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Election outcome boosts embryonic stem cell work
Reuters
By Carey Gillam
November 13, 2006

KANSAS CITY, Mo., Nov 13 (Reuters) - The religious protesters are gone and expansion plans are back on track at a top Kansas City stem-cell research lab after Missouri voters endorsed the controversial field in last week's elections.

With some $2 billion in private funding, and a team of international scientists already at work, the Stowers Institute for Medical Research now sees mostly clear sailing as it seeks stem-cell treatments for illnesses ranging from Alzheimer's disease to multiple sclerosis.

Passage of the amendment to the state constitution was a turning point, supporters say, as voters across the United States elected stem-cell research proponents and shifted political power in Washington away from Republicans and U.S. President George W. Bush, a chief opponent of the research.

"We're all optimistic. This demonstrates that elected representatives do not have to be held hostage by a minority of conservatives on the religious right," said Stowers CEO William Neaves, whose wife has Parkinson's disease.

Emboldened state and federal lawmakers, patient advocacy groups and medical researchers are already increasing efforts to advance the research, including a planned push for the 2007 Congress to provide federal funding.

'THEY'VE SAID YES TO IT'

Incoming Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said last week she will make federal support a priority.

"It's clear the new Congress is going to be even more favorable to embryonic stem-cell research," said Sean Tipton, president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, which supports the research. "The American people have had the opportunity to go to the ballot box on stem-cell research and ... they've said yes to it."

Scientists believe that if they can harness embryonic stem cells, which can turn into any cell or tissue type, they can one day repair damage done by many currently incurable diseases and injuries.

Embryonic stem cells can be obtained through frozen embryos discarded by fertility clinics or through a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT, which scientists say has greater capacity to regenerate specific cell types.

But many religious conservatives see the work as the taking of a human life. They even oppose the SCNT method, which uses only unfertilized eggs and not frozen embryos, because the process of inserting the nucleus of a body cell into the shell of an unfertilized egg amounts to human cloning, the critics say.

"In order to get the embryonic stem cells they must kill a living human being, said Jim Sedlak, vice president for American Life League. "The public is being very misled."

'THE PUBLIC HAS BEEN EDUCATED'

The issue has cut across party lines in many places, drawing in moderate Republicans and independent voters as well as Democrats who see no moral problem with the research and much to gain in the way of medical advancement and economic development, according to Gail Pressberg, co-author of the book "Stem Cell Research: Promise and Politics" due out next month.

"We're at a real tipping point," Pressberg said. "The public has been educated."

Some 62 percent of the races in Tuesday's midterm elections in which stem-cell research was an issue were won by the candidate supporting such research, according to Jonathan Moreno, medical ethics professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Key victories were notched by Democratic Senate candidate Claire McCaskill in Missouri, whose campaign drew national attention after actor Michael J. Fox taped a pro-research ad for her, and by Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, who was re-elected after campaigning for the research.

Supporters of stem-cell research also won Senate seats in Maryland, New Jersey, and Ohio while incumbents in the House who opposed the research lost in Arizona, California, Indiana and Pennsylvania, Moreno said.

Fresh off its success in Missouri, the Stowers Institute, whose founders provided more than 90 percent of the money for the campaign to approve the measure, said it would move ahead to break ground on a doubling of its 600,000-square-foot (55,740-square-metre) research facility and recruit new scientists to add to its team of more than 300 researchers.

"It is extraordinarily important that research with new lines of stem cells proceed," said Stowers CEO Neaves.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

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