The Folly of Faith-Based Science
I had heard that adult stem cells (ASC) were already being used in medical treatments, and were proving to be far more promising than embryonic stem cells (ESC)in many hundreds (or was it thousands?) of studies. It didn’t surprise me that this would be under- or unreported in the general media. However, I hadn’t realized how great the superiority of ASC’s is, and how remote the promise of ESC is until reading the article by Michael Fumento in the April issue of The American Spectator. Did you realize (quotes from the article):
- “ASC’s have been treating human cancer (via bone marrow transplants) since the 1950’s, and today are used in over 70 treatments or cures. They are being tested in over 1,300 human clinical trials, with the number growing monthly”.
- “Meanwhile, [...] it remains that they [ESC's] have rarely been tested on animals and never on a human. Outside the petri dish, there’s been virtually no progress towards curing or treating the over 70 diseases ESC backers say lie in the future of their research”.
- that the “dirtiest of the dirty secrets in the ESC research closet is that according to many top experts in biology, science writers, and even those whose entire work and reputations concern the field, promises of cures are nowhere closer to being redeemed than since they were first made. In fact, the trend appears to be towards lengthening the predicted day of deliverance to anywhere from ‘decades’ to perhaps not even in our lifetimes”.
- “The magic word as to when we’ll get the cure for Alzheimer’s or Parkinsonism or diabetes has always been ‘decade’, as in ‘a decade away’ or ‘a decade off’[...] Few seem to have noticed that the ‘decade away’ schedule kees getting bumped. In fact, it began over a decade ago.”
So, what is the motivation in demanding continued funding for such speculative research (ESC) with such distant (and possibly non-existent) payoff, when doing so takes money away from perfecting and expanding procedures (ASC) that have proven effectiveness right now? Tell me, whose science is “faith-based”?
Filed under: Culture of death, Life, Politics, Society, Culture, Science, Stem cell research
You can’t really measure the superiority of one cell type over another by how many treatments they have created, simply because that is also affected by allocations of research funding and restrictions on research.
Embryonic stem cell research has been banned and restricted in many countries and states, and funding (especially government funding) has been cut for many programs. Scientists are less likely to investigate ESCs because of the public opposition to their research.
It’s hardly a fair race if one competitor is savagely attacked during the race, and the other is not.
As I recall (can’t find where I laid the magazine this morning) not a single researcher claimed that the their forecasts (of when we could expect applicable results) were affected by inadequate funding. This raises another point the author made- that ESC research is for the most part theoretical, pure science being done by micro biologists, etc, trying to solve intriguing theoretical challenges. The ASC work on the other hand is being done by medical doctors and those on the daily front lines of finding cures that work NOW.
If you go to the National Institute of Health, and look at their Stem Cell FAQ (if that link doesn’t work, it is at http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/faqs.asp ).
Under “Have human embryonic stem cells been used successfully to treat any human diseases yet?” the answer clearly points the finger at President Bush’s restrictions on federal funding.
I mean, we know that ESCs can cure diseases in animal models. Surely if the researchers in the US and Europe had federal funding at their disposal, they could have cured many human patients by now.
Odd…if they are pointing the finger at President Bush, it is clear- to me at least- that they are giving him credit for being the first to make any federal funds available for hESC research.
It looks like you meant to create a hyperlink in your last paragraph- the phrase “cure diseases in animal models” looks like a hyperlink, but doesn’t connect anywhere. Can you correct that?
Even so, it seems a curious phrase- animal “models”. What are those? Presumably not actual animals, just animal “models”? When will cures in actual animals occur? Not to mention actual human beings?
Well, in Mr. Fumento’s article he quotes a British fertility expert (and ESC researcher) Professor Lord Robert Winston saying in a 2005 lecture, “I am not entirely convinced that embryonic stem cells will, in my lifetime, and possibly anybody’s lifetime for that matter, be holding quite the promise that we desperately hope they will”. He then let the cat out of the bag when he followed up with this explanation: “One of the problems is that in order to persuade the public that we must do this work, we often go rather too far in promising what we might achieve”, i.e., in order to persuade the public, we deceive the public.
The roadblocks to the applicability of ESC’s are biological, not financial. “But give ESC research enough money and we can- (eventually)- solve the biology!” it’s advocates say.
Meanwhile, ASC’s are used today in over 70 treatments or cures, are being tested in over 1300 human clinical trials, and more trials are being approved monthly. So the argument sounds like this- if we take away enough money from what works now, and pour it into what doesn’t work, we might/ perhaps/ possibly/ surely ought to be able some day to make it do… something wonderful.
That does not sound at all rational, so again I ask- whose science is more “faith-based”?
Yes, I must have misread that FAQ. Anyway, researchers have complained many times about federal funding being restricted only to embryonic cell lines created before that date in 2001. And despite the fact the senate has repeatedly listened to scientists who want to be able to use new cell lines (even those already existing from IVF) rather than the old, less-viable ones, President Bush repeatedly vetoed their bills.
As a consequence, of the $607 million of NIH funding provided in 2005 for stem cell research, only $39 million was used for human embryonic stem cells. And then you wonder why embryonic stem cell research isn’t yielding amazing results…
There is an editorial in the current issue of New Scientist, titled ‘Still no substitute for embryonic stem cells’ , which says: “ESCs remain the gold standard for pluripotent cells” (link: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19826542.700-editorial-still-no-substitute-for-embryonic-stem-cells.html). This is a common opinion among researchers - ASCs are easier to get funding for, and easier to get consent for, but ESCs have the potential to be so much better.
It appears either my html isn’t working, or it isn’t allowed, but the link I tried to give was this one from my blog: http://hplusbiopolitics.wordpress.com/2008/02/22/embryonic-stem-cells-can-cure/
Well, has anyone ever heard of a researcher who didn’t complain that his work had the potential for amazing results if only he could have more money? “Only ” $39 million dollars… and what of non-NIH sources? Again, the real roadblocks that they themselves acknowledge in their research are technical, not financial.
The “New Scientist” article is subscription only, so couldn’t read that one. I notice that the quote says that “ESC’s remain the gold standard for pluripotent cells”, not the gold standard for therapeutic applications. To focus on pluripotency is to miss the point- and reinforces the point that ESC research is mainly about solving intriguing questions in pure (vs. applied) science.
Pluripotency has a high “cool”factor, it’s “sexy science”, but it appears that it is increasingly irrelevant in the face of advances in ASC successes.
And the other link to the blog post seemed to say “Look! We’ve finally succeeded in doing something that ASC already does!”