"A return to power"

That's the sub-heading from Science Magazine's "Obama takes the reigns." The story was yesterday's little "ScienceNOW" report on the (newly created) Office of the President Elect's selection of Mario Molina, who will be co-lead for the review of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Molina has received the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the nature of the "hole" in the atmospheric ozone layer. He worked in the Clinton OSTP.

That's the sub-heading from Science Magazine's "Obama takes the reigns." The story was yesterday's little "ScienceNOW" report on the (newly created) Office of the President Elect's selection of Mario Molina, who will be co-lead for the "review" of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Molina received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his discovery of the effects of chlorofluorocarbon gases of the "hole" in the atmospheric ozone layer. He worked in the Clinton OSTP. You can watch him talk about global warming, here.

The (newly created) Office of the President Elect also announced that Robin Alta Charo would join the group "reviewing" the Department of Human Health and Services, especially the issues of bioethics, health care and science policy. Charo is a lawyer, one of the founding members of the Center for American Progress and their Bioethics Initiative (a pdf transcript) and Science Progress, formerly on the "medical advisory" boards of the Alan Guttmacher Institute and Planned Parenthood and on Clinton's National Bioethics Advisory Committee that made the recommendations on human cloning (continue with cloning for research, but have a 5 year moratorium on cloning for reproduction). She's notable for coining the term the "endarkenment" as description for President Bush's Bioethics Council (more, here) and for her comments that there shouldn't be any problem with abortion for sex selection and that cloning might prove that there isn't a God and we humans are just a step in evolution.

The (manufactured) Stem Cell Debate at Dartmouth

I don't believe I've ever seen a report on a presentation that allowed half the space for "debate," after the fact.

The Stem Cell Debate at Dartmouth

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D. was recently invited to give a lecture entitled “Stem Cells and Cloning: Understanding the Scientific Issues and the Moral Objections” at Aquinas House, in observance of the Feast of St. Luke, the patron saint of medical professionals. Pacholczyk, or Father Tad as he encourages his audience members to call him, is the Director of Education for the National Catholic Bioethics Center. He arrived at this position after receiving degrees in philosophy, biochemistry, molecular cell biology, and chemistry, a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Yale University, and years of research in molecular biology, bioethics, and dogmatic theology. In a free public lecture lasting more than two hours, Pacholczyk outlined both the scientific and ethical considerations of human embryonic stem cell research and to a lesser extent cloning, giving justifications for the Catholic Church’s positions on these technologies.

After giving an in depth layman’s version of the science involved in stem cell research and a history of both scientific milestones and relevant policy decisions, Pacholczyk corrected what he believed were some of the most pervasive myths about stem cell research. He believes that individuals and organizations within the media and others who engage in expensive advertising campaigns have deliberately misled the American people in an effort to reframe the debate over the use of human embryos for research.

**************
The Dartmouth Review understands that this is an issue on which reasonable moral people can disagree, and so Michael S. Gazzaniga ‘61, Ph.D., Director of the Sage Center for the Study of Mind at the University of California, Santa Barbara was asked to explain some of the ethical justifications. He indicated that, “The handling of human tissue has always commanded the respect of the biomedical community and always will.” However, Gazzaniga does not consider an embryo to be in possession of the same moral status as an adult human, while acknowledging that the issue has “deep meaning to millions of people.”

The Review has raised several ethics questions regarding the virtual debate they created by interviewing Dr. Gazzaniga after Dr. Pacholczyk's talk.

Will they seek out opposing views in the future or is it only Catholic priests who require such answers? Will they now give Dr. Pacholczyk an opportunity to respond?

In addition, Dr. Gazzaniga finds the determination as to when a human being becomes a human being fairly simplistic:

Asked the basic question underlying this debate and that about abortion, when a human embryo becomes a human being, Gazzaniga called it a “social decision, not unlike the kind a society makes about when to call someone legally blind.”

Does Dr. Gazzaniga's emphasis on contrasting "adult" human beings with embryonic human beings indicate that he finds differing moral values in the lives of infants, children, and "adults," does he extend these differences to the state of function of the brain, and can he justify these variations at least as well as we can our culture's definition of "legally blind?"

Science in Obama's Administration

After lots of 'Net speculation on science and medicine advisory councils and committees in addition to mine of this morning, we find out that the Obama leader for the transition team on the President's Council on Bioethics Review Team will be Jonathan Moreno the associate at the bioethics arms of the Center for American Progress, founded by co-chair of the Obama "office of the President-Elect" transitionist John Podesta.

