Stem cells derived from human fetuses will be injected into the eyes of a dozen patients suffering from age-related macular degeneration, under a clinical trial approved early this year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
In mid-May, StemCells Inc. reported preliminary success in clinical safety trials with the same product on European patients with spinal injuries — the holy grail of potential stem-cell treatments. These trials are designed only to determine if the stem cells trigger tumors or immune reactions.
But the California-based, publicly traded firm isn’t touting the source of its designer stem cell, HuCNS-SC. On its website, it describes the product as “tissue-derived ‘adult’ (non-embryonic) stem cells.” And in its news release announcing the FDA’s approval, it is described as “purified human neural stem cells.”
However, LifeSite News, the Toronto-based pro-life news organization, dug into the firm’s website to find “human neural stem cells” described more brutally as “fresh human fetal brain tissue.” Further exploration of the company’s website reveals that the designation “‘adult’ (non-embryonic)” also turns out to mean “fetal.”
StemCells failed to respond to the Register’s request for comment.
Technical Window Dressing
Debi Vinnedge, president of Children of God for Life, a Florida organization devoted to fighting the use of fetal-derived products in both the food and drug industries, said it was a long-established practice in biological research to term all non-embryonic cells, whether from fetal, infant or adult stages, as “adult” because they share important characteristics that set them apart from embryonic cells. But she worries that StemCells Inc. may be using the term “adult” to disguise its lead product, thus insulating squeamish investors.
Not all fetal tissue is derived from morally problematic sources, Vinnedge said. “Parents could donate tissue from a miscarried child.” But since miscarriages often happen because of a problem with the unborn child’s health, researchers wanting healthy fetuses are more likely to end up with unborn children who were aborted, because they are generally viewed as healthy.
Fetal Tissue Strategy
Stem cells are undifferentiated, primitive cells that have the ability both to multiply and to differentiate into specific blood cells and other cell/tissue types. This ability allows them to replace dead or defective cells and/or tissues.
Embryonic stem-cell research, which involves the killing of a unique human being in an attempt to cure different diseases, has proven not only destructive and costly, but has not produced a cure. Adult stem-cell research, which utilizes cells from adult tissues or umbilical cords, does not require the destruction of human life. It has proven successful in treating more than 70 kinds of cancers and autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis.
Pope John Paul II said that all research using stem cells from human embryos is “morally unacceptable.”
In his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, John Paul said, “This moral condemnation also regards procedures that exploit living human embryos and fetuses — sometimes ‘produced’ for this purpose by in vitro fertilization — either to be used as ‘biological material’ or as providers or organs or tissue for transplants in the treatment of certain diseases.
“The killing of innocent human creatures, even if carried out to help others, constitutes an absolutely unacceptable act.”
While embryos and fetuses are morally equivalent, the difference between them at the biological level is significant — especially for StemCells Inc.’s approach to developing cures. The embryo is a growing but amorphous mass of cells and the stem cells that direct its growth are “pluripotent”: Any stem cell can grow into or spawn any kind of cell. The embryo is renamed a fetus precisely when its stem cells specialize and distinct organs begin to form from them. StemCells Inc.’s approach is to rely on fetal stem cells because they have already developed to the point when they will only produce cells for certain organs. Therefore, they need less engineering before being injected into a diseased organ.
In the early days of stem-cell research, the focus was on embryonic stem cells because their pluripotency seemed to promise universal curative potential. Yet, even as celebrities and politicians trumpeted embryonic stem cells as cure-alls, researchers quietly admitted that they often triggered tumors in animal subjects.
StemCells’s patented HuCNS-SC cells are derived from the central nervous system of fetuses and designed to treat diseases affecting all parts of the system, including the eyes. So far, animal and human studies indicate that this approach could help provide an effective treatment. Reportedly, StemCells Inc. has resolved both the tumor problem as well as immune reactions to the injected tissue.
StemCells Inc. has just received FDA approval to test HuCNS-SC clinically on 16 human patients with an eye disease called age-related macular degeneration after successful tests on animals with a similar disease. While it did not cure the research subjects, it apparently did prevent further degeneration.
StemCells Inc. has also just confirmed a successful clinical trial on human subjects, using the same product to treat Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease, which causes the myelin — or lining around nerve tissue — to degenerate. The four young patients treated with stem cells all showed new myelin production — an “unprecedented” development for those with the disease, according to StemCells Inc.’s news release.
Not everyone applauded the news. Dr. Theresa Deisher, president of Seattle-based AVM Biotechnology, said StemCells Inc.’s announcements regarding its tests on animals and clinical trials with human subjects were premature. In her view, the research using human beings in particular involved too few patients to be reliable. AVM Bio remains committed to adult stem-cell research, she said, for moral and technical reasons.
“We have products that are close to being ready to go,” she told the Register. AVM develops products that enhance the effectiveness of adult stem-cell treatments, which do not depend on the destruction of embryos or fetuses and do not present the technical obstacles embryonic stem cells do.
Meanwhile, therapies involving adult stem cells moved closer to implementation. In April alone, a UCLA research team announced the successful use of engineered adult stem cells to combat HIV/AIDS in mice, and Cleveland-based Athersys Inc. announced it had secured a patent on a product designed to reduce the immune reaction to adult stem-cell treatments for diseases such as leukemia.
