Thursday, August 29, 2013

Stem cell / brain tissue wizardry - without exploiting embryos

 
Interesting news in Nature magazine yesterday re the small disorganised clump of ‘brain tissue’ generated by human stem cells; note of course that no embryos were used, but the entirely ethical iPS cells (“induced pluripotent stem cells”) derived from human skin cells. That is the true state of stem cell science: embryo exploitation and cloning remains both wrong and redundant, now we have the iPS alternative.
 
Note the sleight of hand by the embryo experimenters who always smuggle in the impression that embryos are still kicking goals, when they are in fact on the bench and irrelevant. Prof Martin Pera, an Australian spruiker for many years in favour of embryo exploitation and cloning, on this morning’s ABC AM:

MARTIN PERA: What the authors of the study showed was that you could take human pluripotent stem cells, these are stem cells that can turn into all the tissues of the body, they can be derived from embryos or from adult tissues through reprogramming. But what they showed was that you can take these cells and develop them into three dimensional structures in a petri dish that are very, very similar to the developing human brain in the embryos.

Hmmm… Yes, they can be derived from both embryos and adult cells via iPS reprogramming, but the point is that iPS is essentially the only game in town now: embryos are so problematic - technically and ethically - compared to iPS as a source of pluripotent cells, and only the iPS cells match the patient. Therefore only iPS cells achieve the goal of patient-matched pluripotent stem cells.

A more informative response from someone like Prof Pera would have been, “This is another example of how useful iPS cells are, and how superior they are to embryonic stem cells in every day – we can derive them easily from a simple skin cell; they exactly match the patient; they have no ethical concerns attached. Embryos fail on all these counts. The public can essentially forget about the hoopla about embryos as the Holy Grail of regenerative medicine: that science is now no more than yesterday’s hype…”

Don’t expect such candour anytime soon from the embryo / cloning lobby. Too much ‘face’ would be lost by those who convinced the public and politicians in 2003 and 2006 that embryo experimentation and cloning was essential if children were to be cured of their afflictions etc etc etc.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

YAMANAKA gets the Nobel Prize


Your scribe was giving a talk to a group of doctors in Sydney last night (Tuesday 9th Oct) on "Ethical stem cell science & the Death of Cloning", and on entering the warm and welcoming Irish pub I was informed of the grand news that Shinya Yamanaka had been awarded the Nobel prize for medicine.

The citation did not say it was for slaying the monster of human cloning, or for managing to achieve the good things of stem cell research without even messing with human eggs or creating and killing human embryos. It should have, but the poor lefties in the Nobel committee (remember, the ones who gave the brand new President Obama the Peace Prize for Not Being George Bush) were so averse to  appearing to reward ethical stem cell science that they had to give the prize as a double act with some gentleman from the UK who does do cloning.

Never mind. Yamanaka has done something so important for the protection of humanity from the depredations of anti-human science that he should have had the Peace Prize too.

We toasted you in our Sydney pub, Professor, for what you have given to this exciting field of research and - even more so - what you have done to deflect a great harm from our children's generation.

Excerpt from my Quadrant review "Cloning - the Blighted Science":


END OF AN ERA


The scientific landscape changed suddenly and irrevocably on the 21st November 2007, in what was described as “an earthquake for both the science and politics of stem cell research”[i].

On that day the Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka published his breakthrough of iPSC “direct reprogramming”, creating the equivalent of cloned embryonic stem cells directly from the skin cells of a middle-aged woman,[ii] bypassing any need for eggs or embryos.

"This is the Holy Grail - to be able to take a few cells from a patient and then turn them into stem cells in the laboratory," acknowledged Dr Robert Lanza, a cloning researcher from Advanced Cell Technology in Boston.[iii]
 
The clearest sign that a revolution was upon us was the headline in a British paper: “Dolly creator Prof Ian Wilmut shuns cloning”. The king of cloning, who had brought us the first cloned mammal and who held the license to clone human embryos in the UK, declared that he was abandoning the field he had founded:

Instead Prof Wilmut is backing direct reprogramming, the embryo-free route pursued by Prof Yamanaka, which he finds “100 times more interesting”… as well as “easier to accept socially." [iv]

The other great pioneer of embryo research likewise deferred to the Yamanaka method. Professor James Thomson, the scientist who first identified human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) in 1998, published a study on the same day as Yamanaka confirming that these new stem cells derived from human skin had every property of stem cells derived from embryos – but none of the ethical and political baggage.[v] He told the New York Times it would not be long “before the stem cell wars are a distant memory”.