And Moreno and Podesta are not the only "Progressives" on the transition team. Note the names Tom Perez (that's a Word document), Anthony Brown, Pam Gilbert ( a .pdf from the Center for American Progress online book, "Change for America"), Nicole Lurie, (former Clinton HUD appointee, lesbian rights attorney and San Francisco Supervisor) Roberta Achtenberg, Bruce Katz, Jim Roosevelt.

And that's just one sub-committee and only the top lines of the result of their Google searches.

Among the chatterers are the authors of Science Progress, an online newsletter and blog (with a biannual print edition) for the Center for American Progress. Jonathan Moreno is the Editor - - which is not mentioned at all in the Moreno biography linked above - - and all the usual suspects are on the advisory board. If you like the "match game" we used to play as kids, compare the names on Science Progress' advisory board with the Clinton National Bioethics Advisory Commission.

Those virtual pages contain advice from Moreno, Weiss, and Bernard Lo on what sort of scientists ought to be appointed by President-elect Obama and his minions and to which offices.

While Moreno advocates for the return of the science adviser to Presidential Cabinet meetings, Lo wants a National Bioethics Advisory Commission (the name that the Clinton appointed group used in the '90's) that not only will advise the President and the Administration by answering their specific questions, he wants the new NBAC to act:

"the Council should be addressing the nation. The Council should reach out to the American people, for example, by inviting testimony from community organizations and patient and public advocacy groups, soliciting public comments on draft proposals, and responding to criticisms by explaining the reasons why suggestions were not accepted. Further, a new council could approach communication with the public as a two-way street. Rick Borchelt and Kathy Hudson have argued here on Science Progress, “the end game of public engagement should be empowerment: creating a real and meaningful mechanism for public input to be heard far enough upstream in science and technology policymaking and program development to influence decisions.”"

Professor Lo is the co-author of one of the popular textbooks on Bioethics, Resolving Ethical Dilemmas. (Although not pro-life or based on a Christian worldview, the principles in use for clinical ethics are covered fairly well. In fact, it was the text assigned in my clinical ethics class at Trinity International University, as part of the Bioethics Masters Degree program.)

I don't believe that Professor Lo actually wishes to have a trickle up scientific policy from the citizens to direct science and ethics or public policy about either. Science cannot give empirical evidence, conduct controlled experiments or make an argument for one or the other approach to determining public policy. However, I believe that Lo, along with so many of the progressives, prefer to have scientists and academics decide science policy for the public and government, and to have carte blanche, without regard to the pro-life, religious or cultural beliefs of others. And that, in my opinion, is just as influential as money and careers in the opposition to the Bush science policy and bioethics appointees.

Science Magazine contains at least one more comment on the upcoming Obama administration appointees (Subscription only, I'm afraid.)

Gregory A. Good's review of Zuoyue Wang's book, In Sputnik's Shadow, completely ignores the inclusion of many men and women who belie his description of the President Bush as only appointing "advisers who told [President Bush] what he wanted to hear." He should at least be aware of examples such as the service of Michael Gazzaniga on the President's Council on Bioethics, Paul Wolpe as NASA's ethicist, even Jonathan Moreno as an adviser for the Department of Health and Human Services during the Bush Administration.

Of course, most of the discussion is about representation and money for research. However, if you enjoyed the match game above, take a look at the actual "incumbents" who are paid governmental appointees under President Bush, available in an online book available for free, here. There's more information here on jobs and volunteer science and technology advisory committees. Compare those names and backgrounds to the authors of a similar report from 2005, here. Now, take a look at the names on the advisory boards of Science Progress, Nature, Science Magazine, and (again, of course) the American Journal of Bioethics and at the people featured on the "Science Debate 2008" webpage videos.


Where does the balance fall between the right and the left, between the pro-life and the pro-choice?

(As one of the thousands of appointees by the Bush Administration, I am deeply offended that Good would imply that anyone who served did not do so with "the best interests of the country at heart." Is this projection on his part? Good will soon leave the History Department of West Virginia University for the American Institute of Physics - a society of societies that must have too much money to come begging to the government if they have a budget for a Center for the History of Physics, but you can e-mail him at greg.good@mail.wvu.edu through the end of the year.)

