New NAC website is gone

We haven’t heard from the web host obxhost.net, but the new NAC website that I have been building in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning at http://network.obxhost.net/index.html is very much gone – since yesterday evening. When I try to access the home page, I am directed to a site that says:

ERROR 404 - PAGE NOT FOUND
Oops! Looks like the page you're looking for was moved or never existed.
Make sure you typed the correct URL or followed a valid link.

Later yesterday evening we were also informed by email from the US that the same applied there. I had a new graphic on spinal cord injuries added to the home page to upload (see below), and also a section titled “Spinal cord injuries” under treatments and cures in applications of embryonic stem cell research on foot of the US Food and Drug Administration’s landmark decision on 23 January to approve the first clinical trials using the products of human embryonic stem cells. (“This is a great time for stem cell science,” said David Scadden, co-chair of the ISSCR Clinical Translation Committee, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Regenerative Medicine, and co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. “The FDA has signaled that the safeguards are now in place to begin testing embryonic stem cell therapies. If the White House follows through with lifting restrictions on federal funding, we could see a great flowering of new research and an opportunity to see if these cells can deliver for patients.”) But I haven’t been able to upload anything: my username, password and email are no longer recognised by the host.

This is what the homepage of the website looks like now:



The new (black) banner in the left-hand column reads: “Spinal cord injuries: Green light for US human ES cell work. The patients who stand to benefit.”

Scientists Urge President-Elect Obama to Restore US Funding of Stem Cell Research

2008 World Stem Cell Summit in Madison, WI, 22-23 September

Advocates of stem cell research are counting the days until the swearing-in of President-elect Barack Obama, reports the Los Angeles Times. Although President George Bush has strictly limited stem cell research from cell lines derived from human embryos, Obama has long favoured such research and is likely to put a quick end to the federal ban that limits funding of research. Obama has pledged full support of stem cell research, stating recently:

I strongly support expanding research on stem cells. I believe the restrictions that President Bush has placed on funding of human embryonic stem cell research have handcuffed our scientists and hindered our ability to compete with other nations.

As president, I will lift the current administration’s ban on federal funding of research on embryonic stem cell lines … and I will ensure that all research on stem cells is conducted ethically and with rigorous oversight.

The Vancouver Sun reported on Thursday that researchers attending a stem cell conference in Canada were elated with Obama’s win. Clayton Smith, an American researcher who moved to British Columbia five years ago to perform stem cell research, and now heads a lab at the BC Cancer Agency’s Terry Fox Laboratory, told the Sun: “Watching the election last night was a singular event, like watching the Berlin Wall fall.” USA Today reported that people attending the annual fundraiser benefiting the Michael J Fox Foundation in New York Wednesday night were giddy over Obama’s win. “In all fairness, Sen McCain has been supportive of our foundation in the past and supportive of research. But I think this administration will really embrace it,” said Fox, who has Parkinson’s disease. Researchers are hopeful that stem cell research could eventually yield a successful treatment for the disease.

In a press release issued on Thursday the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), which represents the world’s leading stem cell scientists, has urged Obama to restore federal funding for embryonic stem cell research in the first 100 days of his presidency. “On August 9, 2001, President Bush declared an executive order banning funding for certain kinds of stem cell research on ideological and religious grounds, not on the basis of the promise of such research for advancing medical knowledge and therapies,” ISSCR President-elect Irving Weissman, director of the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (and a signatory of Declan’s petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning), is quoted as saying in the press release. He added: “This was a dangerous precedent of politicisation of biomedical research, perhaps the first ideological ban of a type of research in America. We urge President-Elect Obama to return to the former policy of investigator-initiated research in all areas of stem cell biology and medicine, overseen by the kinds of safeguards we have advocated in the ISSCR’s Guidelines for the Conduct of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research.”

According to the Wisconsin Technology Network, to reverse the President Bush’s stem cell policy, which he has pledged to do, Obama does not need an act of Congress or to have his aides prepare an executive order for his signature. He only needs to give a simple order to the director of the National Institutes of Health. Alta Charo, a Warren P Knowles Professor of Law and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, indicated to WTN News that it would be very simple for President Obama to make federal funding available to more embryonic stem cell lines. “Bush’s policy was just that, a policy; that is, a direction given to his NIH director,” Charo wrote in an email. “So Obama can simply direct his NIH director to feel free to fund research on newer lines. No executive order or Congressional action needed.” Charo noted that the only time Congressional action would be needed is if the new President wanted to change the legislative prohibition on using federal funds to work directly on embryos (eg to derive new lines). That’s a reference to the so-called Dickey-Wicker Amendment, said WTN.