“A decade from now, this (controversy) will be just a funny historical footnote,” Dr Thomson said. More work remains, but he is confident that the path ahead is clear. "Isn't it great to start a field and then to end it?"[vi]

This sense that one era had ended and another commenced in stem cell science was reinforced in a review of the Yamanaka revolution by Professor Martin Pera. He was formerly director of ESC research at the Australian National Stem Cell Centre and his article, “Stem cells: a new year and a new era” was published in Nature in January 2008:[vii]

Manipulating cells from adult human tissue, scientists have generated cells with the same developmental potential as embryonic stem cells. The research opportunities these exciting observations offer are limitless. The generation of induced pluripotent stem cells through direct reprogramming avoids the difficult ethical controversies surrounding the use of embryos for deriving stem cells.

The response was everywhere the same: this is marvellous science, and it gets rid of the social and ethical stress of obtaining eggs and exploiting embryos. The potential for this development to bypass the central ethical objection to cloning was recognized by Professor Loane Skene, former Chair of the Lockhart Review which advised the Australian government in 2005 to permit cloning. On the day Yamanaka’s iPSC research was published she told ABC radio:

What this does is take away the step of using the egg and creating the embryo which is particularly ethically contentious, and it offers the opportunity to get stem cells that are matched to a particular person. [viii] 

In that succinct statement, one of our chief advocates for cloning reminds us of the goal that cloning failed to reach – getting stem cells that exactly match the patient – and acknowledges that this new method not only attains that goal, but is free from ethical concerns.

The new post-cloning era was summed up in January 2008 by a leading Australian researcher, Dr TJ Martin, Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the University of Melbourne:

In the past few months the scientific situation has changed dramatically in ways that should make therapeutic cloning a historical peculiarity. iPSCs have been shown to have all the properties previously attributed to embryonic stem cells, and thus provide a means of preparing individually tailored pluripotent cells without the ethical problems involved in therapeutic cloning.  To this must be added the fact that iPSCs can readily be prepared, whereas human therapeutic cloning has never been achieved. If it ever had been, it is such an inefficient process that it would always have required unacceptably large numbers of egg donations by women. There is no valid reason for any government to consider approval of therapeutic cloning that requires nuclear transfer into human eggs. Indeed, it would be prudent to have the 2006 federal legislation taken off the books. [ix]

In light of that authoritative summary we should ask the obvious question: What possible justification is there now for human cloning, given the success of the iPSC alternative?  Who would take seriously the proposal that I obtain hundreds of eggs from women (at significant risk to their health) and spend vast amounts of research money in order to clone you into your identical twin embryo, in order to obtain pluripotent stem cells that match you genetically (something nobody has yet managed to achieve) when I could simply take a skin cell from your arm and obtain the equivalent stem cells easily and ethically using Yamanaka’s direct reprogramming?

........Likewise, Time magazine asks whether there is anything left to argue over since Yamanaka’s breakthrough: 

No embryos, no eggs, no hand-wringing over where the cells came from and whether it was ethical to make them in the first place. Yamanaka's and Thomson's work sidestepped that altogether, raising the tantalizing question: Is the long-raging stem-cell debate at last over? Yamanaka thinks it might be.  Other giants of the field seem to agree.[i]



[i] Rolands J, Centre for Genetics & Society, Oakland CA at http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/1120/1
[vii] Pera MF. Stem cells. A new year and a new era. Nature. 2008 Jan 10;451(7175):135-6.
[viii] Prof Loane Skene comments re Yamanaka at http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/s2096987.htm

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Take heart! ESCs are a dud, but ASCs continue to kick goals.

Right on cue, a day after Geron gives up tinkering with embryos, another report from the US of adult stem cell therapy for humans with heart failure.

Read about it or listen to it HERE at the ABC World Today.

I don't want to dampen the excitement, but of course we have had adult stem cell treatment for humans with heart failure for a decade or so - for example, an article in the Journal of the Americal College of Cardiology HERE. Nevertheless, this latest pair of studies is particularly good.

A conference in Florida has heard that two separate trials of stem cell therapy in humans have been surprisingly successful in replacing damaged muscle and getting the heart to pump better. The Heart Foundation says it could completely revolutionise the way heart failure is treated...

The first study used stem cells from the marrow:

We saw some of the hearts pumping better and patients able to walk further, but the most impressive result of this trial really are the clinical events, or what we call MACE - which stands for major adverse cardiac event - and what we saw was that there was a significant decrease in these adverse clinical events including death, requirement for revascularization procedures and heart attacks in these patients.



The second study used a patient's own heart stem cells (multiplied up and reinjected to the damaged area of heart muscle):

In the study these cells boosted the heart function by about 15 to 20 per cent and they also were also able to reduce the area of heart muscle damage by about 25 per cent. So these are findings never seen before.