Charo: No "Presidential sleight of hand" on stem cells

"The Wicker-Dickey Amendment cannot be changed by Presidential sleight of hand or wave of pen."

R. Alta Charo, World Stem Cell Summit, Madison Wisconsin, September, 2008 See video, at time marker 11:18/01:01:29.

John Podesta, the founder of the Center for American Progress and the leader of the transitional team for the newly invented "Office of the President Elect,"
told Chris Matthews of Fox News Sunday (transcript here) that Barack Obama intends to do what he can to change the US policy on "stem cells" by the use of the Presidential Executive Order (EO).

In light of current law (the Dickey Amendment) and regulations that seem to require legislation such as that vetoed by President Bush last year, some may join me in wondering how much the new President will actually be able to accomplish by the use of EO's.

In fact, according to one of the original members of the CAP's Progressive Bioethics initiative, R. Alta Charo, a lawyer with quite a bit of experience in this sort of law, it won't be as easy as Mr. Podesta said. Ms. Charo made the statement above as a keynote speaker for the program at that World Stem Cell Summit that I mentioned in September.

Videos of much of the program can be found here.

While searching for information on the current laws on embryonic stem cells, I found this blog, "World Stem Cell Summit 2008," . Blogger Kate Willet summarized the proceedings in an unofficial capacity. From the parts I've watched, her impressions on the program and speakers as it happened are fairly accurate.

The real-time video of R. Alta Charo's talk is here, and the paraphrased report is here.

On Conscience: Philosophical, not Scientific or Medical Debate

Some of you may have already seen this transcript from the September '08 President's Bioethics Council meeting. Three physicians gave testimony on September 12th, including Dr. Farr Curlin, Dr. Howard Brody, and (from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, although she says she's not there as an ACOG representative) Dr. Anne Drapkin Lyerly.

Council member Robert P. George has this to say about the debate (speaking specifically on conscience and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology's Ethics Statement on conscience and physicians, "The Limits of Conscientious Refusal in Reproductive Medicine," )

The first thing to notice about the ACOG Committee report is that it is an exercise in moral philosophy. It proposes a definition of conscience, something that cannot be supplied by science or medicine. It then proposes to instruct its readers on, "...the limits of conscientious refusals describing how claims of conscience should be weighed in the context of other values critical to the ethical provision of health care."

Again, knowledge of these limits and values, as well as knowledge of what should count as the ethical provision of health care, are not and cannot possibly be the product of scientific inquiry for medicine as such. The proposed instruction offered here by those responsible for the ACOG Committee report represents a philosophical and ethical opinion — their philosophical and ethical opinion.

The report goes on to, "outline options for public policy," and propose, "recommendations that maximize accommodation of the individual's religious and moral beliefs while avoiding imposition of these beliefs on others or interfering with the safe, timely, and financially feasible access to reproductive health care that all women deserve."

Yet again notice that every concept in play here — the punitive balancing, the judgment as to what constitutes an imposition of personal beliefs on others, the view of what constitutes health care or reproductive health care, the judgment about what is deserved is philosophical, not scientific or, strictly speaking, medical.

To the extent that they are medical judgments even loosely speaking they reflect a concept of medicine informed and structured, shaped by philosophical and ethical judgments. Those responsible for the report purport to be speaking as physicians and medical professionals.

The special authority the report is supposed to have derives from their standing and expertise as physicians and medical professionals, yet at every point that matters, the judgments offered reflect their philosophical, ethical, and political judgments, not any expertise they have by virtue of their training and experience in science and medicine.

At every key point in the report their judgments are contestable and contested. Indeed they are contested by the very people on who consciences they seek to impose, the people whom they would, if their report were adopted and made binding, force into line with their philosophical and ethical judgments or drive out of their fields of medical practice. And they are contested, of course, by many others. And in each of these contests a resolution one way or the other cannot be determined by scientific methods, rather the debate is philosophical, ethical, or political.

Lay aside for the moment the question of whose philosophical judgments are right and whose are wrong. My point so far has only been that the report is laced and dependent upon at every turn philosophical judgments. I've not offered a critique of those judgments, although anyone who cares to can find plenty of criticisms in my work of those judgments. But lay that aside for now.

