, which can then be used to treat various diseases.

    Until this recent stem-cell research finding the primary source of stem cells was embryos. If stem cells can now be produced from skin cells, and not embryos, then the ethical objection to creating embryos for the purpose of harvesting stem cells is not invoked, because no embryos are created.

    If a skin-derived stem cell can somehow be induced to become a muscle cell, without ever being part of an embryo along the way, then no potential person is ever involved and the ethical dilemma of using embryos IS sidestepped, contrary to your claim.

    If a skin-derived stem cell is used to create an embryo as a necessary intermediate step along the way to making a muscle cell, then of course your point is valid.

  7. Eric Says:
    December 1st, 2007 at 9:46 pm

    First, one caveat about what you said: at no point in any stem cell science is an embryo created for the purpose of harvesting stem cells. There are plenty of leftover embryos from in vitro fertilization clinics to create thousands of stem cell lines. These are destroyed or frozen forever anyway, so scientists use these castoffs to extract stem cells.

    The thing is, if one really was able to get an “embryonic stem cell” with this methodology, then those cells are essentially nascent embryos, as each individual cell can be implanted in a blastocyst in a woman’s uterus and grown to full person. These cells can grow to create any cell in a person’s body, except for the placenta, which one does not normally consider as part of the child. Whatever “essence” or “soul” a person has (if any), it is contained in each embryonic stem cell, whether created or extracted from an embryo.

    Thus, the controversy, I think, remains, whether the new stem cells are put back into a blastocyst or just cultured in a dish.

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