Hunting medicine's holy grail

Since Monday I have emailed 402 scientists and academics inviting them to sign Declan's petition to the UN on research cloning of embryos and stem cells (last week it was one signature from 1,072 emails). As usual, the vast majority of the emails were dumped straight to spam boxes or to cyberspace (see blog of 4 September “Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding”) – probably cyberspace because yesterday I included bogus emails (for example, I added an extra “u” to “uk”) and none were returned as undelivered. It may explain why yesterday, out of a total of 173 emails, I only got five out-of-office autoreplies, and just one signatory. Never mind that 59 went to The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge and 64 to the University College London Medical School – we have several distinguished signatories from each. There is a pattern starting to emerge: signatories come from emails sent either immediately before or after an autoreply – such was the case with two out of the four signatories on Monday.

Spam is not the only difficulty. We also have problems with internet access and computer bookings in our local council’s flagship library, the Idea Store Whitechapel (see blog of 13 October “Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council”). Only yesterday there was almost no internet access for near on three hours; my booked computer automatically shut down and restarted six times (not even a member of staff could explain why); and in my third and final hour I couldn’t log in for fifteen minutes (this has been happening for some days now) – since 29 January, we have been restricted to a 3-hour maximum computer use per day on each of our membership cards, despite that for several months previous we were given “additional time” subject to computer availability in accordance with the council's then and current “Idea Stores PC Usage Policy”.



World-renowned biologist Alan Trounson, President of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (and an honorary associate of NAC), was a guest speaker at AusBiotech 2008, Australia’s biotechnology conference, which took place in Melbourne this week (26-29 October). He discussed worldwide optimism in respect of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research, pending human clinical trials and the potential of stem cell therapy. In his only interview while in Australia, he told the Sunday Herald Sun: “The world is incredibly optimistic about the use of stem cells, embryonic or other. There will be treatments, there will be cures. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel.” (The CIRM provides the world’s biggest source of funding for hESC research, with a budget of more than $3 billion.)

The stem cell pioneer said that hESC research was ready to prove its potential. “There have been tremendous clinical advances using human embryonic stem cell therapy,” Trounson said. “Things are moving very quickly.” He said scientists working with US biotech company Geron would begin human clinical trials within months following the success of testing the therapy on rats with injured spinal cords. It will be the first time hESC therapy has been tested on patients.

He said more human clinical trials were also imminent. They included testing the ability of hESCs to repair damage to the retina causing blindness (see blog of 26 August “Fighting for the Right to Clone”) and, within two years, overcoming diabetes by using the cells to mature into pancreas cells to produce insulin. “There is a myeloprolific condition that ends up multiplying red blood cells and becoming a preliminary to developing leukemia,” he said. “The scientists were able to block that using a human embryonic stem cell drug and it is now in early trials.”

Stem cell critics are now using the recent advances in adult stem cell research to forward a political agenda, says the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR). On 22 October, the ISSCR published an open letter in support of all forms of stem cell research, which has been signed by more than 375 of its members. From the introduction to the letter: “As scientists, we are concerned that efforts to favor one arm of stem cell research at the expense of another are based on unsound interpretations of scientific discoveries. Therefore, the ISSCR joined with other leading scientists to issue an open letter to reiterate the urgent need for support for all types of stem cell research, asking members to endorse this open letter.” From the letter (para 2):

Recent exciting advances in the reprogramming of cells in adult human tissues, to convert them into cells that resemble embryonic stem (ES) cells (induced pluripotent stem cells, iPS cells), or to redirect cell fate to enhance tissue repair, have captured the imagination of the scientific community worldwide. Many scientists are very optimistic about the future of this new research. Unfortunately, some in political circles have interpreted this enthusiasm as a verdict that research on human ES cells is no longer necessary. This conclusion is premature and is not scientifically justified.

Meanwhile, the Detroit News reported on Saturday that Michigan voters appear to have growing doubts about Proposal 2, the 4 November ballot proposal that would loosen restrictions on embryonic stem cell research in Michigan (see, for example, blog of 17 October “Stem Cell Research: Five Basic Things To Know”). In an emotional struggle, supporters and opponents have committed $10 million, according to campaign reports filed Friday. A new, Detroit News/WXYZ Action News poll shows the initiative, Proposal 2, leading by 46-43 percent – within the 5-point error margin. A month ago – before a saturation campaign of advertising paid in part by $2.79 million from the Michigan Catholic Conference – it was favoured 50 percent to 32 percent, reports the News. According to one pollster, when a ballot proposal has less than 50 percent support this close to Election Day, it usually is rejected because undecided voters typically vote against ballot proposals. (See here for a series of videos from the University of Michigan in support of hESC research.)

As I wrote in the previous blog, our campaign in support of hESC research and therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), has been greatly simplified; and that the serious threat to hESC research of the “non-material neuroscience” movement will be dealt with in “Embryonic stem cell research” under “Ethics”. Well, material in an article I have come across in the New York Times by Yale psychologist Paul Bloom (a signatory of Declan’s petition) will likely feature prominently in promulgating the view that the brain is no place to invoke the ‘God of the gaps’ (see blog of 23 October “Creationists declare war over the brain”). Bloom writes: “When people wonder about the moral status of animals or fetuses or stem cells, for instance, they often ask: Does it have a soul? If the answer is yes, then it is a precious individual, deserving of compassion and care.” He concludes by stating: “The great conflict between science and religion in the last century was over evolutionary biology. In this century, it will be over psychology, and the stakes are nothing less than our souls.”

British lawmakers back human-animal embryo research

On Friday I emailed 228 scientists and academics inviting them to sign Declan's petition to the UN on research cloning of embryos and stem cells. And, as usual, the vast majority of the emails went straight to spam boxes (or to cyberspace, see blog of 4 September “Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding”). It didn't matter where I sent them – all I got was a total of six out-of-office autoreplies. Unsurprisingly, we didn’t get a single signature despite that, for example, 90 emails went to scientists in the University of Bristol’s School of Chemistry, from where we have four signatories. In fact, from all the emails I sent on 17, 19, 20, 22 and 24 October (115, 132, 285, 312, and 228 respectively) – 1,072 in total – we have only had one signatory (see previous blog “Creationists declare war over the brain”).

UK Houses of Parliament

On Wednesday, the British lower house of parliament approved legislation allowing scientists to create human-animal “hybrid embryos” for medical research, “in the biggest shake-up of embryology laws in two decades”, reports the Agence France-Presse. (According to the Telegraph, hybrid embryos are known to have been created in America and China. Canada has recently voted to allow them, while India is currently considering the move.)

Despite opposition from religious and pro-life groups, MPs in the House of Commons backed the human embryology and fertilisation bill by 355 votes to 129. The wide-ranging bill, which has been debated for months (see, for example, blog of 20 May “UK parliament backs human-animal embryo research”) would also allow parents with a sick child to create a “saviour sibling” to be harvested for cells to cure their older brother or sister. It will now go to a vote in the House of Lords, and could be law by November.

Urging MPs to back all of the measures, Dawn Primarolo, the health minister, said: “One in seven couples need help with fertility treatment, 350,000 people live with Alzheimer’s, every week there are five children born and three young people die from cystic fibrosis – all issues that this Bill addresses.” Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose youngest son suffers from cystic fibrosis, attended the Commons in person to vote for the proposals, having urged MPs to back the move.

Hybrid embryos, created by inserting the nuclei of a human cell into an empty animal egg (they are genetically 99.9 per cent human), are a tool for generating disease-specific embryonic stem cells without the need to use donated human eggs; the cells will not be used in patients, but be used to model diseases in the lab, test new therapies and study cloning processes. They can ensure a more plentiful supply of stem cells for use in research into treating conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Our campaign in support of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research and therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), has been greatly simplified. Gone now are the sections I had planned – “Science and Religion”, “Science and the Law” and “Religion in Public Life” – mainly because Declan was right all along: they distract from the campaign. Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International are still our main models. Like Greenpeace UK, we will include in the homepage menu “Blog”, “About NAC”, “What we do” and “Media centre”.