The key thing to see is that the issues in dispute are philosophical and can only be resolved by philosophical reflection and debate. They cannot be resolved by science or methods of scientific inquiry. The committee report reflects and promotes a particular moral view and vision and understandings of health and medicine shaped in every contested dimension and in every dimension relevant to the report's subject matter, namely the limits of conscientious refusal, by that moral view and vision.

The report, in other words, in its driving assumptions, reasoning, and conclusions is not morally neutral. Its analysis and recommendations for action do not proceed from a basis of moral neutrality. It represents a partisan position among the family of possible positions debated or adopted by people of reason and goodwill in the medical profession and beyond. Indeed, for me, the partisanship of the report is its most striking feature.

Its greatest irony is the report's concern for physicians' allegedly imposing their beliefs on patients by, for example, declining to perform or refer for abortions — or at least declining to perform abortions or provide other services in emergency situations and certainly to refer for these procedures. The assumption here, of course, is the philosophical one that deliberate feticide is morally acceptable and even a woman's right.

But lay that aside for now. Of course, the physician or the pharmacist who declines to dispense coerces no one, though I think that Prof. Brody and I would have a debate about that.

Interesting that both Dr. Lyerly and Dr. Brody refuse to discuss the ACOG statement.

A compelling look at the problem of contrasting world views is posed by Dr. Gilbert Meilander:

. . . the fascinating question you raised under your slide on professional integrity about a professional elevating the — in this case the patient's needs above his own interests, and then you said does one's own interest include one's personal integrity. But then you confused — and I think that's — it's like, you know, "Should I be prepared to go to hell in order to help somebody," a question which theologians have actually discussed.

But you gave the, to me, puzzling example of physicians who should be willing to risk their own lives in an epidemic, for instance, to do it, and then you said, you know, if you'd risk your life, why wouldn't you risk your integrity.

But I thought the reason for a physician being willing to risk his life in an epidemic was precisely that he didn't think staying alive was the most important thing, that there was something else that was morally more compelling and obligatory even than preserving his existence. And that would have something to do with the personal integrity that you seem willing to think may be — one should be willing to set aside in embracing what one thinks is evil.

How can anyone live well without integrity? Or, from the Christian philosopher, Paul, "What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?"

(Edited to add italics on that long quote.)

"iPS cells would have never been discovered without human embryonic stem cells"

In fact, Mr. Siegal, without the objection to cloning and embryonic stem cell research, iPS cells researchers might have taken a little longer to develop therapy that holds promise for regeneration and healing in the body, without transplants, intermediate cells and without costing the life of another human being.

Bernie Siegal, that lawyer who sued the Raelians for custody of their supposed cloned children and who lauded Hu Wu Suk for his own cloned children, is hosting one of his "World Stem Cell Summits" in Madison, Wisconsin next week. He is joined by Robin Alta Charo in promoting the Summit and reminding all of us that the push is not over for more clone-and-kill embryos and federal tax funded research depending on embryo creation and destruction. No matter how successful induced Pleuripotent Stem (iPS) cells are turning out to be.

Siegal founded the Genetics Policy Institute, with the help of the National Heritage Foundation Inc:

The GPI is funded by individuals, foundations, academic institutions and scientific societies, including the American Society For Cell Biology, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research and the Huffington Foundation, according to Siegel.

R. Alta Charo (for some reason, she drops the "Robin") is a lawyer/bioethicist ( "for Hire")will deliver a keynote address at the Summit. She lobbies against physicians with consciences and in favor of abortion, cloning and embryo stem cell research. She's especially fond of the latter two, because (as she says in this audio copy of her lecture at the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities convention in 2006)she believes they will support her Progressive politics and belief that the research will support her personal belief that there is no Creator, so humans aren't so special, after all.

For a brief review of the history of "ethics for sale," look at this set of my posts.)

Washington Post Addresses Our "Birth Control Fears"

As well as our fear of death and homophobia, in today's article, "Birth Control fears addressed."

Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt has denied that a controversial draft regulation would redefine common birth control methods as abortion and protect the rights of doctors and other health-care workers who refuse to provide them.

In a statement posted on his blog on Thursday, Leavitt appeared to try to allay fears that the proposed regulation would create sweeping new obstacles to women seeking a variety of commonly used contraceptives, such as birth control pills and the Plan B emergency contraceptive.

"An early draft of the regulation found its way into public circulation before it had reached my review," Leavitt said. "It contained words that lead some to conclude my intent is to deal with the subject of contraceptives, somehow defining them as abortion. Not true."

