First Human Trial of Embryo-Derived Treatment
The violence and economic strangulation against us continues unabated (see blog of 21 January “Violence and economic strangulation”). As I stated in the previous blog, on Saturday Declan thought it best if we left the Catholic Manna Centre, without even a bite to eat - the second time in a week that we have felt the need to do so. In the blog of 17 November, I wrote that our Big Issue pitches - The Big Issue is a magazine sold by homeless people on registered pitches throughout the UK - have been terminated (see blog of 11 November “Letter of complaint to the chair of The Big Issue Foundation Charity”). We can still sell the magazine on the pitches we had for two years but we have no priority whatsoever: we have to leave the pitches if the vendors to whom they have been allocated come along, and not stand in on them at all if a vendor is already there. This is an extremely serious situation for me in particular, in that I am facing possible prosecution for begging.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared to proceed the first human trial of a therapy based on human embryonic stem cells, in a study that promises to open a new era for medicine, The Times reported last Friday. Paralysed patients will this summer become the first people in the world to receive the therapy, which has huge potential to cure disease yet is considered unethical by “pro-life” groups because it involves destroying embryos.
The decision marks a sea-change in US government attitudes to stem cells, as President Obama prepares to lift restrictions imposed by President Bush that hampered progress in the field. Mr Obama pledged in his inaugural address to “restore science to its rightful place”, and to end White House obstruction of stem-cell research.
The new FDA ruling will allow doctors to inject specialised spinal cells grown from embryonic tissue into patients who have just become paralysed from the chest down. It is hoped that the cell transplants will prompt regrowth of damaged nerves, restoring sensation and movement to people who would otherwise have been paralysed for life. The treatment will be used on people a week or two after they suffer their spinal injury; it cannot help those already paralysed.
A successful trial would transform the prospects of thousands of people for whom few treatment options currently exist, said The Times, adding that if the results are positive, the therapy could be approved for wider use within three to five years.
Thomas Okarma, chief executive of the Geron, which developed the treatment, is quoted by the paper as saying: “This marks the beginning of what is potentially a new chapter in medical therapeutics - one that reaches beyond pills to a new level of healing: the restoration of organ and tissue function by the injection of healthy replacement cells. The ultimate goal is to achieve restoration of spinal cord function.”
In a recent paper published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Professor Ronald Green, Faculty Director of Dartmouth’s Ethics Institute, writes:
At present, opposition to hES cell research is a relatively cost-free stance that permits those adopting it to reap many symbolic and organisational rewards. This could change if hES cell research fulfils its therapeutic promise. For the past few years, I have been predicting that our stem cell debates will end abruptly the day after the first diabetic child walks out of a stem cell clinic cured of the disease. If families must choose between embryos and treatments for sick loved ones, the full gravity of these commitments will become clearer. Then, the family-values component of the anti-hES cell position will be internally challenged, as people will ask how they best can express their commitment to the welfare of families and children. Is it by opposing the destruction of human embryos, or by turning spare, and otherwise doomed, embryos to human benefit? If that happens, I believe, many of the opponents will look anew at their real valuation of the early embryo, and most will opt for cures.
Geron’s trial will soon appear as the second lead item on the homepage of our new website in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning (launched last Monday); Professor Green’s article will appear as a link. They would be there now if it wasn’t for the fact that my first computer at our local council’s Idea Store Whitechapel is at 1.15pm and I am restricted to a maximum of three hours – we frequently run into difficulties at this library (see, for example, Friday’s blog “Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council”; on Thursday I was unable to access either our website or the web host). Our fight to raise £450 for a laptop to build the site continues. Today we received a first donation of £20. It was a momentous occasion for us both, actually.