Further, a Maryland firm, Osiris Therapeutics, has received Canadian approval to sell what it is billing as the world’s first stem-cell drug, Prochymal. Derived from adult stem cells, it will be used to treat children suffering from graft-versus-host disease. While other adult stem-cell treatments require implantation or injection, it will be administered as an ordinary prescription.
Register correspondent Steve Weatherbe writes from Victoria, British Columbia.
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“researchers wanting healthy fetuses are more likely to end up with unborn children who were aborted, because they generally viewed as healthy.”
Irony of the week.
Stem cell therapy is a tremendous medical discovery and no matter what, people who wish to try it for their aiments will get it where embryos and fetuses are not called “unborn children”... It is just a matter of semantics.
“Embryonic stem-cell research, which involves the killing of a unique human being in an attempt to cure different diseases…”
Just want to point out that this is not a true statement - there are a couple ways to collect these cells that do not require any harm to an embryo.
Failure after failure after failure after failure and yet these people continue to look for that magic fetal stem cell cure. It is mind boggling beyond any comprehension to see the absolute determination of the secular society to kill babies. These people make the Aztecs and Mayans look like a class of Girl Scouts on a Sunday School picnic.
It is sad that we have dead priests and bishops who are yawning and could care less.
The ways of God are not the ways of man. He will decide which stem cells will work.
@MoralMe: Are you saying that there are a couple of ways to collect embryonic stem cells that do not harm the embryo? What are they? I’m not an expert but I’ve been following these developments over the years with interest, and I’ve never come across such methods.
First of all, many priests and bishops are like so many others who are tired of trying to deal with all the issues that currently foster a culture of death. I think your “brush” is too broad: it is not uncommon for good people )Laity and religious) to become overwhelmed and do nothing, which is different from ‘could care less.’ Let us not judge each other; rather let us focus on doing God’s will.
Secondly, on this issue, I am confused; I thought more recent research indicated that stem cells derived from adults were actually more efficacious treatment than those taken from an unborn child (or is the fetus the adult to which this research referred?). I assume that AVM is basing its work on this research. So we have a problem with terminology and with the apparent need to ask the researchers in this area if what ethical guidelines have been established (it may be that this has yet to happen, as it failed to happen in mental health research until animal rights activists and child advocates lobbied).
Thirdly, as Christians I think we can become so fearfully focused on the law we fail to see all the victims. The tragedy of abortion is not just the child whose life is brutally taken (a Holy Innocent now in heaven); it is the souls of the individuals involved in that act that carry the scar of that death who become defensive and desensitized—the of our PERSONS in our culture. Should we not seek healing for all persons of their wounds (sins are wounds to the soul)? And I am not being romantic, I am trying to understand why we have failed so far…where we might need to change.
Finally, surely the aborted child is not assumed to be “healthy” and testing is done; so why not test the cells of the miscarried child. Donating the stem cells of a healthy child whose mother has miscarried might provide much consolation to the grieving parents.
I think we have to be open to God bringing good out of this stem cell discovery, while standing firm in the truth that John Paul II
There will be much rejoicing if a treatment based on embryonic stem cells cures age-related macular degeneration. There’s a huge market for such a cure. If the bishops tried to prevent Medicare from funding such care, I think they would wind up like bugs taking on a windshield.
“Age-related macular degeneration affects more than 1.75 million individuals in the United States. Owing to the rapid aging of the US population, this number will increase to almost 3 million by 2020.”
http://www.nei.nih.gov/eyedata/pbd4.asp
Good advancement in stem cell therapy especially for nervous system related conditions.Nervous system cell have no capacity of self repair or regeneration so stem cell therapy is really a blessing..
http://www.rajaha.com/stem-cell-bank/
While I respect your view point you are jaded to the point of spreading the same type of misinformation as you are trying to inform upon. While the tests are being done first with regards to age related macular degeneration it is not the only type. There is a genetic condition called starsgardt which may be cured or improved with this same treatment should it prove effective. And while you state that it has done nothing but control the disease, that is not accurate. The treatment has been shown to restore sight to those affected such that one woman who could not previously see can see well enough to do her own grocery shopping again.
While I could not and do not condone the abortions that may (there are other means to harvesting stem cells) have provided these stem cells, is it not better that the fetuses go to some beneficial cause such as restoring site to some young adult who can no longer see due to starsgardt robbing their vision. Or my wife who at the current rate will not be able to see the marriage of her five children when the time comes, but instead will only be able to listen in darkness.
Nobody is killing babies that would otherwise have lived for this purpose. Stop trying to twist things and make it sound as though they were. If your issue is that these fetus’ will not have a life then fight against in vitro fertilization which gives many mothers a chance where they previously had none. Or more appropriately fight against abortion, for which there is not moral justification.
Stem cell research on the other hand is showing promise, and not killing babies to make it happen.
what a bunch of hypocrites. These same critics would gladly put you to death in a death chamber. To all you religious critics, you had better look after your own little flock and leave the big flock alone.
I am sure you have read:” Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and render unto God that which is God’s.
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