What for Greenpeace UK is the subsection “Climate change” – after you click “What we do” – for us will be “Embryonic stem cell research” and will include the following associated subsections: “Science”, “Law”, “Ethics” and “Applications”. And, as in the Greenpeace International website, each of these associated subsections will be further subdivided; for example, the serious threat to hESC research of the “non-material neuroscience” movement (see previous blog) will be dealt with under “Ethics”. The subsection “Somatic-cell nuclear transfer” will include the same associated subsections. In it, we will publish, for example, all the various letters that have been signed by Nobel Laureates in support of SCNT.

We won’t be announcing Declan’s petition to the UN in this website since I believe it's best if scientists and academics sign it first. What interested person would say no to a petition that has been signed by top scientists and academics from around the world, including 24 Nobel Laureates (as of today)?

Creationists declare war over the brain

As I wrote two days ago, in a letter dated 14 October the European Court of Human Rights informed Declan that the Court decided on 7 October to declare the application in the case of Heavey v the United Kingdom “inadmissible”. In many ways I am relieved the Court won’t have further dealings with Declan: two days after the Court’s letter of 16 June informing him that his application of 8 September 2007 would be considered “as soon as practicable”, our main bag, containing all our money and documents, was robbed in the Catholic Dellow Centre (see blog of 18 June “Declan robbed in the Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre”); and the day before the Court’s decision of 7 October, The Big Issue informed Declan, in effect, that after almost two years selling The Big Issue magazine – sold by homeless people on registered street pitches – from 10 November we will not be able to have a registered pitch (see blog of 7 October “Letter to the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Big Issue”).

The vast majority of emails I send to scientists and academics inviting them to sign Declan’s petition to the UN on research cloning of embryos and stem cells are still being dumped to spam boxes (or to cyberspace, see blog of 4 September “Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding”). Yesterday I sent a total of 312 emails but only got eight out-of-office autoreplies – 210 emails went to the United States, from which I got two autoreplies. In fact, from all the emails I sent on Friday, Sunday, Monday, and yesterday – 844 in total (115, 132, 285 and 312 respectively) – no one has signed; if I include Thursday last, it is one signing from 1,004 emails.

As I stated in the previous blog, in addition to number of autoreplies, there are two other reasons why it is not credible that no scientist or academic would sign Declan’s petition: within two weeks Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is likely to be elected President of the United States (he will be lifting the funding restrictions on human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research imposed by President George W Bush), and the United Nations is set to revisit the issue of therapeutic cloning next week (see blog of 19 October “United Nations Set to Revisit Cloning Issue”); not to mention that the petition has been signed by 564 scientists and academics, including 24 Nobel Laureates.



An article in this week’s New Scientist by Amanda Gefter, an editor on New Scientist’s Opinion section based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, argues that there is a growing “non-material neuroscience” movement that is attempting to resurrect Cartesian dualism – the idea that brain and mind are two fundamentally different kinds of things, material and immaterial. World-renowned thinker and Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker (who is also an honorary associate of NAC and an early signatory of Declan’s petition to the UN) told Reason: “The doctrine of the ghost in the machine is that people are inhabited by an immaterial soul that is the locus of free will and choice and which can’t be reduced to a function of the brain. The ghost in the machine [idea] lies behind the religious and cultural right – literally in the case of people who want to couch the stem cell debate in terms of when ensoulment occurs.” Accordingly, our campaign in support of hESC research and therapeutic cloning will incorporate brain science (origins of brains, minds and consciousness) and track the “non-material neuroscience” movement.

In her New Scientist article, Gefter reports that at a September symposium in New York psychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz met with much applause from the audience after thundering: “You cannot overestimate how threatened the scientific establishment is by the fact that it now looks like the materialist paradigm is genuinely breaking down. You’re gonna hear a lot in the next calendar year about … how Darwin’s explanation of how human intelligence arose is the only scientific way of doing it … I’m asking us as a world community to go out there and tell the scientific establishment, enough is enough! Materialism needs to start fading away and non-materialist causation needs to be understood as part of natural reality.” Earlier neuroscientist Mario Beauregard told the audience that the “battle” between “maverick” scientists like himself and those who “believe the mind is what the brain does” is a “cultural war”.

Schwartz and Beauregard are part of the growing “non-material neuroscience movement”. They are attempting to resurrect Cartesian dualism “in the hope that it will make room in science both for supernatural forces and for a soul,” says Gefter. The two have signed the “Scientific dissent from Darwinism” petition, spearheaded by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, headquarters of the intelligent design movement. ID argues that biological life is too complex to have arisen through evolution.

In August, the Discovery Institute ran its 2008 Insider's Briefing on Intelligent Design, at which Schwartz and Michael Egnor, a neurosurgeon at Stony Brook University in New York, were invited to speak. Gefter: “When two of the five main speakers at an ID meeting are neuroscientists, something is up. Could the next battleground in the ID movement's war on science be the brain?

“Well, the movement certainly seems to hope that the study of consciousness will turn out to be ‘Darwinism's grave’, as Denyse O'Leary, co-author with Beauregard of The Spiritual Brain, put it. According to proponents of ID, the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness – how our subjective experiences arise from the objective world of neurons – is the Achilles heel not just of Darwinism but of scientific materialism. This fits with the Discovery Institute’s mission as outlined in its ‘wedge document’, which seeks ‘nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies’, to replace the scientific world view with a Christian one.”

Now the institute is funding research into “non-material neuroscience”. One recipient of its cash, Gefter notes, is a philosopher at Concordia University, Wisconsin, a Christian college, who testified in favour of teaching ID in state-funded high-schools at the 2005 “evolution hearings” in Kansas. And William Dembski, one of ID’s founding fathers and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, is currently co-editing The End of Materialism with Schwartz and Beauregard, according to Gefter. Meanwhile, she adds, Schwartz has been working with Henry Stapp, a physicist at the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who also spoke at the symposium. They have been developing non-standard interpretations of quantum mechanics to explain how the “non-material mind” affects the physical brain.

“Clearly, while there is a genuine attempt to appropriate neuroscience, it will not influence US laws or education in the way that anti-evolution campaigns can because neuroscience is not taught as part of the core curriculum in state-funded schools,” writes Gefter. But as Andy Clark, professor of logic and metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh, UK, told her: “This is real and dangerous and coming our way.”

He and others worry because scientists have yet to crack the great mystery of how consciousness could emerge from firing neurons, Gefter explains. “Progress in science is slow on many fronts,” she quotes John Searle, a philosopher at the University of California, Berkeley, as saying. “We don’t yet have a cure for cancer, but that doesn’t mean cancer has spiritual causes.” And for Patricia Churchland, a philosopher of neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego, “it is an argument from ignorance. The fact something isn’t currently explained doesn’t mean it will never be explained or that we need to completely change not only our neuroscience but our physics.”

And as Clark observes: “This is an especially nasty mind-virus because it piggybacks on some otherwise reasonable thoughts and worries. Proponents make such potentially reasonable points as ‘Oh look, we can change our brains just by changing our minds,’ but then leap to the claim that mind must be distinct and not materially based. That doesn’t follow at all. There’s nothing odd about minds changing brains if mental states are brain states: that’s just brains changing brains.”

Gefter concludes: “That is the voice of mainstream academia. Public perception, however, is a different story. If people can be swayed by ID, despite the vast amount of solid evidence for evolution, how hard will it be when the science appears fuzzier? What can scientists do? They have been criticised for not doing enough to teach the public about evolution. Maybe now they need a big pre-emptive push to engage people with the science of the brain – and help the public appreciate that the brain is no place to invoke the ‘God of the gaps’.”

The Discovery Institute is also opposed to hESC research, according to Bernard Siegel, executive director of the Genetics Policy Institute (see previous blog “Bernard Siegel: The new US President must heed calls for stem cell research”). Siegel: “Many social-conservative think-tanks created specific bioethics agendas opposed to embryonic stem cell research. Organisations such as the American Enterprise Institute, Family Research Council and Discovery Institute, with combined budgets of millions of dollars, are the architects of endless legal gambits. They are authors of the media ‘talking points’ used by the social conservative politicos and allied cable news pundits. All are geared towards delay and obfuscation, not illumination.”

Being a psychologist, I very much look forward to dealing with the science of the brain in our campaign.