Reporting on Friday’s annual stem cell conference at the Salk Institute, La Jolla, CA, the North County Times said that stem cell researchers expect a surge of funding, an easing of restrictions and accelerating scientific progress in turning stem cells into disease treatments. The “Stem Cell Meeting on the Mesa” was presented by the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, an alliance of four San Diego research powerhouses: UC San Diego, The Burnham Institute, The Salk Institute and The Scripps Research Institute. Philanthropist T Denny Sanford, after whom the consortium is named, was attending the conference. In September, he gave the consortium $30 million to advance stem cell research. Sanford was optimistic about the prospects for stem cell research, which he called “the medicine of the future”, and the incoming Obama administration’s support of it. “Everything that I’ve heard thus far is that Obama certainly is behind stem cell research, he’ll lift the restrictions currently in place [on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research], so it adds that much more excitement to the field,” Sanford said in an interview before the conference began. (Several distinguished scientists from the Sanford Consortium have signed Declan’s petition.)

The Harvard Crimson quotes Brock Reeve, the executive director of The Harvard Stem Cell Institute (and another signatory of Declan’s petition) as saying: “I think it’s a great moment for the country because one of the things that Obama is doing is placing a greater emphasis on science and relying on different experts in different fields. He’s definitely making science and investment in general a much higher priority.”

According to a report by the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan, it is regenerative medicine that is driving the life sciences business sector in Michigan, the United States, and the rest of the world. The report says: “Stem cell research, including human embryonic stem cell research, is seen by many as vital to advancing regenerative medicine. According to a 2006 US Department of Health & Human Services report, a conservative estimate of the worldwide market for regenerative medicine by 2010 is $500 billion. The projected US market is $100 billion.”

Our campaign in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning will argue that stem cell research, including human embryonic stem cell research, is not only vital to advancing regenerative medicine, but has the potential to be an economic boon for countries throughout the world and to lower overall domestic health care costs (see blog of 1 November “Can a cell have a soul?”). And we will voice strong support for researchers and research institutes doing breakthrough work - such as, for example, the Japanese scientists from the Riken Center for Developmental Biology who announced on Thursday that they have been successful in creating a cerebral cortex from embryonic stem cells, thus boosting the possibility of future treatment of brain-related diseases; and the Scottish scientists from the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine of Edinburgh University who have been turning embryonic stem cells into a cell type lost in Parkinson’s patients. We will also report on joint international efforts on embryonic stem cell research and applications.

Survey: Keep Religion Out of Politics

Declan and I are still looking for a place to sleep (on Thursday night we returned to the porch we have been sleeping in since 3 November 2006 to find an unlocked trellis gate; and on Friday night the gate was locked). Still, a part of me welcomes leaving the porch behind. It shouldn't be difficult: I have been assaulted there three times; and as recently as 2 August I was urinated on. Also, the City of London police have woken us on numerous occasions mainly to put us under pressure to go into a homeless hostel, meaning Declan would have to 'sign on' for benefits, and consequently withdraw his application to the European Court of Human Rights (see blog "A trellis gate is installed in the porch" for Declan's most recent letter to the Registrar of the Court). And when these police visits didn't have the desired effect, a City of London Police 'No sleeping' went up on the back wall of the porch (see blog of 25 June "Police ‘No sleeping’ sign in the porch").

Today, a year ago, Declan submitted his application to the European Court with a request for priority under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court: in a letter of 22 November the Court stated that it was not necessary to consider Declan's first 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 is "as soon as practicable" – coincidentally, two days before Declan received this letter from the Catholic Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre, his main bag, containing all our money and documents, was robbed in the centre (see here). On 4 July, he submitted a second request for priority, drawing to the attention of the Court a violation of Article 34 and requesting that the Court take this matter up with the Government – Article 34 establishes a duty on Convention states not to subject applicants to any improper indirect acts or contacts designed to dissuade or discourage applicants from pursuing a Convention remedy.



