2008 GOP platform calls for total ban on embryonic stem cell research

Although I spend most of my time trying to keep Declan's petition to the UN on research cloning of embryos and stem cells going, the fact is that I believe that most of the emails I am sending to scientists and academics inviting them to sign the petition are still ending up in spam – it would explain the low number of out-of-office autoreplies I continue to receive. (Our local council's Idea Store Whitechapel library has imposed on both our membership cards a maximum of 3 hours of PC access per day since 29 January, despite that for several months previous we were given "additional time" subject to computer availability in accordance with "Idea Stores PC Usage Policy".) On Wednesday I emailed 105 scientists from the Department of Molecular & Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley and got six autoreplies (from 2nd, 15th, 22nd, 42nd, 70th and 83rd emails); on Thursday it was 95 emails to the American Association of Anatomists which yielded five autoreplies (from 21st, 22nd, 30th, 47th and 74th emails). On Friday I sent 175 emails for five autoreplies: 14 to the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research in the UK, one autoreply (1st email); and 161 to the Association of Medical School Microbiology and Immunology Chairs, four autoreplies (none before the 78th email). It doesn't surprise me then that on Wednesday night I woke up to a London corporation worker hosing me as well as the pavement (I sleep on the outside; Declan on the inside with our well-tied bags) – a first since we started sleeping in the two-step porch back in November 2006. He looked at me impassively when I sat up – I was quite visible in light which shone through the glass porch door – and continued his hosing. He won't have an excuse next time though: since Friday night, down-light from two overhead bulbs makes the porch feel like an operating theatre – another first.

St Paul, host to the Republican National Convention

The 2008 Republican (GOP) Platform Committee has voted to ban embryonic stem-cell research, including privately funded research using frozen embryos from in-vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics, reports the National Review on Wednesday under the title "Going Out With a Bang". The GOP platform, which states "We call for a ban on human cloning and a ban on the creation of or experimentation on human embryos for research purposes", was passed by state delegates on Wednesday and will be adopted at this week's Republican National Convention in St Paul, Minneapolis.

Ken Blackwell, a former Ohio secretary of state who served as a vice chairman of the committee, said he took particular interest in the subcommittee working on values, which addressed the issue of embryonic stem-cell research. "I think science and history have bridged the different perspectives on that," The Blade reported him as saying. "It's clear to me that breakthroughs in adult stem-cell research make the issue over embryonic stem cells less controversial. This was a discussion driven by the exploration of facts." He said presidential nominee Sen John McCain's advisers and staff were represented throughout the platform-drafting process and that the differences between his beliefs and those of the committee are not indicative of a party divided.

As a senator, McCain has voted in favour of allowing research on human embryos left over from fertility treatments. Nonetheless, advocates of greater federal funding of embryonic stem cell research are worried he will do "an about-face" on the issue if he wins the presidency, says The Hill in an article dated 12 August titled "Stem cell backers doubt McCain's support". McCain's presidential campaign has sought to win over religious conservatives and other factions, including activists who oppose stem cell research. Rep Mike Castle (Del), the chief Republican sponsor of the 2006 and 2007 stem cell bills vetoed by President Bush, told The Hill he wasn't sure whether a President McCain would sign stem cell research legislation. "The question becomes: Will the pro-life movement be able to persuade him otherwise between now and the election?" said Castle.

National Right to Life Committee Executive Director David O’Steen said anti-abortion rights activists think they can turn McCain to their way of thinking on stem cells. "We’d be hopeful that he’d leave [President George W Bush’s] policy in place," O’Steen said. What McCain might actually do, he cautioned, is "an open question". McCain’s campaign did not respond to The Hill’s questions or numerous attempts to obtain a comment for their article. In February, the campaign issued a statement to the Wisconsin State Journal standing behind his record but containing the language O’Steen quoted as evidence of McCain’s flexibility on the issue. "John McCain does support federal funding for embryonic stem cell research," the February statement says in part. "[H]e believes that recent scientific breakthroughs may render this debate academic," according to the statement. "I don’t think he’s ideologically committed to embryonic stem cell research," O’Steen said of McCain. "While Barack Obama is ideologically committed to it, John McCain has indicated that [embryonic] stem cell research is, in his words, 'academic'," he said.

Scientists at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, which is funded by the government, announced on 22 August that they had successfully made stem cells from wisdom teeth that had been frozen for three years after being removed from a 10 year old girl. The Baptist Press commented on 26 August: "The developments seem to provide further evidence that advances in such therapies can be accomplished without the unethical step of extracting stem cells from a five- or six-day-old embryo, an action that results in the destruction of the tiny human being." (The BP was formed in 1946 by the Southern Baptist Convention, which is America's largest evangelical denomination with about 16 million members in America, making it the second largest Christian denomination in the United States after the Catholic Church.)

Meanwhile, research published on 27 August in Nature by a team lead by Doug Melton at Harvard Stem Cell Institute that showed it is possible to take a type of adult pancreas cell that doesn't normally produce insulin and reprogram them to produce insulin, prompted Richard Dorflinger, deputy director of the Secretariat of the pro-life activities of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, to argue that the discovery was the latest evidence that research involving human embryos is no longer necessary. "This adds to the large and growing list of studies helping to make embryonic stem cells irrelevant to medical progress," Doerflinger told the Washington Post. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the state stem cell agency, stated the following regarding the research (the full statement, titled "CIRM Applauds the Reprogramming of Pancreas Cells to Produce Insulin Saying It Points to the Value in Pursuing All Research Paths in Regenerative Medicine", can be read here):

CIRM applauds the creativity and value in the research reported and shares the excitement in the promise it might hold. However, it emphatically refutes assertions by opponents of embryonic stem cell research that this new study proves embryonic stem cell research is not necessary. In fact, the Harvard study poignantly points out the value of embryonic stem cell research. Asked if his new findings eliminate the need for work with hESC and iPS cells, the lead Harvard researcher, Doug Melton, said: 'This is a point I want to stress: We are continuing to do research using human embryonic stem cells and iPS cells. We would not be where we are today without having worked with human embryonic stem cells. These unique cells provide a window into human development, and disease development, that is needed if we are to make further progress in understanding and treating chronic diseases. They remain the key to long-term progress in regenerative medicine.' The research reported in Nature is a major advance but it has significant limitations.

Embryonic stem cell research should not be held hostage to politics or religion, argues Nancy Falchuk, the national president of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, in a piece that appeared in The Jewish Daily Forward on Thursday titled "Support Stem-Cell Research". She writes: "Droves of members of both major political parties support the research, evidenced by the congressional passage in 2006 and 2007 of bipartisan bills that, had they not been vetoed by President Bush, would have lifted the federal restrictions. Similarly, support for stem-cell research is not defined by religion. Millions of Americans with strongly held religious beliefs support stem-cell research, a position backed by all major streams of Judaism."

Steven Pinker, world-renowned thinker and Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University - and an honorary associate of NAC and early signatory of Declan’s petition – wrote in an article for The New Republic, titled "The Stupidity of Dignity", that "the [Catholic] Church's franchise to guide people in the most profound events of their lives - birth, death, and reproduction - is in danger of being undermined when biomedicine scrambles the rules". Well, it’s no wonder that for the Christian right "breakthroughs in adult stem-cell research make the issue over embryonic stem cells less controversial". This is a discussion hardly "driven by the exploration of facts". ("The Stupidity of Dignity" article can be read here; alternatively, see blog of 23 May "The Stupidity of Dignity".)