Bernard Siegel: The new US President must heed calls for stem cell research

The vast majority of emails I send to scientists and academics inviting them to sign Declan’s petition to the UN on research cloning of embryos and stem cells are still being dumped to spam boxes (or to cyberspace, see blog of 4 September “Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding”). In fact, from all the emails I sent on Friday, Sunday and yesterday – 532 in total (115, 132 and 285 respectively) – no one has signed; if I include Thursday, it is one signatory from 692 emails. I always get an exceedingly low number of out-of-office autoreplies: yesterday, for example, I got seven autoreplies – 158 to the US Medical Schools Microbiology and Immunology Chairs yielded two, from 2nd and 74th emails; and 77 to Newcastle University's School of Biology and School of Chemistry yielded zero.

There are two other reasons why it is not credible that no scientist or academic would sign Declan’s petition: within two weeks Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is likely to be elected President of the United States (he will be lifting the funding restrictions on human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research imposed by President George W Bush), and the United Nations is set to revisit the issue of therapeutic cloning next week (see blog of 19 October “United Nations Set to Revisit Cloning Issue”); not to mention that the petition has been signed by 564 scientists and academics, including 24 Nobel Laureates.



An article in the Public Service Review by Bernard Siegel, executive director of the Genetics Policy Institute, examines some of the obstacles regarding hESC research that will remain beyond 20 January 2009 – the day when Barack Obama or Republican presidential candidate John McCain will be inaugurated. Although scientists worry that McCain’s campaign statements have become progressively less supportive of hESC research, it is “widely expected that the new President will support the lifting of the arbitrary funding restrictions imposed by George W Bush on the National Institute of Health (NIH) funding embryonic stem cell research,” says Siegel.

President Bush restricted federal funding to only those embryonic stem cell lines, approximately 21 in number, in existence on 9th August 2001, the date he announced his policy, his rationale being, according to Siegel, that funding on embryonic stem cell lines created after that date “would somehow make the government complicit in the future destruction of human life”. Since 2001, NIH has funded approximately $3bn for adult stem cell research, says Siegel, while a relatively paltry $160m (estimated) has gone into researching the approved ‘presidential’ lines. Those lines, he adds, have been supplanted by hundreds of more recently derived lines better suited for research and most free of animal proteins. These new lines remain off limits to US researchers and their laboratories utilising NIH funding grants for their research.

“Historically, the America's policy debates, the so-called ‘stem cell wars’, parallels the rise of the social-conservative tide that placed George W Bush in power,” writes Siegel. “The opposition sought to elevate the legal standing of tiny, microscopic clumps of frozen cells, in effect, dragging embryonic stem cells and medical science into the forefront of the intractable abortion debate in America. The leadership of the ‘right to life’ movement, comprised of fundamentalist evangelical Christians and Catholics, strategised that they could undermine support for abortion rights if they could convince the public that blastocysts in a petri dish are equal to living, breathing persons.

“Many social-conservative think-tanks created specific bioethics agendas opposed to embryonic stem cell research. Organisations such as the American Enterprise Institute, Family Research Council and Discovery Institute, with combined budgets of millions of dollars, are the architects of endless legal gambits. They are authors of the media ‘talking points’ used by the social conservative politicos and allied cable news pundits. All are geared towards delay and obfuscation, not illumination.”

A new American president will not dissolve opposition. “Expect the foes of the research to continue to seek restrictions through lawsuits, delaying actions and state by state fights,” warns Siegel. “Each year, hundreds of bills are filed in almost every state seeking to elevate the status of in vitro blastocysts, defining ‘personhood’ as beginning at conception, thus raising the prospect of halting access to surplus embryos donated by their progenitors for medical research. The opposition seemingly prefer that embryos remain perpetually frozen or be discarded as medical waste, rather than used in potentially life-saving research.

“Beyond January 2009, many obstacles will remain. Without broad public support and impetus, there is concern that regulatory approval for the first embryonic stem cell clinical trials might be unreasonably delayed. Funding restrictions might be lifted through executive order or legislation, but will the money be there to advance the research? The NIH budget remains stagnant. With inflationary pressures on the economy, the [consumer] movement remains mobilised to make sure stem cells are a priority.”

Siegel concludes: “Globally, the advent of US federal funding for hESCR will galvanise the field in new ways. The political climate in the United States will certainly change for the better. But the consumer movement must be vigilant, lest the determined foes devise new strategies and tactics to delay the promise and hope for cures.”

European Court of Human Rights declares application inadmissible

This morning the Dellow Centre handed Declan a letter from the European Court of Human Rights dated 14 October, which states that on 7 October the Court decided to declare the application in the case of Heavey v the United Kingdom “inadmissible” because it did not comply with the requirements set out in Article 34 and 35 of the Convention. “In the light of all the material and its possession, and in so far as the matters complained of were within its competence, the Court found that they did not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms set out in the Convention or its Protocols,” it states (the letter is presented below).

The primary material to which the Court refers has been published in the following blogs: application of 8 September 2007 here; first request for priority of 8 September here; second request for priority of 4 July here. The Court first wrote to Declan on 22 November 2007 stating that it was “unnecessary” to consider his request for priority because it would be examining his application “shortly, possibly by the end of January 2008”; seven months later, in a letter dated 16 June (see here), it became “as soon as practicable”. We didn’t in fact expect to hear from the Court until well into the New Year. Anyway, with the likely election within two weeks of Barack Obama as the next President of the United States (he will be lifting the funding restrictions on embryonic stem cell research imposed by President George W Bush), and with the United Nations set to revisit the cloning issue next week (see previous blog), we believe that the momentum is swinging behind Declan's petition to the UN on research cloning of embryos and stem cells and what will be our campaign in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning.

Prior to today we were not in a position to entertain the thought of signing on for benefits because Declan would have had to withdraw his application to the European Court – the Department of Work and Pensions terminated our benefits on 27 September 2006 because Declan did not ‘sign on’ two days before he was due to do so on 29 September. However, even now, signing on for benefits remains a non-option: there is clearly no remedy available to a claimant once the Department of Work and Pensions decides to terminate benefits. So we have no choice but to keep working as hard as we can to raise the £450 we need to buy a laptop for the campaign in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning that will eventually take us off the streets (see blog of 26 August “Fighting for the Right to Clone”).

This is the letter from the Court:

Application no. 22541/07
Heavey v. the United Kingdom

Dear Sir,

I write to inform you that on 7 October 2008 the European Court of Human Rights, sitting as a Committee of three judges (G. Bonello, President, David Thor Björgvinsson and J. Šikuta) pursuant to Article 27 of the Convention, decided under Article 28 of the Convention to declare the above application inadmissible because it did not comply with the requirements set out in Article 34 and 35 of the Convention.

In the light of all the material and its possession, and in so far as the matters complained of were within its competence, the Court found that they did not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms set out in the Convention or its Protocols.

This decision is final and not subject to any appeal to either the Court, including its Grand Chamber, or any other body. You will therefore appreciate that the Registry will be unable to provide any further details about the Committee’s deliberations or to conduct further correspondence relating to its decision in this case. You will receive no further documents from the Court concerning this case and, in accordance with the Court’s instructions, the file will be destroyed one year after the date of the decision.

The present communication is made pursuant to Rule 53 § 2 of the Rules of Court.

Yours faithfully,
For the Committee

Fatoş Aracı
Deputy Section Registrar

United Nations Set to Revisit Cloning Issue

The Headquarters of UNESCO in Paris, France

The UN News Centre reports that the “permissibility of therapeutic cloning” will be the focus of a United Nations ethics panel later this month when it considers whether the non-binding United Nations Declaration on Human Cloning (2005), by which Member States were called on to adopt all measures necessary to prohibit all forms of human cloning inasmuch as they are incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life, should be reassessed in light of scientific, ethical, social, political and legal advances.

The General Assembly adopted the Human Cloning Declaration on 8 March 2005, voting 84 in favour, 34 against, 37 abstaining and 36 absent, after a decade of work on reproductive cloning by the International Bioethics Committee (IBC) of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). However, the Declaration makes no distinction between the fundamental and well-known differences that exist between therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning, and its wording can be interpreted as a UN call for a total ban on all forms of cloning (noted by, among others, the United Kingdom, China, Spain, India, Japan and South Africa). A number of US and European medical and scientific groups expressed dismay over the adoption of the Declaration.