On Thursday, LiveScience reported under the headline "Survey: Keep Religion Out of Politics" that, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center, for the first time in more than a decade a majority of Americans think religious organisations should stay out of politics. In addition, an increasing number are uncomfortable when politicians talk about how religious they are. Overall, 52 percent thought that churches and other religious institutions should stay out of politics, an increase of eight percentage points since 2004, when the last US presidential election was held. A huge shift came from voters who described themselves as conservative, with 50 percent saying churches should stay out of politics compared to 30 percent in 2004. Among Republicans, 51 percent held this view, up from 37 percent in August of 2004. And among Democratic voters, the percentage who wanted churches out of politics was almost unchanged since 2004 at 52 percent. Commenting on the results, the Pew Research Center said: "Where there was once a substantial partisan and ideological gap on this question, there is now far less of a divide."

Perhaps there are parallels between this development and the emerging anticorporate attitude among many young activists that prompted journalist Naomi Klein to write the book titled “No Logo”. Klein explains in the introduction to the book that as she was doing some research on university campuses in the mid-90s, she began to notice that many of the students she was meeting were preoccupied with the inroads private corporations were making in their public schools. They were angry that ads were creeping into cafeterias, common rooms, even washrooms; that their schools were diving into exclusive distribution deals with soft-drink companies and computer manufactures, and that academic studies were starting to look more and more like market research. They worried that their education was suffering, as institutional priority shifted to those programs most conducive to private-sector partnership.

“Successful multinational corporations are increasingly finding themselves under attack,” Klein writes. But what are the forces pushing more and more people to become suspicious of or even downright enraged at multinational corporations, the very engines of our global growth? Perhaps more pertinently, what is liberating so many people – particularly young people – to act on their rage and suspicion? Klein provides some answers to these questions. “That corporations have grown so big they have superseded government. That unlike governments, they are accountable only to their shareholders; that we lack the mechanisms to make them answer to a broader public,” she writes.

Consider, for example, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown turning up in the US on a three-day visit from 15 to 18 April, only to be upstaged by Pope Benedict XVI (MacAskill, Guardian, 15/4); or the Pope’s rejection in July of an invitation to address the European parliament, prompting Mary Honeyball MEP, a labour spokesperson in the European Parliament Women's Rights Committee, to write in the Guardian that the pontiff was “effectively holding the EU to ransom” (Honeyball, Guardian, 25/7). As for accountability, there is the US Conference of Catholic Bishops: despite recent statements by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, the National Academies and the International Society for Stem Cell Research emphasising that studies of all types of stem cells should continue in parallel, the Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website continues to display their two recently released print ads describing embryonic stem research as “obsolete” (the ads were distributed at the Democratic Convention in Denver and at the Republican Convention in Minneapolis/St Paul by pro-life groups, according to LifeSiteNews.com).

Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding

Declan was told by a scientist on Tuesday that he hadn't received any email with the subject "NAC: Petition to the UN on Therapeutic Cloning", not even in his spam box – Declan usually makes three or four random calls, although normally all he gets are voice mails. So it seems that a spam box is too good for Declan's email: scientists and academics can spot it among the junk and decide to sign the petition. It might explain why there were no signatures yesterday despite me emailing 105 scientists; the day before I emailed 139.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama

If elected President of the United States in November, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says he will lift the Bush administration's ban on federal funding of research on embryonic stem cell lines created after 9 August 2001, and ensure that all research on stem cells is conducted ethically and with rigorous oversight. Obama recently answered a fourteen-part questionnaire posed to him and Republican presidential candidate John McCain by the grassroots group Science Debate 2008, which says it hopes to make key science issues a larger part of the election. McCain has said he will also answer the questions.

The questionnaire was a joint effort of Science Debate 2008, Scientists and Engineers for America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academies (the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine and National Research Council), the Council on Competitiveness and others, together representing more than 125 million voters. The questions dealt with a range of topics including genetics, stem cell research, scientific integrity, and research. "Most of America's major unsolved challenges revolve around these 14 questions," Shawn Otto, chief executive officer of Science Debate 2008, said in a statement. "To move America forward, the next president needs a substantive plan for tackling [the issues] going in, and voters deserve to know what that plan is."

Obama's answer to the question on embryonic stem cell research (Q: "Stem cell research advocates say it may successfully lead to treatments for many chronic diseases and injuries, saving lives, but opponents argue that using embryos as a source for stem cells destroys human life. What is your position on government regulation and funding of stem cell research?") is reproduced here:

Stem cell research holds the promise of improving our lives in at least three ways – by substituting normal cells for damaged cells to treat diabetes, Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injury, heart failure and other disorders; by providing scientists with safe and convenient models of disease for drug development; and by helping to understand fundamental aspects of normal development and cell dysfunction.