I trust the significance of these two news events is not lost on our science reporters! Truly ESCs and cloning are dying a lingering and unlamented death, while ASCs for therapy are the most exciting thing in medicine today.

Puff, puff, "POP" goes the Geron ESC bubble!

What a bunch of clowns at Geron Corp - massaging the share price over the decade with each new announcement of impending ESC therapies (see the comic collation HERE) and then dropping their bogus ESC experiment for spinal injury half way through a phase 1 trial (remind yourself about that HERE).


Geron announced yesterday that they are closing their spinal-injury trial to new enrolments, and laying off most of their staff in that area now, with the rest going by mid-2012. Too bad for the existing patients with a spine full of potentially tumorigenic ESC-derivatives... Geron hopes some other company will take over their "stem cell assets".

The media release of 14th November states:
The decision to narrow Geron’s technology and therapeutic focus was made after a strategic review of the costs, value inflection timelines and clinical, manufacturing and regulatory complexities associated with the Company’s research and clinical-stage assets.

That means their ESC-derivative experiments are not promising enough to even complete the earliest-stage trial, despite all the ludicrous hype they and their media puppies propagated last year.

No doubt some government-funded body will take up these sort of futile experiments using dumb public money (futile and dumb becaause anything an ESC-derivative can do an ethically uncontentiuos iPSC-derivative can do better - because it matches the patient; even better, in spinal injury an ASC therapy would both match the patient and avoid the danger of tumours).

But in the real world, smart private money will continue to see through the hype and hoax of embryo stem cell "therapies".

RIP Geron's ESC fizzer.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Confirmation: cloning has NOT produced a single patient-matched stem cell

The question was raised, from the cloning review in this month's Quadrant, as to whether last month's Nature report means our claim is now out of date, where we said: "Cloning, for all the millions spent worldwide and all the blighted human entities created and destroyed, has failed to obtain even a single pluripotent stem cell."

The answer is still no. Human cloning has still not achieved any useable pluripotent stem cell - for two reasons. First, the experiment in Nature was not true cloning - the 'Dolly' technique, creating an identical twin embryo for patient-matched stem cells - but the creation of a triploid amalgam of the donor's and the mother's nuclear DNA. The resultant genetically-mutilated embryo contains a fatal extra set of chromosomes. Second, the experiment might have been tweaked to the stage of stem cells, but these are entirely unuseable stem cells as far as "therapeutic cloning" goes. It is a new form of abuse of the human embryo, but it does not qualify as achieving cloning's goal of pluripotent stem cells that match the donor.
For clarification, here is an article by AESCR researcher, Richard Egan, with thanks to Mercatornet where it was published last month, at this LINK.

_____________________________

In an article published in Nature on 6 October 2011, Scott Noggle and his colleagues at the New York Stem Cell Foundation Laboratory report on their experiments in which they have derived stem cells from human embryos created by adding the nucleus of a somatic cell to a human egg.

The fact that the stem cells were useless made no difference to the amount of publicity this latest human cloning experiment received, but the reports did draw attention again to the supply of human eggs for the research and the ethics of paying women to undergo risky superovulation.

The process used was a form of cloning. However, in standard cloning – the technique used to produce Dolly the sheep – the nucleus is removed from an egg and replaced with the nucleus from a somatic cell. In the New York experiments it was first found that this process routinely fails with human eggs, with development of the human embryo created by cloning arresting before reaching the stage at which stem cells can be extracted.

The experimenters tried leaving the nucleus of the egg in place and merely adding the nucleus from the somatic cell. It appears that this left in place some factor in the egg that is crucial to the continued development of the human embryo.

However, as a result of leaving the nucleus of the egg in place while adding the nucleus of a somatic cell was that each cell of the resulting human embryo, including the extracted stem cells, is triploid – having 69 chromosomes rather than the normal human complement of 46 chromosomes.

This means that this experiment has not achieved the goal of obtaining patient-matched stem cells by cloning or “oocyte reprogramming” as some prefer to call it these days.

The triploid cells obviously don’t match the patient’s DNA and could not be safely used in therapies. Nor are they likely to be of any use for drug testing.

Nonetheless, with cloning research otherwise stalled around the world this experiment is likely to refuel the search for a way to make cloning for human embryonic stem cells work.

The New York experimenters do have a significant advantage over other cloning researchers. The Empire State Stem Cell Board in March 2010 approved contract policy conditions that allowed researchers to pay “women donating oocytes solely for research purposes … out-of-pocket expenses, including payments for travel, housing, medical care, child care and similar expenses incurred as a result of the donation of the oocytes for research purposes and compensated for the time, inconvenience and burden associated with the donation.”