Now the IBC will debate the issue anew at a two-day meeting at UNESCO headquarters in Paris beginning 28 October, noting that some, mainly scientists, are urging a distinction between the reproductive cloning of human beings – which the UN condemned as contrary to human dignity in the Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights (1997) – and therapeutic cloning. “Recent technological developments and new prospects for the use of stem cells in the therapy of human diseases have once again raised the issue of adequacy of international regulations governing this research,” an IBC working group set up at the request of UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura said in a report in September.

“The IBC group calls for human reproductive cloning to be banned at the international level by a legally binding convention, while guidelines for regulating human embryo and stem cell research in countries where it is legal should be developed at the international level,” reports the UN News Centre. It adds: “An Observatory Group could be established to new ethical, legal, social, political and scientific developments, and UNESCO should develop specific strategies and materials to promote international discourse on this topic” (UN News Centre, 13/10).

Upon release of a 2007 United Nations University (UNU) report titled “Is Human Reproductive Cloning Inevitable: Future Options for UN Governance”, UNU director AH Zakri said: “A legally-binding global ban on work to create a human clone, coupled with freedom for nations to permit strictly controlled therapeutic research, has the greatest political viability of options available.” Declan’s petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning indeed calls for the establishment of a reasonable timetable for a UN declaration which “would draw a distinction between reproductive and therapeutic cloning while specifically leaving it to UN member states to decide for themselves on therapeutic cloning within a regulation framework”. It has already been signed by 563 scientists and academics, including 24 Nobel Laureates, despite that the vast majority of emails I am sending to scientists and academics on Declan’s behalf are being dumped to spam boxes (or to cyberspace, see blog of 4 September “Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding”); I have been recording the spamming with statistics in almost every blog for over two months now.

We believe that the momentum is swinging behind Declan's petition and what will be our campaign in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning. Yet, things are being made increasingly more difficult for us: from 10 November we will not be able to have a registered pitch to sell The Big Issue - a magazine sold by homeless people throughout the UK on registered street pitches (see blog of 7 October “Letter to the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Big Issue”); we continue to have difficulties with computer bookings and internet access in our local council's Idea Store Whitechapel library (see blog of 13 October “Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council”); and on 13 October we were sprayed with a hose by a cleaner at 4.50am as we were leaving the place we sleep in at night - the company that owns the building works with charities, according to their website (see the same blog of 13 October ). Oh, well.

Since 7 September we have been sleeping tucked away, about twenty paces from the side entrance of a building, down some twelve steps (prior to that we slept for almost two years in a porch). Relations between us and employees have always been cordial: we were visited by an employee within days, and on three occasions we have been given food. We were quite surprised therefore when last night we found a portable shower unit on wheels, with a clearly visible hose attached to the undercarriage, parked on top of the steps, to one side. We have decided that the next time we are sprayed Declan will seek to lodge a complaint with the City of London Police further to which he will revert back to the European Court of Human Rights for priority under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court. Of course, there is always the option of wetting the area we sleep to ensure we can't bed down. In this instance we may decide to sleep anywhere nearby for the night and, should the police insist we move on, I will take the arrest as I did on 11 September (see blog "I am arrested for breach of the peace"). As I stated in the blog of 13 September "Letter from the City of London Police", I am well prepared to have the legality of such an arrest tested under the Human Rights Act 1998.

The UNESCO press release can be seen here.

Stem Cell Research: Five Basic Things To Know

Stem cell researcher Sue O'Shea, standing, looks at stem cells in her lab

On 4 November, Mitchigan voters will vote not just for who they want to be president, or to represent them in Congress, but what they want the state to do about stem cells. And the way they vote on a ballot measure called Proposal 2 will determine the fate of a Michigan law that currently restricts research using embryonic stem cells. Stem cell researchers see overturning the law as critical to maintaining momentum in allowing research using embryos. Arkansas, North Dakota, South Dakota and Louisiana have restrictions similar to Michigan’s. Eight states explicitly permit embryonic stem cell research (see previous blog “Issues Surrounding Leftover Embryos”). A Michigan loss could mean “a swing of the pendulum back” toward greater restrictions in other states, said Doug Engel, chair of the University of Michigan Medical School's Dept of Cell & Developmental Biology (O'Reilly, AMNews, 20/10).

Stem cell research is generating great interest and investment worldwide because it could lead to possible treatments for spinal cord injuries, Parkinson’s disease, juvenile diabetes and other diseases. The main thing is to understand the goals of stem cell research and to sort out fact from fiction, says Science Daily. There are several key facts citizens in Michigan can keep in mind as they navigate through a flood of often conflicting information about stem cell research, say University of Michigan stem cell scientists Sean Morrison, and Sue O’Shea. Morrison directs the Center for Stem Cell Biology at U-M’s Life Sciences Institute and is a faculty member at the U-M Medical School. O’Shea directs the Michigan Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research at the Medical School. Here are the five key things they feel every voter should know about stem cells:

1. Scientists generally agree it’s crucial to push forward rapidly in all three key areas of stem cell research: embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells and induced pluripotent (or “reprogrammed”) stem cells. Around the world, these three kinds of stem cells are under intense study for possible treatments for conditions from spinal cord injuries to juvenile diabetes. It would be shortsighted to pursue only one kind, O’Shea says, because each may hold particular promise for understanding and treating specific diseases. “Results in one area of research will continue to shed light on work in the others,” she notes. Morrison observes that much of the attention has focused on embryonic stem cells. “Embryonic stem cells are one type of stem cell that people are very excited about because these are cells that come from the very earliest stages of embryonic development, from microscopically small clumps of cells. And these cells have the capacity to make every cell type in the body in unlimited quantities,” he says. “So, when you’re trying to cure a public health problem, the capacity of embryonic stem cells to make any cell type in unlimited quantities is a powerful advantage.”

2. Embryonic stem cells that scientists study come from early-stage embryos. These embryos are created in fertility clinics for the purpose of fertility treatment. But for a variety of reasons, not all embryos can be used for fertility treatment, and many embryos are discarded. “The embryos that are used for research are microscopically small clumps of cells, smaller than the period at the end of a sentence on a piece of paper,” says Morrison. “They have no specialised tissues of any type; there’s no nervous system, there’s no heart, there are no limbs. These are clumps of cells that oftentimes in a fertility clinic don’t develop in a healthy manner and that doctors would not be willing to implant in patients.” Scientists in most states, but not Michigan, are allowed to use embryos from these clinics to create stem cell lines and develop disease therapies in their laboratories. Science Daily explains that the cells scientists use come from embryos just five days after fertilisation. Embryos at this stage, called blastocysts, are spheres containing about 100 cells that have not yet differentiated into more specialised cells. If some of these cells are placed in a lab dish in the right conditions, they can become stem cell lines that can be maintained indefinitely in an undifferentiated state, or guided to become specific types of cells.

3. Adult stem cells are like supporting actors in the quest for stem cell treatments. Science Daily further explains that adult stem cells are more specialised cells that arise from embryonic stem cells. Also known as tissue-specific stem cells, they are present in adults – but contrary to their name, they’re also found in children, newborn infants and developing fetuses. They have the ability to make one or two kinds of cells, such as blood and immune system cells, brain or muscle cells. Adult stem cells have a more limited capacity to replace themselves than do embryonic stem cells. Says Morrison: “There are many different types of adult stem cells present throughout our tissues. They differ from embryonic stem cells in that they’re already partially specialised, so that blood-forming stem cells in the bone marrow can give rise to all types of blood cells, but not to cell types in other tissues. Adult stem cells are still useful, but they’re more specialised than embryonic stem cells and they don’t have the same capacity to give rise to unlimited numbers of specialised cells.” The claim that adult stem cells have been used to cure more than 70 diseases has been widely discredited, says Science Daily, adding that so far it has been very difficult to get many types of adult stem cells to reproduce in sufficient amounts to lead to effective treatments.

4. Induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, are adult cells reprogrammed to behave like embryonic stem cells. Recently, Japanese and American scientists have developed a third type of stem cell, which are skin cells that have been “reprogrammed” to be similar to embryonic stem cells. About these cells, which are called “induced pluripotent cells”, Morrison says: “This is exciting because it will really enhance our ability to study particularly inherited human diseases. But these cells aren’t ready for prime time in terms of clinical use because the reprogramming process involves the use of viruses, which predispose those cells to cancer, and so none of the reprogrammed lines that we have so far at least would ever be usable in patients.” According to Science Daily, the discovery of iPS cells “demonstrates the promise of embryonic stem cell research to lead to breakthroughs that would change the future of medicine; the ability to reprogram adult human cells was discovered as a result of research on human embryonic stem cells. While iPS cells are an exciting discovery, scientists agree it is too early to assess the technique’s full potential and determine whether the reprogrammed cells truly can function the way embryonic stem cells do.”

5. Michigan scientists want to explore all types of stem cells to look for treatments or cures. But they currently lack a key tool: the ability to develop their own embryonic stem cell lines. Most Michigan scientists, along with many Michigan citizens affected by debilitating diseases, want current state law to be changed, says Science Daily. If the Proposal 2 ballot initiative passes, the law would change to allow Michigan scientists to do what they currently cannot: develop new embryonic stem cell lines using early-stage embryos from fertilisation clinics that would otherwise be discarded. “Under current law, we in Michigan can study cell lines that are created outside of the state, but we can’t derive our own new lines within the state,” Morrison explains. “That’s a crippling problem because most of the lines that we would like to be able to study, in order to study the diseases that affect the people of Michigan, don’t exist yet.” O’Shea notes an important fact about Proposal 2: it requires that the allowed embryos are ones that couples designate for research. The proposal outlaws the sale or purchase of embryos for research and states the research needs to abide by federal law (Science Daily, 14/10).

Issues Surrounding Leftover Embryos

The vast majority of emails I am sending to scientists and academics inviting them to sign Declan’s petition to the UN on research cloning of embryos and stem cells are still being dumped to spam boxes (or to cyberspace, see blog of 4 September “Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding”). On Tuesday I sent a total of 304 emails but only received ten out-of-office autoreplies. I emailed scientists and academics at Princeton University, University of Wisconsin, Stanford University, University of Washington, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Burnham Institute, Bristol University and University of Manchester (we have signatories from each of these institutions). I think this is pretty much one autoreply per institution. Yesterday I sent 95 emails to US scientists and academics, received zero autoreplies, and no one I emailed signed yesterday or today.

The Big Issue is a magazine sold by homeless people throughout the UK on registered street pitches. As stated in the blog of 7 October “Letter to the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Big Issue”, Declan was informed in writing on 6 October that if we haven’t purchased 40 magazines each week this month, from 10 November we will not be able to have a registered pitch. Yet, I have been waiting four days now for a new badge – all vendors have been re-badged until the end of February 2009, including Declan – despite that Declan was told on Monday I wasn’t allowed to purchase or sell the magazine without it (see email presented below).

Infertility patients are in favor of using leftover embryos for hESC research

One of the three sections of our campaign in support of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research and therapeutic cloning is “Religion in Public Life” (see blog of 5 October “Next President to Reshape US Supreme Court”); for example, we will monitor Roe v Wade in this section (see blog of 9 October “The fate of Roe v Wade”). Following a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, we will also monitor in this section the key issue for hESC research of leftover embryos from in-vitro fertilisation clinics in the United States.

According to the Times, couples with some of the estimated 500,000 frozen embryos in the US leftover from fertility treatments are “finding themselves ensnared in a debate about when life begins”. About half of couples who have in-vitro fertilisation procedures end up with at least one embryo that is frozen and not transferred to the uterus. According to the Times, such couples have three choices: discard them, donate them to research or donate them to another couple for potential pregnancy. However, the Times reports that measures in several states that seek to protect embryos “could ultimately winnow these options” and potentially limit future fertility treatments, according to some physicians and consumer advocates. “This is taking a pretty private decision and placing it squarely in the public’s eye,” says Nanette Elster, director of the Health Law Institute at DePaul University in Chicago.

Such initiatives include a ballot measure in Colorado that would define a fertilised egg as a person in the state constitution and a proposal by Indiana lawmakers that would allow leftover embryos to be adopted for implantation by another couple. New Jersey legislators have proposed allowing unused embryos to become wards of the state, and Georgia and West Virginia are considering legislation that would grant embryos “personhood status”. Most of these proposals are made by abortion rights opponents, according to the Times. Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says banning abortion is the motivation for such measures, adding: “If the Supreme Court allows states to declare embryos as personhood, you would be in a position to say immediately that all abortions have to stop.” By assigning rights to the embryo it would probably make both abortion and human embryonic stem cell research illegal (see blog of 28 September “New Scientist: Their Will Be Done”).

The federal government of the United States supports funding only for one option in dealing with leftover embryos – adoption to another couple for pregnancy. However, research by Anne Drapkin Lyerly, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University, as well as other surveys, have found that most families prefer not to donate embryos for adoption. In a paper published last year, of 1,020 couples with frozen embryos, 22% said they were somewhat or very likely to donate to another couple. Slightly more said they would probably thaw and discard them. Almost half said they would donate them for research - an option that is often complicated by a lack of research programmes or state restrictions on embryos. No federal funding is available for human embryonic stem cell research using new stem cell lines, and only eight states fund the research – New Jersey, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and New York.

The Times reports that fertility clinics lose contact with about 15% to 25% of families with frozen embryos. According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine guidelines, a clinic can consider embryos abandoned and dispose of them if five years have passed without contact with the couple and if significant efforts have been made to reach the couple. Richard Paulson, chief of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine, said few physicians dispose of leftover embryos. “To my knowledge, no one in the United States has ever done that,” Paulson said, adding: “We’re all paranoid that a couple will show up the next day and say they want their embryos” (Roan, Los Angeles Times, 10/6).

For more information on proposed bills that would change the legal status of frozen embryos, see The Seattle Times under the heading “Embryo legislation”.

This is the email Declan sent this afternoon to the Big Issue outreach manager for London:

Subject: The Big Issue

Dear Mr Paul Joseph

I refer further to your email of 6 October confirming that if my wife and I do not purchase a minimum of 40 magazines each week this month, from 10 November we will no longer be able to have a registered pitch (we "will be allowed to carry on selling but not have priority on any pitch").

On 13, 14 and 15 October I emailed you in respect of my wife's new badge (no. 1170), which, being unavailable for collection at head office on Monday, was due for collection by her at your distribution point at Liverpool Street on Tuesday, then Wednesday, and then today. I can confirm that at 12.15pm today your co-ordinator Renato (1273) reconfirmed that this badge should be available for her to pick up from 1.00pm this afternoon.

I reconfirm that on Monday at head office - following my own re-badging to end of February 2009 and the validation of our pitch authorisation slips until end of Tuesday next week - I was told by your outreach worker Martyn Kalnins that my wife could not purchase or sell The Big Issue without her new (blue) badge.

As I have explained in my previous emails to you, as well as to Martyn on Monday, we cannot afford a second trip to the Big Issue head office this week. Indeed, I can still barely afford to buy two Big Issues. (As you are aware, last week culminated in the so-called "Black Friday" crash; this week shares around the world have continued to tumble, particularly in London; and our pitches are located in the heart of London's financial district.)

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey
Badge no. 1163

Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council

On Friday one scientist signed Declan’s petition to the UN on research cloning of embryos and stem cells despite me having emailed 242 scientists. And in keeping with the norm, I received an exceedingly low number of out-of-office autoreplies – six; for example, 57 emails to Newcastle Biomedicine Newcastle University yielded only one autoreply. Still, on Wednesday I received two autoreplies out of a total of 271 emails (see previous blog) so presumably this time a larger number of my emails were delivered to inboxes, and not spam boxes (or cyberspace, see blog of 4 September “Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding”). And yesterday afternoon Declan had to email the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council regarding Idea Store Whitechapel, the borough's flagship library, learning and information service, and our on-going difficulties with computer bookings and internet access (the email is presented below).

Since 7 September we have been sleeping tucked away, about twenty paces from the side entrance of a building, down some twelve steps. The company that owns the building works with charities, according to their website, but that didn’t stop a cleaner spraying us with a hose at 4.50am this morning as we were packing to leave. I mentioned in the blog of 7 October “Letter to the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Big Issue” that the loss of our Big Issue pitches from 10 November - The Big Issue is a magazine sold by homeless people throughout the UK on registered street pitches - speaks ominously of the weeks to come; well, it would appear things have only started.

