Despite inspirational calendar quotes -- "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what is a heaven for" -- the report's message for patients waiting to be cured is gloomy candour. The task of developing the cures is incredibly complex. "Curing a disease like Type 1 diabetes, doing embryonic stem cell research, or doing cell therapy is not rocket science; it's a lot harder," in the words of Allen Spiegel, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
In fact, scientists's grasp of the basic science of stem cells is feeble at this stage. "Neither stem cell self-renewal nor differentiation is well-understood," the plan acknowledges. "The two characteristic features of embryonic stem cells are their almost unlimited capacity for self-renewal and their ability to differentiate along multiple lineages to produce the wide variety of specialised cells found in the adult. Our understanding of the cellular and molecular basis of each of these important properties is incomplete."
Californian voters approved a US$3 billion bond issue to finance the institute in 2004. With interest, the cost to the state will be about $6 billion. Now, it appears, that the Institute may have nothing to show for its efforts in cures or in royalties by the time it folds its tent and silently steals away. (The word royalties is not mentioned once in the entire report.) Nonetheless, provided legal challenges are overcome, the strategic plan will probably be approved by the CIRM board. ~ San Jose Mercury, Oct 4; New York Times, Oct 5; CIRM strategic plan
With November elections around the corner, a number of races in the US could be decided by voters' views on human embryonic stem cell research.
Missouri: on the ballot is a constitutional amendment to bulletproof the controversial research from attempts to ban it. Senator Jim Talent, a Republican, opposes it, while his Democrat challenger, state auditor Claire McCaskill, supports it. The outcome will be closely watched and if it passes, supporters elsewhere will be emboldened. A recent poll shows that 64% of voters support the amendment.
Wisconsin: Governor Jim Doyle, a Democrat, is using his strong support of the research to differentiate himself from Republican Mark Green. Doyle predicts that it will be a big boost to the state economy.
Michigan: Democrat Governor Jennifer Granholm argues that removing restrictions on stem cell research would reduce health care costs and allow biotech to flourish. Her opponent is an anti-abortion Republican, Dick DeVos, who is firmly opposed to it.
In liberal Massachusetts, both candidates for governor support stem cell research, even though the incumbent, Mitt Romney, a possible Republican candidate for the White House, has stubbornly opposed it. Democrat candidate Deval Patrick has even suggested issuing bonds, as California is planning to do, to provide hope for people suffering from dread diseases.
Six states have already ensured that embryo research is legal and have committed state funds to support it: California (US$3 billion), Connecticut, $20 million; Illinois, $15 million; New Jersey, $5.5 million; Maryland, $15 million; and Massachusetts, $15 million. ~ stateline.org, Oct 5
BRITISH WOMEN STRUCK BY "BIO-PANIC"
More and more single British women and lesbians are embarking upon motherhood without a father, according to the latest IVF statistics. Since 2000, the number of single women rose from 215 to 536 and the number of lesbians from 36 to 156.
Dr Gillian Lockwood, chairman of the British Fertility Society ethics committee, comments: "Many are suddenly realising that this commitment-phobic man they are living with, who says he wants children 'at some point', cannot hear their biological clocks ticking. These are wonderful, educated, professional women who are making a definite choice about motherhood."
The Blair government intends to scrap a provision in the law governing fertility treatment which stipulates that a father must be involved in the birth of IVF children. In any case, this is often just a formality, and many clinics are quietly ignoring it. ~ Telegraph, Oct 9
EUTHANASIA BY STEALTH EMERGES IN UK
The long campaign against euthanasia in the UK is over, writes Dr James Le Fanu, a columnist for the London Telegraph. Even though 50 British citizens have travelled to the Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas, in Zurich, there has not been a single prosecution. Relying upon a 2002 case in which doctors were allowed to switch off a ventilator for a woman who wanted to die, a court held recently that a local authority had no right to prevent a husband from taking his wife to Zurich.
Le Fanu contends that the law now effectively permits euthanasia and assisted suicide -- so long as those seeking it have enough money for the trip and a partner who is willing to accompany them. ~ London Telegraph, Oct 10
"FRANKENBUNNIES" ON THE WAY IN UK
Scientists call them early stage hybrid embryos; the media calls them "Frankenbunnies". Whatever the name, they're controversial: the nucleus of a human cell inserted into the emptied egg of a rabbit. It is an ethical barrier which has not been crossed before by mainstream Western scientists. But now three teams of British stem cell scientists have applied to create them to study diseases and create drugs. The regulatory body, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, has encouraged the application, so approval seems likely.
The scientists, who work in London, Edinburgh and Newcastle, insist that the resulting embryo will be 99.9% human and only 0.1% rabbit. The only rabbit genetic material will be what remains in the mitochondria. The entities -- whatever they are -- will be destroyed before they reach 14 days.
A scientist in Shanghai has already created dozens of rabbit-human hybrids and derived stem cells from them. Now that it has become clear that thousands of human eggs will be needed to create cloned embryos for research, scientists are looking for other sources. Rabbit eggs are abundant and cheap.
