Why Superman is a poor saviour for superhuman research
New Zealand Herald (Auckland) February 27, 2003
by Carolyn Moynihan

A former film star's plight cannot be allowed to undermine an ethical approach to stem cell research, writes Carolyn Moynihan.

In an age dominated by images important debates are often won by those who pack the greatest visual, and therefore emotional punch. A case in point is Christopher (Superman) Reeve, whose advocacy of "therapeutic" cloning carries the considerable moral weight and visual drama of his determination to walk again after paralysis from a spinal cord injury.

When Reeve gets in front of the camera, or, as recently, into the Weekend Herald and tells us that we must allow the cloning of human embryos to provide stem cells for cures for people like him; when he is surrounded by his family, devoted caregivers and a team of earnest scientists - what can we say?

Can there be any problem with cloning that trumps such noble desires and human effort?

Frankly, yes. Contrary to what Reeve and some scientists say, stem cell technology using human embryos does involve the destruction of human lives. If they were not human and not alive they would be useless for the purpose they are supposed to serve: the regeneration of damaged tissues and organs.

It makes no difference whether the embryos are the "surplus products" of IVF procedures or whether they are cloned from a person solely for research and therapeutic uses; they are human beings in the first stage of life and the harvesting of their stem cells kills them.

To many people this destructive manipulation of human life is abhorrent. It can be rationalised in various ways but it will always be, at best, controversial, and this is hardly what a good scientist would wish for as the basis for a new generation of therapies.

The good news - and we never seem to hear this from Christopher Reeve and friends - is that the future of stem cell research does not depend on using human embryos. Adult stem cells, which can be obtained from a person's own body (child or adult), are already showing far greater promise of delivering cures for a range of conditions including spinal cord injury.

Only a few weeks ago, according to a Herald report, Professor Richard Faull of the University of Auckland School of Medicine told a conference in Adelaide of encouraging results from international research using adult stem cells to repair human brains damaged by diseases such as Huntington's, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

Professor Faull's comment on the significance of this research is worth quoting: "By tapping into and genetically engineering the adult stem cells from the diseased adult brain, we would overcome major ethical, immunological and technical problems associated with the more controversial area of embryonic stem cell technology." This is a scientist speaking, not a religious fanatic, and he acknowledges major ethical problems.

Notice also there are immunological problems with embryo cells. Embryonic stem cell technology is not merely a question of using "unwanted" IVF embryos, since cells from these injected into patients would be rejected by their immune system.

As Reeve's campaign makes clear, therapies require making clones of a patient in order to extract compatible stem cells. The problem is, each clone is a new human being.

But remember, we do not in any sense need to do this. Embryonic cells may be more "plastic" than adult cells, but genetic engineering can make them adaptable enough, and the results of research so far, as reported in leading scientific journals, are very promising. A few examples:

• German doctors have used a patient's own bone marrow stem cells to regenerate tissue damaged by a heart attack;

• US doctors have taken stem cells from the brain of a patient with Parkinson's disease and reimplanted them, resulting in an 83 per cent improvement in the patient;

• Melissa Holley, paraplegic as a result of a severed spinal cord, has been treated with her own immune cells and regained movement of her toes, and bladder control;

• In the UK a three-year-old boy has been cured of a fatal disease by the use of stem cells extracted from his sister's placenta.

By contrast, embryonic stem cells have not helped a single patient. What they have done is provide pharmaceutical companies with a useful medium for testing how drugs work-even more useful when the embryo cells are cultured on aborted fetal tissue.

They can refine their products before starting trials on human subjects, thus saving money and shortening the lead time for bringing new drugs on the market. Private companies and venture capitalists regard stem cell research aimed at cures for Alzheimer's and diabetes sufferers as far too risky.

Advocates argue that it is too risky only because of legal restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. But those restraints have served to show us that there is a better way of pursuing stem cell technology and the wonderful therapies it promises.

I have a sister afflicted with Parkinson's disease, having developed it as a young woman more than 40 years ago. It is a cruel disease and I would love to see a cure for it. But would I want a cure at the price of manufacturing human beings and cannibalising them for body parts? No way.

Good science is ethical science and cures will come from it as they always have. Adult stem cell research lacks the emotive power of the Reeve factor, but it's the one with runs on the board.

Carolyn Moynihan is an Auckland writer with a special interest in bioethics.