This policy enabled the New York Stem Cell Foundation Laboratory to pay 16 women to procure (the word donate seems inappropriate when payment is being made) a total of 270 fresh eggs. This is an average of nearly 17 eggs from each woman.

New York is the only jurisdiction in the world to allow payment for egg procurement for research from women who are not undergoing egg retrieval for reproductive purposes.

Superovulation, which women undergo to produce eggs in this quantity is dangerous carrying a mortality risk of between 2.52 (UK 2003-05) and 6 (Netherlands 1984-2008) per 100,000. Professor Emerita of Sociology, Dianne Beeson, has given evidence to a US Congressional hearing on the dangers that egg extraction for cloning poses to women’s health and life. Up to 14 percent of patients undergoing superovulation experience some form of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, or OHSS. Common symptoms of mild OHSS include abdominal discomfort, ovarian enlargement, nausea and vomiting. Those who develop severe OHSS may experience a wide range of serious conditions including loss of future fertility, kidney or multiple organ failure, and death. The frequency of severe OHSS is estimated to be as high as 10 per cent of women who undergo the procedure.

The recent Heerey review of Australia’s cloning legislation recommended in June 2011 that there be no change to the current system in Australia where women can be reimbursed for reasonable expenses in relation to egg donation but that this does not include compensation for time or loss of income. The recommendation was particularly welcome as review committee member Professor Loane Skene had been a public advocate for Australia following New York’s approach to compensation for women for undergoing the procedure of egg retrieval. Perhaps it was just as well that this review had reported before the New York experiments were reported and the results could be hyped to justify the benefits of paying women for their eggs.

Sydney IVF which holds the only three licenses for cloning issued by the NHMRC Licensing Committee relies on obtaining eggs from women undergoing IVF. As of 28 February 2011 they had used 435 “clinically unsuitable eggs” in cloning experiments but failed to obtain development beyond the compact morula stage.

The licenses were set to expire on 16 September 2011 but on 24 August 2011 the NHMRC Licensing Committee extended the licenses until 16 September 2012. This is a disappointing decision in the light of the failure of the experiments to date and the obvious unsuitability of “clinically unsuitable eggs” as research material as already established by researchers at Newcastle in Britain and elsewhere.

The Heerey review in its majority recommendation that the law continue to allow licenses for cloning for research to be issued noted that:

However, in reaching this recommendation, the Review Committee notes the lack of progress in SCNT [somatic cell nuclear transfer – the main cloning technique] research in animals and humans.

The Review Committee believes that this must impact on the Licensing Committee’s interpretation of its statutory obligation, when it is considering any future application for a licence to undertake research involving SCNT, to take into account ‘the likelihood of significant advance in knowledge or improvement in technologies for treatment as a result of the use of excess ART embryos or human eggs, or the creation or use of other embryos, proposed in the application, which could not reasonably be achieved by other means’ when it is considering any future application for a licence to undertake research involving SCNT

It is difficult to see how the NHMRC Licensing Committee could justify extending the Sydney IVF cloning licenses in the light of this recommendation.

However, it should be clear by now that different rules apply to cloning. Meaningless experiments are hyped as dramatic advances and snake oil salesmen are given a welcome mat and millions of dollars of funding.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

QUADRANT ARTICLE: "Cloning - the Blighted Science"

If your weekend reading does not already include a rollicking obituary for the brief and unlamented era of human cloning, I have a full review in the new Quadrant magazine which is available online HERE.

The article arises from the Legislative Review earlier this year into Australia's cloning laws - that Review was an opportunity for us to rethink (re-pent) the abuses formerly legislated, even on the pragmatic grounds that newer science renders cloning redundant. As expected, however, the majority of the committee members argued for the status quo - the "yes, cloning has been a dud so far and yes, Yamanaka's method seems to have achieved what cloning could never achieve - but let's just research everything anyway " approach - and thereby the Review recommendations save face for those scientists and social progressives who invested so much energy in this battle of the culture wars back in 2006.

The subheadings of the article are: End of an Era; Humans Second Class; Fraud & Fairy Tales; Reality Check on Embryos; Death Throes; The 2011 Review: Clinging to Cloning.
Cloning is a human desecration and a scientific failure. It has always been unethical, in that it creates human embryos with their destruction in mind; it is now also clearly unnecessary. The Senate vote was carried in 2006 by the argument that cloning was the only possible way to obtain “pluripotent stem cells” that perfectly match the patient. That argument lies in shreds, in part through the failure of cloning to produce results but above all through the discovery of an alternative stem cell technique which is both effective and ethically uncontentious.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

"Human cloning law: on the way out?" - Guest Blog.