Leavitt's statement, however, failed to alleviate concerns among members of Congress, family planning advocates, women's health activists and others.

At issue is the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' Ethics Statement "Opinion #385, Limits of Conscientious Refusal in Reproductive Medicine," which states that

Providers with moral or religious objection should either practice in proximity to individuals who do not share their view or ensure that referral processes are in place. In an emergency in which referral is not possible or might negatively have an impact on a patient's physical or mental health, providers have an obligation to provide medically indicated and requested care."

It goes on to declare abortion “standard reproductive care” and demands that doctors who “deviate from standard practices” (object to abortion) “practice in proximity to individuals who do not share their views or ensure that referral processes are in place” (with a willing abortionist).

After publication of the Opinion, the President of ACOG then wrote letters asking Congress to pass laws to force these limits on our consciences: to force doctors who object to abortion to either change their practice so that they don't take care of women and girls of reproductive ages, or move close to a willing abortionist.

Somehow, the pro-abortion crowd has turned this into an "physician assisted suicide" and "gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, transexual" issue as well as one of hyper-support for abortion and one more opportunity to bash the Bush administration.

Kathryn Tucker, director of legal affairs for Compassion & Choices, which advocates for physician-assisted suicide, said she remains concerned that the regulation could apply to health-care workers who refuse to participate in a variety of end-of-life care, including the withdrawal of unwanted feeding tubes and ventilators.

. . . and . . .

"Until the regulation removes the re-definition of abortion and it clearly states that it deals solely with abortion (and not with any other procedure, nor with any refusals based on the nature of the patient, such as single or gay), I would not be satisfied," R. Alta Charo, a lawyer and bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin wrote in an e-mail. "There is no reason to extend any benefit of the doubt to this administration when it comes to reproductive rights or the civil rights of gay people."

You want to talk about "alarmed"? If an ethicist like Charo can't distinguish between negative rights and positive rights, then the state of "ethics" is worse than I thought. (See "Ethicist for hire")

Remedial ethics 101: you have the right to expect someone not to act, but only in very rare cases can you force them to act when they don't want to. You have the right to liberty, meaning society will protect you from someone who wants to turn you into a slave. But you can't make others to do your will, either. You have the right to swing your arm if you want, but your right to swing your fist ends at the other guy's nose.

In case you're wondering, the Post took their only prolife quote from the Secretary's blog.didn't quote a single pro-life advocate. How hard would it have been to get a quote from the Christian Medical and Dental Association?

I would have never guessed that the attack on physician's conscience rights would somehow become a gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered/transexual/pea-green-with-lavender-stripes issue, although I predicted the involvement of "Compassionate Choices" and other pushers of intentional physician killing.

In Oregon, I have the right to a prescription of barbiturates if I want to die. The State limits that right and tells me when my right kicks in, of course. According to lawyers Charo and Tucker, I can go up to any MD or DO and demand that he or she write the prescription.

I ask again: "How far do you trust doctors who will violate our consciences?? How much practice will it take until we do what the State tells us to, rather than what our patients ask - without regard to silly notions of "right" and "wrong?""

"I want" ethics reigns, even with good stem cell news

I found someone willing to admit that she's not happy with today's news on the production of embryo-like stem cells without the destruction of embryos or harm to women from donating eggs.

Robin Alta Charo is a lawyer who, as part of the Clinton administration's National Bioethics Advisory Commission, helped fabricate the policy to allow research on embryonic stem cells if the embryos were killed using someone else's money. She's part of the surprisingly small community that pushes for cloning, embryo destruction and Federal funding of the research, as well as attempting to regulate the very institutions, boards, and corporations they oversee. (See my article "Ethicists for hire?" for more on the relationships. Or, simply Google "R. Alta Charo" - for some reason she drops the "Robin.")

Charo is on record as hoping that cloning and regenerative medicine will finally prove that we humans aren't anything special, and maybe even that there's no God. If you think I'm exaggerating, listen to the lecture recording available, here.)


Anyway, the Science and Cell reports on research that produces cells that appear indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells that were published online today, are not the best of news to Ms. Charo.

