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STEMCELLS-SIGNERS Jun-22-2005 (910 words) xxxn
Archbishop among supporters of experimental stem-cell technique
By Agostino Bono
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark, N.J., and several Catholic bioethicists were among 35 experts in medicine and ethics who recently announced their support for research into an experimental laboratory technique that could produce embryolike stem cells without creating or destroying human embryos.
Supporters of this research said the laboratory technique, if successful, would avoid moral objections by people opposed to extracting pluripotent stem cells from human embryos because the process destroys the embryos.
Pluripotent stem cells can develop into any cell in the human body and many scientists believe that they hold the key to curing a variety of diseases.
A joint statement by the 35 experts said the laboratory technique would be similar to the process for cloning human embryos. But the genetic material injected into the egg would be modified in advance so that instead of producing an embryo a pluripotent stem cell would be produced, said the statement.
The cell would be "incapable of being or becoming an embryo," said the statement.
The statement was posted June 20 on the Web site of the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, an independent organization whose stated aim is to apply Judeo-Christian moral traditions to U.S. domestic and foreign policy issues.
More than half of the statement's signers were Catholics or people associated with Catholic institutions.
The Vatican and the U.S. bishops have opposed stem-cell harvesting which destroys human embryos.
An official of the bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities told Catholic News Service that the laboratory technique, if successful, could meet the Catholic criteria for stem-cell research.
"This new proposal addresses the Catholic Church's fundamental moral objection to embryonic stem cell research as now practiced, by offering to create cells with the properties of embryonic stem cells without ever producing or harming a human embryo," said Richard Doerflinger, deputy director of the pro-life secretariat.
"If animal trials show the technique to work as planned, and the eggs needed for the technique can be obtained in an ethical manner, it could provide a morally acceptable way to pursue biomedical research with these cells," he said.
The joint statement called for "initial research using only nonhuman animal cells."
If these experiments show "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the technique "can reliably be used to produce pluripotent stem cells without creating embryos, we would support research on human cells," it said.
The experimental technique is called "oocyte assisted reprogramming." Oocyte is the scientific term for "egg."
Father Tad Pacholczyk, director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center and a statement signer, said that there is "good scientific reason to believe" that the procedure will lead to the direct production of a pluripotent stem cell.
"The critical element for moral analysis is that an embryo not be engendered," he told CNS.
Experiments with animal cells are needed first to confirm that in the process "nothing similar to an embryo would be produced," he said.
The statement did not directly appeal for government or private funding of the research, but it comes at a time when federal funding of human embryonic stem-cell research is limited to stem-cell lines in existence prior to Aug. 9, 2001. President George W. Bush has said he would veto legislation that relaxes the restrictions.
There is no restriction on private funding of human embryonic stem-cell research.
In a June 20 article in the Wall Street Journal, two of the statement's signers said that if the technique proves successful, it could release federal funds for research with embryolike stem cells.
"There is good scientific reason to believe that this (producing pluripotent stem cells) can be done using biotechnologies," said the op-ed article by Robert George, professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University, and Markus Grompe, director of the Oregon Stem Cell Center.
They added that finding alternatives to extracting stem cells from embryos would help resolve "our nation's divisive debate" over the morality of destroying human embryos to get stem cells.
The technique could also provide a medical benefit as scientists could control the gene structure of the stem cells produced, they said.
"Their genetic constitution would be virtually identical to that of the donor, thus helping to overcome the problem of immune rejection," said George and Grompe.
Other signers of the joint statement included: Legionary of Christ Father Thomas Berg, executive director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person; Jesuit Father Kevin FitzGerald, professor of Catholic health care ethics at Georgetown University; Jesuit Father Kevin Flannery, dean of the philosophy faculty at the Gregorian University in Rome; John Haas, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center; and Edward Furton, ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center.
George and several other signers are also members of the President's Council on Bioethics which advises President Bush on bioethical issues.
The council released a report in May listing four possible alternatives to extracting stem cells from embryos. Among the alternatives listed was "altered nuclear transfer" of which oocyte assisted reprogramming is a variation.
Father Pacholczyk said that in altered nuclear transfer certain genes are eliminated in an effort to create a nonembryonic cell, but this raises the question of whether what is produced might be a defective embryo.
In oocyte assisted reprogramming, certain genes are not eliminated but reprogrammed with the aim of changing the cell into a pluripotent stem cell, he said.
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Editors: The joint statement and list of signers can be found at www.eppc.org/publications/pubID.2374/pub_detail.asp
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Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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