Guest Blog by Richard Egan, research officer with the Coalition for the Defence of Human Life in WA. Richard prepared a comprehensive submission to the cloning review for the Coalition which can be viewed at: https://legislationreview.nhmrc.gov.au/sites/default/files/submissions/cdhl-sub-cloning-human-embryos-legislation-review.pdf 

Richard has recently returned from a series of conferences and meetings with bioethicists in the US. We are grateful to him for letting us post this clear summary of the key points of the recent Legislative Review.
____________________

Human cloning: on the way out?

A recent review of the law permitting human cloning for research is less than enthusiastic about cloning and admits the law may soon be outdated.

In 2002 both Houses of the Commonwealth Parliament voted unanimously to prohibit all forms of human cloning, including cloning for research. The overwhelming consensus was that it was ethically wrong to create a human embryo for the purpose of destroying it in research, including research involving the extraction of embryonic stem cells.

A majority of both Houses did, however, support legislation which permitted the use of so-called “excess” human embryos, fertilised in vitro for reproductive purposes but never implanted, to be used for research, including the extraction of embryonic stem cells.

In 2005 a review of this legislation by the Lockhart committee coincided with the six month period between the much celebrated claim by Korean scientist Hwang Woo Suk to have successfully created several human embryonic stem cell lines from cloned human embryos and the revelation that this claim was fraudulent.

Based largely on the perceived need for Australia to catch up with the (fraudulent) Korean developments the Lockhart committee recommended changing the law to permit human cloning for research.

Despite the setback of Hwang’s fraud being exposed proponents of human cloning successfully hyped the possible results from such research to persuade a bare majority of one in the Australian Senate that legislation permitting human cloning for research was the best hope that the lame would soon walk, the blind see and the diabetic discard his or her insulin supplies.

The new law permitting cloning was assented to on 12 December 2006 and came into effect six months later in July 2007.

Heerey review

The report of the review of the new legislation by a committee chaired by former Federal Court judge the Hon Peter Heerey QC was released by the Gillard government on 7 July 2011.

The past four years has not favoured the proponents of human cloning.

The report observes:

Attempts to generate human ES cells by SCNT have been pursued for over seven years and, with the notable exception of work reported from Korea and subsequently admitted to be fraudulent, are yet to produce a claim to development of a human ES cell line, though development of embryos to the eight cell stage has been achieved.

A majority of the committee did recommend that the scheme permitting human cloning for research under license continue while commenting:

However, in reaching this recommendation, the Review Committee notes the lack of progress in SCNT [somatic cell nuclear transfer – the main cloning technique] research in animals and humans.

The Review Committee believes that this must impact on the Licensing Committee’s interpretation of its statutory obligation, when it is considering any future application for a licence to undertake research involving SCNT, to take into account ‘the likelihood of significant advance in knowledge or improvement in technologies for treatment as a result of the use of excess ART embryos or human eggs, or the creation or use of other embryos, proposed in the application, which could not reasonably be achieved by other means’ when it is considering any future application for a licence to undertake research involving SCNT.

Committee member the Rev Fr Kevin McGovern strongly dissented from this recommendation noting:

the approach recommended by the Lockhart Review, which stated that ‘the greater the potential benefits of an activity, the greater the need for ethical objections to be of a high level and widely accepted in order to prevent that activity. Conversely, where benefits are not yet established, or where there is widespread and deeply held community objection, then total prohibition through the legal system may be justified.’

Reverend McGovern believes that in 2011 the latter standard has been reached for SCNT. In 2006, SCNT seemed the only way to seek the benefits of regenerative medicine. With the advent of induced pluripotent stem cells, this is no longer the case. It is hard to see what SCNT now contributes to the progress of regenerative medicine. What would be lost if Australia’s regulatory regime permitted the harvesting of embryonic stem cells from excess embryos along with research with adult stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells, but did not permit SCNT?

Some scientists have proposed some possible benefits of SCNT, but their arguments are not entirely convincing. Dr Megan Munsie argues that SCNT-ES cells might more closely resemble ES cells than iPS cells. However, the evidence from animal work is that SCNT generally produces damaged or abnormal embryos. This strongly suggests that even if SCNT-ES cells more closely resemble ES cells, these SCNT-ES cells will still be genetically abnormal and inferior to ES cells.
Professor Bob Williamson advocates SCNT to generate stem cell lines as disease models to study late-onset conditions. It is not clear, however, why SCNT-derived lines would be more useful than iPSClines.

Beyond that, there is only the possibility of what ‘might’ be learnt if research into SCNT continues. The proposed benefits of SCNT research therefore seem not entirely convincing, sometimes rather small, and largely theoretical. On the other hand, SCNT involves the most profound of ethical concerns. It is the creation of human life which will be used in research and then destroyed. When people understand this, many people within the community are troubled by SCNT.

