Word: stems
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Feelings run so strong on this issue that opponents have built a practical case to bolster the ethical one. The promise of embryonic stem cells has been oversold, they argue, while actual progress using adult stem cells has been overlooked. Though advocates talk longingly about the 400,000 frozen embryos in fertility clinics, a Rand Corp. study in 2003 found that 86% of them have been designated by patients for their future use or someone else's--there are approximately 100 "snowflake kids," children born from adopted frozen embryos--and only 2.8% for research. Even if that number rose with...
...could argue that he has made a career of it, holding fast to positions that many voters reject, as a sign of strength in these dangerous times. So his willingness to exercise his first-ever veto this week on a bill that would expand federal funding for human embryonic-stem-cell research, which 2 out of 3 voters favor, is not just a way to stroke his political base. "People like leadership much better than a finger in the wind," says White House press secretary Tony Snow. As Bush explained to him while in St. Petersburg, Russia...
...most Republicans are not George Bush--among other things, they still need to get re-elected--which is why, as a Northeastern G.O.P. official said, the issue of stem-cell research could be "a stinker" for the party. "When you're portrayed as arguing against treatment of disease," he admits, "it's a tough place to be politically." Democrats, who overwhelmingly support expanded research, seem happy with the looming veto as a consolation prize; some were already running ads. "It's going to be a symbol of standing in the way of progress," says Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel, whose...
Ever since Bush limited federal funding to a small number of existing stem-cell lines in August 2001, research advocates have been worried that the U.S. would lose its edge in the revolutionary field of regenerative medicine. The "presidential lines" were of limited value; there were not nearly as many as scientists initially thought would be available--more like 21 than 62, and they were old, in some cases damaged and most likely contaminated with the mouse feeder cells and calf serum used to grow them. Top U.S. scientists, many of whom depend on federal grants, decamped to labs...
...good news for all sides is that over the course of this long argument, researchers have learned more about how stem cells work, and the science has outrun the politics. Adult cells, such as those found in bone marrow, were thought to be less valuable than embryonic cells, which are "pluripotent" master cells that can turn into anything from a brain cell to a toenail. But adult cells may be more elastic than scientists thought, and could offer shortcuts to treatment that embryonic cells can't match...