Former president Bill Clinton stumps for stem cells in Michigan

According to a Detroit News editorial, Michigan voters should vote yes on Proposal 2 - amending the state constitution to lift the ban on embryonic stem cell research - on a November ballot because it would overturn “one of the most backward laws on human embryonic stem cell research in the nation”. Currently, it is against the law to destroy a human embryo in Michigan. In effect, this also bans embryonic stem cell research, since the research process entails embryo destruction.

Proposal 2 is a constitutional amendment that allows embryonic stem cell research under certain conditions. These conditions, said the News, include that the embryos subject to research were created for the purpose of fertility treatment, the person seeking the treatment voluntarily opted to donate the embryos for research and that they would be discarded anyway if they were not going to be used for research. The amendment forbids the sale of embryos for stem cell research and keeps in place Michigan's ban on the cloning of a human embryo for both reproductive and research purposes.

The embryonic stem cell research ban, said the News, damages the ability of the University of Michigan, one of the leading stem cell research centers, to conduct cutting-edge embryonic stem cell research and recruit leading researchers to the center. Sean Morrison, head of the University of Michigan's Center for Stem Cell Biology, comments that “under current law it is legal in Michigan's fertility clinics to discard human embryos, but not to use them for medical research to try and help patients” (Detroit News, 2/10).

Right now Michigan is one of only five states to ban the use of discarded embryos for medical research (the others: South Dakota, North Dakota, Louisiana and Arkansas), but not everyone wants to see things change. Opposing the ballot question is Michigan Citizens Against Unrestricted Science and Experimentation, which had raised nearly $595,000 by mid-September, said The Ann Arbor News. It is principally supported by the Michigan Catholic Conference, which contributed $500,000, and Right to Life Michigan, which contributed $76,709. Endorsements include other pro-life and religious organisations, such as Democrats for Life of Michigan and the Family Research Council (Gershman, The Ann Arbor News, 6/10).

According to a new report by the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan (CRCM), opponents of embryonic stem cell research argue that life begins at the moment of conception or fertilisation, making research on ‘living’ embryos unethical. Abortion is often tied to embryonic stem cell research even though there is no direct link between the two. CRCM: “Embryonic stem cells are derived from pre-implantation embryos, not from aborted embryos or fetuses.”

Proposal 2 will feature prominently in our campaign in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning under the section “Science and the Law” – as it does in the blogs of 4 September “Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding” and of 10 July “Smithies explains his support for embryonic stem cell research”. Yet another application of embryonic stem cell research will also feature prominently in the campaign: scientists at Edinburgh University (from which we have several signatories) revealed on Wednesday that they have found a way to overcome “a major hurdle in creating pancreas and liver cells from human embryonic stem cells in the laboratory”, said The Scotsman. Additionally, the Los Angeles Times examines issues surrounding leftover embryos, which I would like to turn into a blog. Of course, that assumes I can get computer time!

This is Declan's email yesterday afternoon to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, Councillor Lutfur Rahman (at cllr.lutfur.rahman@towerhamlets.gov.uk), who is also the Leader of the Labour Group:

Subject: Idea Store Whitechapel

Dear Cllr Rahman

I refer further to the attached copy of my most recent correspondence with Mr Ian McNicol, Head of Idea Stores, to whom the former Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, Cllr Denise Jones, referred my original complaint of 21 January regarding Idea Store Whitechapel and the repeated loss of computer bookings and internet access on both my wife's card (card no. D000350314) and my card (card no. D000355837) since 14 November 2007.

In the absence of a response from Mr McNichol with respect to the aforementioned complaint, I wish to further confirm that this afternoon at approximately 2.15pm the computer I had booked from 2.00pm to 5.00pm cut out and, after it automatically came back in another card holder's name, I was told by a member of staff to give the computer up as there was no record of a booking in my name from 2.00pm to 3.00pm. (Computers cannot be accessed without a member's name appearing on the monitor at log-in time. Further, I am emailing this during my second one-hour booking on the same computer from 3.00pm to 4.00pm.)

I reconfirm that since my complaint of 21 January to Cllr Jones, my wife and I have not only experienced repeated loss of computer bookings and internet access, but several other problems to boot. For example:

(i) 1 February: the Principal Idea Store Manager, Mr Sergio Dogliani, wrote to me advising that the restriction by Idea Store Whitechapel of my wife and I to a 3-hour maximum free computer use per day as from 29 January stands, despite that for several previous months we were given "additional time" subject to computer availability and in accordance with the Council's then and current "Idea Stores PC Usage Policy";
(ii) 24 June: at approximately 12.30pm, a member of staff threatened my wife with "security" if she did not give her computer up to another card holder, despite that thirty minutes earlier a member of staff had confirmed in writing that my wife had booked the computer from 11.30am to 2.30pm;
(iii) 3 August: both of the computers my wife and I had booked the previous day contained an identical virus which spread to the two USB drives were are using, rendering my wife's portable programs inoperable and corrupting some of my most valuable data;
(iv) 6 August: at approximately 2.45pm, MIMEsweeper, the filter software used by the Idea Store network, blocked access to my Google Mail account due to "Porn Detected". At 3.10pm I was again able to access the account, after which I was informed by the IT technician that "it may happen again for any length of time".

As I explained in my email letters to you of 4 and 6 August, since 22 October 2007 my wife and I have been using as much of our computer time in Idea Store Whitechapel as possible to contact scientists and academics to invite them to sign my petition to the United Nations on therapeutic cloning and the use of stem cells for research and for the treatment of disease. To date, this petition has been signed by 559 scientists and academics, who include recognised authorities from the world's leading universities and research institutes, as well as 24 Nobel Laureates.

I acknowledge receipt of an email of 7 August 2008 from your Personal Assistant, Ms Rachel Bielby, stating: "Cllr Rahman is now on leave until the end of August. I have asked the office of the Director of Communities, Localities and Culture's office to deal with your correspondence." I can confirm that I have not heard from this office, nor indeed from Tower Hamlets Council.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey

cc Mr Zoinul Abidin, Manager of Idea Store Whitechapel (by email)

The fate of Roe v Wade

The vast majority of emails I send to scientists and academics inviting them to sign Declan’s petition to the UN on research cloning of embryos and stem cells are still being dumped to spam boxes (or to cyberspace, see blog of 4 September “Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding”). In fact, yesterday I sent a larger number of emails in one day than in previous weeks – 281 – but received only two out-of-office autoreplies: from the 182nd and 187th emails. I was quite surprised to discover this morning that three scientists had signed, the second largest number of signatories we have had in one day since 18 March. Oh, and Declan has not even received an email of acknowledgement from the founder and editor-in-chief of The Big Issue (a magazine sold by homeless people throughout the UK on registered street pitches) in respect of his complaint that from 10 November we will no longer be able to have a registered pitch (see previous blog).

Supreme Court of the United States

With major implications for human embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning, the fate of Roe v Wade, the US Supreme Court case that legalised abortion, has become a well-publicised issue of concern in this year’s presidential election between abortion-rights opponent Republican nominee John McCain and abortion-rights supporter Democratic nominee Barack Obama. According to the Los Angeles Times, possible retirements of several Supreme Court justices could affect whether the Supreme Court maintains its slight majority in favor of upholding the decision. At least five Supreme Court justices support upholding court precedents on abortion rights, but if a supporter of Roe were replaced by a conservative nominee under a McCain administration, it could tip the majority against abortion rights.

Through most of the 1990s and until recently, the Supreme Court had a solid 6-3 majority in favor of upholding the right of a woman to choose abortion, reports the Times. But the margin has shrunk to one, now that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is retired and has been replaced by Justice Samuel A Alito. And Justice John Paul Stevens, a leader of the narrow majority for abortion rights, is 88. Dawn Johnsen, an Indiana University law professor and former lawyer for NARAL Pro-Choice America, said: “Clearly, Roe is on the line this time,” adding: “It is quite clear they have four votes against it. If the next president appoints one more, the odds are it will be overruled.” Kathryn Kolbert, president of People for the American Way, said: “What we find scary is that people don’t understand what’s at stake. In the next four years, one to as many as three Supreme Court justices may step down, and they all will come from the liberal end of the court.” Wendy Long, a former clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas and counsel for the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network, said she believes the “consensus is Roe will fall slowly and incrementally, not in one decision” (Savage, Los Angeles Times, 5/10).