For all this, however, this most serious of ethical concerns has been judged less significant than the mostly theoretical benefits which might come if research into SCNT is allowed to continue. With this outcome, Reverend McGovern wonders whether the ethical concerns about SCNT research are ultimately being given anything more than lip-service.

The report noted that fellow committee member Dr Faye Thompson “shares Reverend McGovern’s concerns about SCNT”. So only three of the committee’s five members fully endorsed the recommendation – including known cloning advocates Professors Loane Skene and Ian Frazer who had each played a key role in the 2006 hype for cloning.

The report notes that of the total number of 264 submissions, 188 were from the general community. Of these, 112 specifically commented that they did not support human cloning, while all 188 stated that they did not support the use of human embryos for research.

In its final recommendation the report calls for a further review of the legislation each five years commenting that:

The Review Committee thinks it highly desirable that in this rapidly changing field of science there be periodic reviews. For example, it may be that by the time of the next review it has become accepted that SCNT is no longer appropriate.

Other recommendations

The Heerey committee unanimously recommended that there be no change to the legislation which prohibits payment for eggs or sperm. This was noteworthy given the very public campaign of committee member Professor Loane Skene for such a change.

The committee also rejected a proposal to change the legislation to allow the creation by fertilisation of human embryos with genetic inheritance from more than two people. Proponents claim this could help women with mitochondrial disease have children unaffected by the disease.

The majority of the committee also recommended allowing experimental research in creating human embryos using sperm or eggs derived by manipulating body cells or embryonic stem cells [in vitro derived or IVD gametes] . This technique could ultimately be used to create a child from sperm and an egg derived from a single individual or from two persons of the same sex.

Fr McGovern again dissented observing that:

the development of knowledge about human IVD gametes will lead almost inevitably to their use in human reproduction, even if many in our society are opposed to this.

The committee rejected calls from the Coalition for the Defence of Human Life and other community organisations to repeal the provisions in the law permitting the use of eggs from aborted baby girls to make human embryos for research.

In what can only be described as a lack of moral imagination the committee could not see anything to distinguish this abhorrent practice from other forms of making human embryos for research (such as cloning) or from the donation of tissue from aborted babies for other purposes. While these practices are all unethical surely there is something particularly repulsive to human and moral sensibility in making an aborted baby girl a mother only to cannibalise her offspring for speculative research.

Fr McGovern is to be commended for his forthright dissent and astute comments throughout the report. On the fundamental question of using any human embryos as a source for stem cells, including those “excess” to IVF requirements he states: 

Section 8 of the NHMRC Ethical Guidelines on the Use of Assisted Reproductive Technology in Clinical Practice and Research requires that embryos which must be disposed of should be disposed of respectfully.

He does not believe that the evisceration of these embryos to extract their stem cells is respectful disposal. As we would be concerned if this was done to a human being at any other stage of human development, he believes that we should be concerned about this.

Indeed.

The Coalition for the Defence of Human life will continue to work for an end to all legislation that permits destructive research of any kind on any human embryo.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Media Release: Cloning left on Futile Life-Support (Legislative Review)

“The Legislative Review tabled yesterday (July 7th) is a lame attempt by the majority of this (outrageously stacked) committee to keep the blighted science of SCNT/cloning on its futile life-support” said Dr David van Gend, national director of Australians for Ethical Stem Cell Research. “Section 5.3 showcases the shriveled case for cloning, with only ardent supporters of cloning (Muncie, Williamson, Elefanty) being quoted in the section and no critics quoted at all. As expected, this one-sided chorus culminates in the stale old slogan of the ethically indifferent: "let's just research everything".

“However, even the majority position – including prominent cloning advocates Ian Frazer and Loane Skene - admits to the increasing difficulty of justifying any SCNT/cloning experiments at all, given the failure of cloning and the success of its ethical alternatives:

The Review Committee notes the lack of progress in SCNT research in animals and humans. The Review Committee believes that this must impact on the Licensing Committee’s interpretation of its statutory obligation, when it is considering any future application for a licence to undertake research involving SCNT

“The dissenting opinion by Kevin McGovern, Director of the Caroline Chisholm Centre for Health Ethics (and the report states “Dr Kaye Thompson shares Reverend McGovern’s concerns about SCNT”) is a masterpiece of clear thinking and demolishes the ramshackle apologia of the dominant committee members.

In 2006, SCNT seemed the only way to seek the benefits of regenerative medicine. With the advent of induced pluripotent stem cells, this is no longer the case. It is hard to see what SCNT now contributes to the progress of regenerative medicine. What would be lost if Australia’s regulatory regime permitted the harvesting of embryonic stem cells from excess embryos along with research with adult stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells, but did not permit SCNT?