For these reasons, I strongly support expanding research on stem cells. I believe that the restrictions that President Bush has placed on funding of human embryonic stem cell research have handcuffed our scientists and hindered our ability to compete with other nations. As president, I will lift the current administration's ban on federal funding of research on embryonic stem cell lines created after August 9, 2001 through executive order, and I will ensure that all research on stem cells is conducted ethically and with rigorous oversight.

I recognize that some people object to government support of research that requires cells to be harvested from human embryos. However, hundreds of thousands of embryos stored in the U.S. in in-vitro fertilization clinics will not be used for reproductive purposes, and will eventually be destroyed. I believe that it is ethical to use these extra embryos for research that could save lives when they are freely donated for that express purpose.

I am also aware that there have been suggestions that human stem cells of various types, derived from sources other than embryos, make the use of embryonic stem cells unnecessary. I don't agree. While adult stem cells, such as those harvested from blood or bone marrow, are already used for treatment of some diseases, they do not have the versatility of embryonic stem cells and cannot replace them. Recent discoveries indicate that adult skin cells can be reprogrammed to behave like stem cells; these are exciting findings that might in the future lead to an alternate source of highly versatile stem cells. However, embryonic stem cells remain the "gold standard," and studies of all types of stem cells should continue in parallel for the foreseeable future.

Rather than restrict the funding of such research, I favor responsible oversight of it, in accord with recent reports from the National Research Council. Recommendations from the NRC reports are already being followed by institutions that conduct human embryonic stem cell research with funds from a variety of sources. An expanded, federally-supported stem cell research program will encourage talented U.S. scientists to engage in this important new field, will allow more effective oversight, and will signal to other countries our commitment to compete in this exciting area of medical research.

A recent article in the News-Journal, titled "East Texans find success in stem cell treatments", quoted Kevin Wilson, director of public policy for The American Society for Cell Biology, as saying that US Food and Drug Administration officials are cautious about allocating research money toward embryonic stem cell research, and that the government is losing billions of dollars in research time and money by stalling on embryonic stem cell research. "The president's policy puts stem cell research in a time warp," Wilson said. "In Singapore, stem cell research accounts for about $5 billion of its economy, and the country has invested billions into the research as well. We must have the US policy overturned."

Besides the hotly contested presidential election, Michigan voters will vote in November on a ballot proposal that would loosen restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. Medical News Today reports that the official wording of the ballot measure says that it will expand use of human embryos for any research permitted under federal law subject to the following limits: the embryos are created for fertility treatment purposes; are not suitable for implantation or are in excess of clinical needs; would be discarded unless used for research; were donated by the person seeking fertility treatment; provide that stem cells cannot be taken from human embryos more than 14 days after cell division begins; prohibit any person from selling or purchasing human embryos for stem cell research; and prohibit state and local laws that prevent, restrict or discourage stem cell research, future therapies and cures. It also quotes Joe Schwarz, a physician and former Republican member of Congress who heads the Cure Michigan campaign, as saying: "What we are talking about here is providing cures for people, providing therapies for people. In this century, a majority of therapies and cures will be from genetic therapy and cellular therapy and not from popping chemical compounds, which is what we've done all our lives. So this is a movement forward."

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. The Michigan Catholic Conference, which has joined the ballot question committee Michigan Citizens Against Unrestricted Science and Experimentation (MiCAUSE), states on their homepage that the proposal "would amend the state constitution to allow for unregulated, unrestricted embryo destruction in Michigan. The proposal also opens the door for human cloning to become legal in this state." In contrast, a letter of support for the ballot initiative to support embryonic stem cell research was issued only yesterday by the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), an independent, nonprofit organisation which represents over 2,600 leading stem cell researchers from around the world, stating: "The ethical safeguards proposed under Michigan's ballot initiative would provide an ethical framework within which important medical research could go forward."

Melvin Lester, Adjunct Professor of Medicine and President of Michigan Citizens for Stem Cell Research and Cures spoke at the House Judiciary Committee hearing in November 2007: "Do as you please. Don’t participate in embryonic stem cell research if it is against your better judgment, but please don’t tell us that the citizens of forty-five of our states that permit, endorse and support embryonic stem cell research are unethical, immoral and murderers. The majority of the citizens of Michigan like the majority of the citizens of the United States want this law rescinded."