According to Salon, any effort by McCain to replace a more liberal justice with a more conservative one would probably be very tough because there seems little doubt that the Senate will remain in the control of the Democrats. That majority could prevent McCain from selecting individuals as conservative as Chief Justice John Roberts and Alito. “Still, the Democrats might find it harder to block a minority or female nominee, just as they failed to block Justice Clarence Thomas’ confirmation, despite a Democratic majority in the Senate,” Salon reports (Chemerinsky, Salon, 6/10).

Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman in an opinion piece writes that McCain is “out to overturn” Roe. Abortion-rights groups have been “crying wolf for so long that it’s hard to believe that the wolf is actually at the door,” but a ballot measure in South Dakota aimed at banning abortions except in cases of rape or incest, to save a woman’s life or to avert a “substantial and irreversible” maternal health risk of impairment to “a major bodily organ or system” is “directly pointed at Roe and targeted to arrive at the Supreme Court in time to greet a new justice,” according to Goodman. She adds, “If what happens in South Dakota doesn’t stay in South Dakota, a woman’s right will depend on whether she has enough gas to drive to the next, or the next or the next state” (Goodman, Boston Globe, 4/10).

New Scientist reports that this November voters in Colorado will decide on whether to amend the state’s constitution so that a “person” would “include any human being from the moment of fertilization”. The amendment was drafted by Rob Muise and colleagues at the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative religious legal organisation based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. By assigning rights to the embryo, it would probably make both abortion and stem cell research illegal, according to New Scientist. “Pro-choice advocates would challenge the law in court, creating what Muise calls a legislative ‘train wreck’: a series of appeals by one or both sides that would eventually take the case to the Supreme Court, which by then might have a conservative and anti-abortion majority” (Giles, New Scientist, 26/9).

Cardinal Justin Rigali, chair of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said: “The Catholic Church strongly supports promising and ethically sound stem cell research - and strongly opposes killing week-old human embryos, or human beings at any stage, to extract their stem cells” (The Wall Street Journal, 30/9). The Vatican has opened an office in Brussels and works hard together with other conservative forces for the implementation of more restrictive abortion laws and for the preference of Catholic Law above EU laws (Wikstrom, International Viewpoint, Sept). Should conservative Christian legal groups succeed in the US Supreme Court, the profound consequences for science may very well be felt in Europe. So, in the section of our campaign in support of human embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning called “Religion in Public Life”, we will monitor Roe v Wade.

The Washington Independent reports that last year the Supreme Court voted in a 5-4 decision to uphold a federal ban on late term abortions, regardless of the health of the mother. In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the decision “alarming”. She wrote: “It tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). It blurs the line, firmly drawn in Casey, between pre-viability and post-viability abortions. And, for the first time since Roe, the court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman's health.”

Letter to the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Big Issue

The Big Issue is a magazine sold by homeless people throughout the UK on registered street pitches. Yesterday the Big Issue outreach manager for London emailed Declan to advise that if over the next four weeks we haven't purchased a minimum of 40 magazines per week, from 10 November we will no longer be able to have a registered pitch - we “will be allowed to carry on selling but not have priority on any pitch”. The last time we had such money was before we were robbed of all our money and documents in the Catholic Dellow Centre (see blog of 18 June “Declan robbed in the Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre”). We have had so many problems of late attempting to sell The Big Issue, particularly with other Big Issue vendors (see, for example, blog of 22 August “Scientists grow blood from embryonic stem cells”) that this speaks ominously of the weeks to come.

Yesterday Declan's petition to the UN on research cloning of embryos and stem cells was signed by four scientists. However, I received such a low number of out-of-office autoreplies that I still believe the vast majority of emails are being dumped to spam boxes (see previous blog). Out of a total of 251 emails I got nine autoreplies: the first 73 emails yielded no autoreplies at all, then three came in quick succession: 74th, 76th, and 79th emails – one of the signatories came from the email I sent immediately following the second of these autoreplies. And 43 emails to the Institute for Regeneration Medicine of the University of California, San Francisco? Zero autoreplies – and zero signatories. Today I sent a total of 153 emails and got, well, two autoreplies: from the 65th and 70th emails. Nobody that I emailed today has so far signed.

Anyway, this is Declan’s letter of complaint this morning to the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Big Issue, John Bird; a copy of which he will also send to Chair of The Big Issue Foundation, Steve Round:

Subject: The Big Issue

Dear Mr Bird

As the founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Big Issue, please find enclosed copy of an email I received yesterday, 6 October, from your Outreach Manager for London, Mr Paul Joseph. On 10 September 2007 you wrote to me, stating:

I have employed many people over the years to do jobs related to the running of The Big Issue. I have never employed them to do my job; likewise I do not do their job. Please bear this in mind when you are composing your letters. You do not need to address your letters to me, as it is not my job. I would only get involved if you were utterly and totally let down by those whose job it is in The Big Issue. I hope this assists in your deliberations in pursuit of your claims.

I wish to complain that if my wife and I do not purchase a minimum of 40 magazines each week for the next four weeks, from 10 November we will no longer be able to have a registered pitch - we "will be allowed to carry on selling but not have priority on any pitch".

Yesterday we were only able to afford to buy two Big Issues for resale, and today will only be able to afford to buy another two magazines. Moreover, I wrote to the Registrar of the European Court of Human Rights on 21 August further to my second application for priority under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court, stating:

As explained in previous applications, my wife and I survive on the streets of London by selling The Big Issue, a magazine sold by homeless people on registered street pitches, and I have lodged numerous written complaints with The Big Issue Head Office in respect of my wife and myself being walked off our respective pitch by other street traders, including, inter alia, Big Issue vendors. You will note from my email and attachments to Court of 16 August that not only may my wife be forced into begging (a criminal offence in England), but she has been threatened by The Big Issue with debadging for so doing.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey
Badge no. 1163

cc Mr Steven Round, Chair of The Big Issue Foundation

Next President to Reshape US Supreme Court

Declan's petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning was signed by four scientists on Thursday – the largest number of signatories in one day since 18 March – and four on Friday. Nonetheless, I believe that the vast majority of emails that I send to scientists and academics inviting them to sign the petition are still being dumped to spam boxes (or to cyberspace, see blog of 4 September "Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding"). In fact, between Thursday and Friday I emailed a total of 323 scientists and academics, and received only 11 out-of-office autoreplies. Three examples: (a) 24 emails to the Randall Division of Cell & Molecular Biophysics at King's College London yielded zero autoreplies – and zero signatories; (b) 71 emails to the
International Brain Barriers Society yielded one autoreply – and one signatory; and (c) 26 emails to the Centre for Neuroscience Research at the University of Edinburgh yielded one autoreply – and again only one signatory. Are the emails I send being sent to spam (where they may still be accessed) or to cyberspace? Well, on Friday I sent some bogus emails together with the genuine ones – for example, I added an extra “k” to “@imperial.ac.uk” – but none came back as “Undelivered Mail”.

It is also increasingly difficult to book computers at our local council's Idea Store Whitechapel library because for many weeks now half the computers have been down: floor 1 has 24 computers but only nine are currently available for booking; floors 2, 3, and 4 only have a few computers and half of them are down. Yesterday, for the first time in almost two years, the only available computer for today was on floor 4, in the cafeteria – and when I checked the state of play for tomorrow, the computer I usually book was already taken. So this afternoon I had no choice but to go to a local internet café where we get seven hours for £3 – money we frequently don't have (see blog of 16 August “Letter to the European Court of Human Rights”).

Majority of One Stevens at the Supreme Court

“Last year, the US Supreme Court voted in a 5-4 decision to uphold a federal ban on late term abortions, regardless of the health of the mother,” writes Daphne Eviatar for the Washington Independent in an article titled “Next President to Reshape Court”. The decision not only signaled a significant shift in the court's approach to the controversial abortion issue, but revealed just how important the composition of the Supreme Court can be – and the extraordinary power the next president will have to control that.