"If we learn how to do this with animal eggs, we should be able to have more success with human eggs, and I'd much rather know that if we were going to ask women to donate eggs that we were very likely to get stem cells as a result," said Chris Shaw, a neuroscientist who is collaborating with the London and Edinburgh teams. "We know this is a huge challenge after the downfall of Dr Hwang in South Korea, who failed to get stem cells despite having 2,000 human eggs." ~ Guardian, Oct 5; ThisIsLondon, Oct 5
ISRAELI IVF FAILS TO RAISE BIRTH RATE
The conflict between Jews and Arabs in the state of Israel has many battlegrounds -- and one of them is the IVF clinic. According to a feature in the Toronto Globe and Mail, Israel has the world's highest rate of IVF. More than 3,300 cycles were performed per million people in 2002, compared to 200-300 in the US and Canada. There are two reasons for this. The first is the government's fear of a slow erosion of the Jewish majority. The population is currently 76% Jewish and 20% Arab -- but the Jewish birthrate is 2.7 children per woman while the Arab Muslim rate is still about 4. The country needs every possible Jewish baby.
The second is that Judaism encourages large families. "The first [instruction] we have in the Bible is 'be fruitful and multiply,' " said Avraham Steinberg, a professor of medical ethics at Jerusalem's Hebrew University. "This combination of, on one hand, having an ideology to have children and seeing this as a blessing, and on the other hand having this survivor philosophy - this combination calls for this state support for fertility. I think it's worth it, based on the principle that couples who have a chance should be given a chance."
As a result, Israel has one of the world's most aggressive, state- supported fertility schemes. Every woman, married or not, has the right to have two children through IVF. This has helped IVF clinics to provide more high-level services, but it has not boosted the success rate for IVF. Even though the number of IVF treatments doubled between 1996 and 2003, the number of women who give birth still hovers around 15 to 16%. ~ Globe and Mail, Oct 7
SCIENTISTS TOO TOUCHY, SAYS EDITOR
Scientists are too ready to jump to the defence of wayward colleagues and to accept a lack of transparency in public debate, according to the deputy editor of the magazine The Scientist. Dr Ivan Oransky was commenting on a recent controversy. More than a hundred clinical researchers publicly criticised an exposé of conflict of interest by their colleagues in the Los Angeles Times by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. They contended that David Willman's allegations that a senior researcher at the National Institutes of Health, Thomas Walsh, had manipulated a trial to give it more chance of success were irresponsible. They would tarnish the image of drug development and could deter patients from participating in clinical trials.
But Dr Oransky points out that Walsh had already been found guilty of serious misconduct for accepting US$100,000 from 25 drug companies without reporting it. That fact was not mentioned in the scientists' denunciation.
Scientists also complained that the government had been heavy-handed in jailing plague researcher Thomas Butler for two years for shipping the plague bacterium to Tanzania without the necessary paperwork, putting FedEx employees at risk. "But I don't think scientists want to have [a] debate," Oransky says. "Instead, they want to praise Walsh's and Butler's research as saving the lives of innocent children... and suggest they're above the law. And I just don't see how that attitude strengthens clinical trials."
Oransky argues that scientists fail to acknowledge their own failings. "What is going to hurt clinical research and patients is the continued lack of transparency by a number of researchers... When someone hides something, I want to know why. If there's nothing wrong with financial relationships between researchers and drug companies, why not disclose them?" ~ Boston Globe, Oct 7
POPE ON STEM CELLS
In the middle of the controversy over his ruminations on Islam, Pope Benedict XVI took time out to deliver a stern message about the ethics of using human embryonic stem cells. (The English translation was released only recently.) "No one can dispose of human life. An insurmountable limit to our possibilities of doing and of experimenting must be established. The human being is not a disposable object, but every single individual represents God's presence in the world," he said.
He linked social pathologies to work in the laboratory. "In the face of the actual suppression of the human being there can be no compromises or prevarications. One cannot think that a society can effectively combat crime when society itself legalises crime in the area of conceived life." ~ Vatican website
IN BRIEF: Murdoch on stem cells; India; animal rights
Gloom from Murdoch camp: Australian breast cancer ambassador Sarah Murdoch, wife of Lachlan and daughter-in-law of Rupert, is backing adult stem cell research. She told the National Press Club that the National Breast Cancer Foundation is funding only adult stem cells. "I truly believe that embryonic stem cells will be a thing of the past." ~ Adelaide Advertiser, Oct 5
Indian family asks to die: Six members of a family who have all been stricken with a mysterious wasting disease have written to Indian president asking for euthanasia. The family says it has lost all hope. "The illness has ruined our lives," they say. "It is better if the government allows us to die on our own." ~ BBC news, Oct 3
Animal rights activists jailed: Now that half of the most violent of Britain's animal rights activists have been jailed, criminal protests are beginning to drop. According to the policeman overseeing the fight against extremists, Steve Pearl, harassment of people working for animal research companies has dropped from two or three incidents a week to one or two a month. Police now believe that the total number of violent animal rights activists is small -- perhaps only 20 or 25. ~ Telegraph, Oct 1
Patient advocates are dismayed, but the word from the world's best funded stem cell institute is that there will be no cures for at least 15 years. A proposed strategic plan recently released by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine predicts that, at best within 10 years it will achieve proof of principle of a stem cell treatment for at least one disease, with another two to four treatments in early clinical trials. (Nowhere does the report even mention adult stem cells.) At that point funds for the Institute dry up along with projections. However, the institute's president, Zach Hall, has predicted that it might take 15 years before a medical product emerges.