“McGovern has shown the way forward for an ethical society. Shame on Minister Mark Butler who, as our association predicted, cynically delayed tabling the cloning review until the last day before the long winter recess, about 6 weeks after the date the report was put on his desk. That means Senate critics like Barnett, Fielding and McGauran are gone, and Butler ensured the Review would not be examined until a safely libertarian Greens party held the balance of power in the Senate. Under a fair-minded Senate cloning would fall; it has always been unethical and now it is clearly unnecessary, as McGovern shows. The case for cloning is now so diminished that it could never carry a conscience vote like it did in the hysterically hyped days of 2006.

“Perhaps that means the vile project of creating human embryos solely with their exploitation and destruction in mind will linger as a stain on the statutes until the wresting of control of the Senate from the Greens. However, my hope is that Labor and the Coalition will unite against the Greens to turn off the futile life-support on this blighted science”, Dr van Gend concluded.

QUOTE FROM REVIEW:


END quote
Recommendation 3: (by majority) The provisions in the current legislation regarding SCNT should not be amended.

However, in reaching this recommendation, the Review Committee notes the lack of progress in SCNT research in animals and humans. The Review Committee believes that this must impact on the Licensing Committee’s interpretation of its statutory obligation, when it is considering any future application for a licence to undertake research involving SCNT, to take into account ‘the likelihood of significant advance in knowledge or improvement in technologies for treatment as a result of the use of excess ART embryos or human eggs, or the creation or use of other embryos, proposed in the application, which could not reasonably be achieved by other means’ when it is considering any future application for a licence to undertake research involving SCNT.

The foregoing represents a majority view of the Review Committee. Reverend Kevin McGovern, however, notes:

The approach recommended by the Lockhart Review, which stated that ‘the greater the potential benefits of an activity, the greater the need for ethical objections to be of a high level and widely accepted in order to prevent that activity. Conversely, where benefits are not yet established, or where there is widespread and deeply held community objection, then total prohibition through the legal system may be justified.’ Reverend McGovern believes that in 2011 the latter standard has been reached for SCNT. In 2006, SCNT seemed the only way to seek the benefits of regenerative medicine. With the advent of induced pluripotent stem cells, this is no longer the case. It is hard to see what SCNT now contributes to the progress of regenerative medicine. What would be lost if Australia’s regulatory regime permitted the harvesting of embryonic stem cells from excess embryos along with research with adult stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells, but did not permit SCNT?

Some scientists have proposed some possible benefits of SCNT, but their arguments are not entirely convincing. Dr Megan Munsie argues that SCNT-ES cells might more closely resemble ES cells than iPS cells. However, the evidence from animal work is that SCNT generally produces damaged or abnormal embryos. This strongly suggests that even if SCNT-ES cells more closely resemble ES cells, these SCNT-ES cells will still be genetically abnormal and inferior to ES cells. Professor Bob Williamson advocates SCNT to generate stem cell lines as disease models to study late-onset conditions. It is not clear, however, why SCNT-derived lines would be more useful than iPSC- lines. Beyond that, there is only the possibility of what ‘might’ be learnt if research into SCNT continues. The proposed benefits of SCNT research therefore seem not entirely convincing, sometimes rather small, and largely theoretical. On the other hand, SCNT involves the most profound of ethical concerns. It is the creation of human life which will be used in research and then destroyed. When people understand this, many people within the community are troubled by SCNT.

For all this, however, this most serious of ethical concerns has been judged less significant than the mostly theoretical benefits which might come if research into SCNT is allowed to continue. With this outcome, Reverend McGovern wonders whether the ethical concerns about SCNT research are ultimately being given anything more than lip-service.

No fizz left in the cloning bottle: Legislative Review finally released

As predicted, Minister Mark Butler delayed tabling the cloning review until today, about 6 weeks after the due date for tabling in Parliament (27th May, which was in fact the date the report was put on his desk). That means potential Senate critics like Barnett, Fielding and McGauran are gone, and a safely 'progressive' Greens party holds the balance of power in the Senate.

Getting to the substance of the report, and for this post limiting it to the central question of cloning: a reading of the relevant section (5.3) shows the lame attempt by the majority of the committee to keep this sickly science on its futile life-support. This section was largely an apologia for the residual shrivelled case for cloning, with only ardent supporters of cloning (Muncie, Williamson, Elefanty) being quoted in the section and no critics quoted at all. As expected, this one-sided chorus culminates in the stale old trope of the morally menopausal: "let's just research everything".

Nevertheless, I detect throughout this report the bracing presence of Rev Kevin McGovern, Director of the Caroline Chisholm Centre for Health Ethics. His dissenting comment appended to Recommendation 3 is a masterpiece of clear thinking and demolishes the ramshackle apologia of the dominant committee members.