The last time the court visited the abortion question, in 2000, it had struck down an almost identical Nebraska law – in part, because it didn't account for the woman's health. “Nothing had changed between then and the court's 2007 ruling,” writes Eviatar. “Except, that is, the composition of the court.” In 2005, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who had consistently upheld the right to privacy that protected abortion ever since Roe v Wade, retired. President George W Bush had since appointed John Roberts as chief justice and Samuel Alito as associate justice.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain has said repeatedly that if he's the next president, he'll appoint more justices like Roberts and Alito. “John McCain’s appointment of the next justice could be the most significant appointment in half a century,” said David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University, noting that the trend has been toward appointing younger justices who could be on the court for 30 or 40 years. “We would have a solid far-right conservative block for the next several decades. That cannot be undone by a subsequent election if people decide that the court is far to the right of them. There’s nothing we can do as citizens.”

In a New York Times article dated 23 September 2007 Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University, wrote: “Justice [John Paul] Stevens, the oldest and arguably most liberal justice, now finds himself the leader of the opposition.” Stevens, however, is an improbable liberal icon. “I don’t think of myself as a liberal at all,” he told Rosen during an interview in his chambers, laughing and shaking his head. “I think as part of my general politics, I’m pretty darn conservative.” Stevens said that his views haven’t changed since 1975, when as a moderate Republican he was appointed by President Gerald Ford to the Supreme Court. Stevens’s judicial hero is Potter Stewart, the Republican centrist, whom Stevens has said he admires more than all of the other justices with whom he has served. He considers himself a “judicial conservative”, he said, and only appears liberal today because he has been surrounded by increasingly conservative colleagues. “Including myself,” he said, “every judge who’s been appointed to the court since Lewis Powell” – nominated by Richard Nixon in 1971 – “has been more conservative than his or her predecessor. Except maybe Justice [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg. That’s bound to have an effect on the court.”

In her dissent in last year's abortion case, Justice Ginsburg called the decision “alarming”. She wrote: “It tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). It blurs the line, firmly drawn in Casey, between pre-viability and post-viability abortions. And, for the first time since Roe, the court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman's health.”

“A President McCain will likely have a much greater opportunity to move the Supreme Court than would a President Obama,” said Doug Kendall, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, a legal watchdog group in Washington. “Simply because it is actually likely that the justices that retire during the next presidency will be the court's more liberal justices. So a conservative president could move the court sharply to the right, while a progressive president will most likely be replacing existing progressive justices.” (If Obama had the opportunity to make an appointment, it would be only the fourth nomination from a Democratic president in more than 40 years.)

At 88, Stevens is widely expected to retire within the next few years. Others have speculated that Ginsberg, 75, or even David Souter, who has admitted he’s considered resigning, could depart as well. “McCain could finally achieve what conservative legal activists have been looking for decades,” said Kendall, “which is a truly conservative, if not reactionary, Supreme Court.” Eviatar: “Because so many of the court’s recent rulings have been decided by a narrow 5-4 majority, the change in just one justice could yield a fundamental change in the enforcement of civil rights, the ability of the federal government to regulate safety and the environment, the breadth of executive power and the reach of habeas corpus.”

What the Republican Party’s conservative base cares about is the Supreme Court, said Barry Friedman, a law professor at New York University. “Issues like reproductive rights, religion in schools, religion in public life. A lot of what they care about they can’t do any other way,” he said. “If the Supreme Court solidifies into a conservative institution there will be a much more concerted effort by litigants and sympathetic state and local officials to frame cases that bring those issues to the court’s attention,” said Kendall. So, in addition to two sections – “Science and Religion” (see blog of 16 September “Royal Society's stance on religion under fire”) and “Science and the Law” (see blog of 28 September “New Scientist: Their Will Be Done”) – our campaign in support of human embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning will also have a final section called “Religion in Public Life”.

Nobel laureates line up behind Obama's science policy

Photos left to right: Harold Varmus, H Robert Horvitz, and Peter Agre

On the eve of the first US presidential debate, a list of 61 Nobel laureates issued an open letter (see also below) to urge Americans to vote for the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. This is the largest number of Nobel laureates to ever endorse a candidate for office, more than endorsed either Gore or Kerry, says Scientists and Engineers for America. All received their award for achievements in physics (22), chemistry (14) or medicine (25). The letter was announced on Thursday in a conference call by three Nobel laureates: Harold Varmus, president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; Peter Agre, director of the Malaria Research Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health; and H Robert Horvitz, a professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (Ten of the signatories have also signed Declan’s petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning, which now has been signed by 540 scientists and academics, including 24 Nobel laureates.)

Calling the Bush Administration's science policy “disastrous”, Horvitz, who won a Nobel Prize in medicine in 2002, spoke in support of Obama's science policy, which includes elevating the role of White House science adviser to a senior-level position and reversing the ban on using federal funds for human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research on cell lines created after 9 August 2001, reports The Boston Globe. “Instead of shutting scientific knowledge out of the White House, Senator Obama will engage top scientists,” Horvitz said. “Instead of blocking groundbreaking efforts to use embryonic stem cell research to find cures for diseases like Parkinson's disease … Senator Obama will provide strong support to these efforts” (see blog of 4 September “Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding”).

The three scientists said they couldn’t trust Republican presidential candidate John McCain's positions regarding science policy because of political pressure from religious conservatives. They were particularly concerned about McCain's position on federal funding of hESC research. McCain says he supports it, but in the heat of the campaign, according to this week’s Nature journal, “he now refuses to say whether he would lift the ban as president. Instead, he emphasizes research on adult or induced pluripotent stem cells in place of human embryonic ones”. Said Agre, who won a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2003: “While I think that Senator McCain has in the past ... had some reasonably progressive views, he's now in the difficult position of reconciling his views with that of the Republican platform” (see blog of 1 September “2008 GOP platform calls for total ban on embryonic stem cell research”).

Harold Varmus, who is an Obama campaign science adviser, and who won a Nobel Prize in medicine in 1989, said that there's general confusion in the scientific community over McCain's position. Physicsworld.com notes that Obama beat McCain by more than two weeks to answering the questions posed by ScienceDebate – an organisation formed last year that tried, and failed, to persuade the presidential candidates to attend a televised debate on science policy. On Wednesday, Obama again trumped the Republican by being the only candidate to answer 18 science-related questions asked by Nature.

Princeton professor Philip Anderson, who won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1977 and who was one of the signatories (he is also a NAC Honorary Associate) told physicsworld.com that voting for Obama in November would be a “no-brainer”. Referring to why he would not choose McCain, he added: “There are too many obvious reasons to pick one. Let me name three. 1. Torture; 2. Tax cuts for the rich; 3. A [running mate, Sarah Palin] who believes in the Apocalypse and not in evolution.”

The same day the letter was released, the Obama campaign published an 11-page policy document entitled, “Investing in America’s future: Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s plan for science and innovation”, pledging to double federal funding for research over 10 years. An Obama-Biden administration, they say on their website, would change “the posture of our federal government from being one of the most anti-science administrations in American history to one that embraces science and technology”.

This is the open letter:

An Open Letter to the American People

This year's presidential election is among the most significant in our nation's history. The country urgently needs a visionary leader who can ensure the future of our traditional strengths in science and technology and who can harness those strengths to address many of our greatest problems: energy, disease, climate change, security, and economic competitiveness.

We are convinced that Senator Barack Obama is such a leader, and we urge you to join us in supporting him.

During the administration of George W. Bush, vital parts of our country's scientific enterprise have been damaged by stagnant or declining federal support. The government's scientific advisory process has been distorted by political considerations. As a result, our once dominant position in the scientific world has been shaken and our prosperity has been placed at risk. We have lost time critical for the development of new ways to provide energy, treat disease, reverse climate change, strengthen our security, and improve our economy.

We have watched Senator Obama's approach to these issues with admiration. We especially applaud his emphasis during the campaign on the power of science and technology to enhance our nation's competitiveness. In particular, we support the measures he plans to take - through new initiatives in education and training, expanded research funding, an unbiased process for obtaining scientific advice, and an appropriate balance of basic and applied research - to meet the nation's and the world's most urgent needs.

Senator Obama understands that Presidential leadership and federal investments in science and technology are crucial elements in successful governance of the world's leading country. We hope you will join us as we work together to ensure his election in November.

Signed,

Click here to read the original with signers