Read Rec 3, below, and note the 'however' from the Committee about how there is no avoiding the lack of progress / lack of living up to the hype (yes, they even used the word 'hype' describing the promise of cloning, earlier in the report) and therefore even less likelihood that further experimentation would be approved in Australia.


Recommendation 3: (by majority) The provisions in the current legislation regarding SCNT should not be amended.

However, in reaching this recommendation, the Review Committee notes the lack of progress in SCNT research in animals and humans. The Review Committee believes that this must impact on the Licensing Committee’s interpretation of its statutory obligation, when it is considering any future application for a licence to undertake research involving SCNT, to take into account ‘the likelihood of significant advance in knowledge or improvement in technologies for treatment as a result of the use of excess ART embryos or human eggs, or the creation or use of other embryos, proposed in the application, which could not reasonably be achieved by other means’ when it is considering any future application for a licence to undertake research involving SCNT.

One wonders why they lack the ethical rigour to admit that cloning has failed the test of 'compelling promise and necessity', but McGovern makes that point with great strength straight after the Committee's majority comment. Read and admire this from McGovern: 

The foregoing represents a majority view of the Review Committee. Reverend Kevin McGovern, however, notes:
The approach recommended by the Lockhart Review, which stated that ‘the greater the potential benefits of an activity, the greater the need for ethical objections to be of a high level and widely accepted in order to prevent that activity. Conversely, where benefits are not yet established, or where there is widespread and deeply held community objection, then total prohibition through the legal system may be justified.’ Reverend McGovern believes that in 2011 the latter standard has been reached for SCNT. In 2006, SCNT seemed the only way to seek the benefits of regenerative medicine. With the advent of induced pluripotent stem cells, this is no longer the case. It is hard to see what SCNT now contributes to the progress of regenerative medicine. What would be lost if Australia’s regulatory regime permitted the harvesting of embryonic stem cells from excess embryos along with research with adult stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells, but did not permit SCNT? 

Some scientists have proposed some possible benefits of SCNT, but their arguments are not entirely convincing. Dr Megan Munsie argues that SCNT-ES cells might more closely resemble ES cells than iPS cells. However, the evidence from animal work is that SCNT generally produces damaged or abnormal embryos. This strongly suggests that even if SCNT-ES cells more closely resemble ES cells, these SCNT-ES cells will still be genetically abnormal and inferior to ES cells. Professor Bob Williamson advocates SCNT to generate stem cell lines as disease models to study late-onset conditions. It is not clear, however, why SCNT-derived lines would be more useful than iPSC- lines. Beyond that, there is only the possibility of what ‘might’ be learnt if research into SCNT continues. The proposed benefits of SCNT research therefore seem not entirely convincing, sometimes rather small, and largely theoretical. On the other hand, SCNT involves the most profound of ethical concerns. It is the creation of human life which will be used in research and then destroyed. When people understand this, many people within the community are troubled by SCNT.

For all this, however, this most serious of ethical concerns has been judged less significant than the mostly theoretical benefits which might come if research into SCNT is allowed to continue. With this outcome, Reverend McGovern wonders whether the ethical concerns about SCNT research are ultimately being given anything more than lip-service.

Perfectly stated. If the Minister had done what was required of him by statute and tabled the Report on the 27th May when it was put on his desk, I know Senator Guy Barnett for one would have brought this passage of penetrating argument by McGovern to the attention of fellow Senators. The case for cloning now is so diminished that it could never carry a conscience vote like it did in the hysterically hyped days of 2006.

That, I suspect, is why the dominant players in this Review Committee have opted for the small target strategy, not moving any controversial amendments (other than on IVD gametes - more planned for a later post) and therefore not provoking the Senate to pay any real attention to the existing legislation. Likewise, the Minister's failure to table the Review in May - despite questions from at least one outgoing Senator, as I recall - is part of a small-target strategy of his own.

Perhaps that means the vile project of creating human embryos solely with their exploitation and destruction in mind will linger as a stain on the statues until a change of Government. So be it. For now, cloning is in terminal decline since the advent of iPS, and its futile life-support will indeed be switched off by a more morally serious Government in due course...

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Lung stem cell? Promising, but no reason to take up smoking again...

Very interesting article today in the New Engalnd Journal of Medicine identifying another native adult stem cell, this time resident in the lung:

Human lungs contain identifiable stem cells. In animal models, these cells participate in tissue homeostasis and regeneration. They have the undemonstrated potential to promote tissue restoration in patients with lung disease.

For those without a subscription to NEJM, see the write-up in Forbes.

Very promising as a potential pathway for regeneration of damaged lung tissue.
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