From the ScienceDaily excerpt of the University of Wisconsin press release, with the cute title, "Reprogramming the Debate: Stem Cell Finding Alters Ethical Controversy,"

"It's going to fuel those who call for preferential federal funding only for non-embryonic stem cell research and it will certainly complicate any efforts to expand funding for embryonic stem cell research at the federal level," she says.
. . .
"Any piece of research like this that suggests that we can get cell lines that are equally usable without having to go through an embryo in intermediate steps is going to undermine any effort on the part of Congress to overturn the Bush policy," she says.

"No matter how well this new technique can be used for many of the disease-research and disease-treatment applications foreseen for embryonic stem cell and cloning research, however, calls for criminalization or wholesale de-funding of embryonic stem cell and cloning research are not warranted," Charo adds. "Criminalizing any area of science, as opposed to merely regulating it, would be contrary to the political and constitutional traditions of academic and scientific freedom, as well as the historical spirit of inquiry that characterizes this country."

From the Wisconsin article linked above,

Charo serves on several expert advisory boards of organizations with an interest in stem cell research, including CuresNow, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the International Society for Stem Cell Research and WiCell, as well as on the advisory board to the Wisconsin Stem Cell Research Program.

In 2005, she was appointed to the ethics standards working group of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Also in 2005, she helped to draft the National Academies' Guidelines for Embryonic Stem Cell Research, and in 2006 she was appointed to co-chair the National Academies' Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee.

I'm sure that we shouldn't assume that those connections with Wi-Cell, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, or even her associations with the Alan Guttmacher Institute and Planned Parenthood have anything to do with her dislike for what many consider good news. And ignore the comments about the "Bush Administration." Charo's involvement with the Progressive Bioethics movement, couldn't have anything to do with politics.

No dissent allowed in Nature Neuroscience journal

I received a reply to my letter to the editors at Nature Neuroscience yesterday:

9th May 2007

Dear Dr. Nuckols,

Thank you for your letter to the editor of 3rd May. Having had a chance to consider it, we do not feel that this subject would be appropriate for our letters section. We think that these matters would be more appropriately discussed on the Nature Neuroscience blog, Action Potential, given the intense pressure for space on our pages. We have made the editorial freely available and posted links to the relevant original articles at http://blogs.nature.com/nn/actionpotential/2007/04/does_human_embryonic_stem_cell.html, and we invite you to post your response there.

Yours sincerely,

Annette Markus, Ph.D.
Associate Editor
Nature Neuroscience

I've posted my letter, but it's awaiting the moderator's approval.

Just in case, here's that letter and my comment:

Frankly, what is the "scientific" justification for declaring any argument "anti-science"?

The editors suggested that I post my letter to them to this board. Here it is:

To the Editors:

I was surprised to read an unattributed editorial in the April, 2007 Nature Neuroscience, ("Shaky arguments against stem cells") critical of the essay in First Things by Maureen Condic, Ph.D. While emphasizing the "conservative Roman Catholic" background of the ethics journal, she is accused of "spinning" science "to fit an anti-scientific purpose." It appears that NN's anonymous editors' purpose is much less scientific that Dr. Condic's unless we're discussing political science.

There is no expression of disagreement about Dr. Condic's facts or her credentials to comment on the subject of embryonic stem cells and it is noted that she does not engage in making "fundamental moral arguments." Those anonymous authors seem most offended that she commented at all. The editorial, published without identifying the authors, reflects a deep bias and a "spin" of its own, discrediting your journal and "distorting the state of the field," indeed.

Beverly B. Nuckols, MD
New Braunfels, Texas

(Edit 5/12/07 to fix a broken link)

(Un)Ethical Science Journals

I guess the first question should be, "Where is the scientific and ethical justification for demanding public funding of science without public restraints?"

The next is, "When there is public disagreement, what is the ethical way to conduct the discussion about the disagreement?"

I'm sure that the answer to the second is not "hit and run."

Wesley Smith adds a new bit of information to the story I wrote about last week, concerning an attack on Maureen Condic, PhD, for her informational article on the lack of promise of embryonic stem cells.

It seems that that the journal Nature Neuroscience has refused to allow Dr. Condic, a respected neuroscientist herself, to respond to the editorial on their pages.

Why, Wesley, the editors didn't display enough courage to sign their names. I'm not surprise that they continue to take the less courageous road.

Religion and zealotry of one sort or another

The National Review has published an editorial by Colleen Carroll Campbell on the resignation of St. Louis' Archbishop Raymond Burke from his position on the board of that city's Children's Hospital foundation. The Archbishop objected to the invitation to the outspoken (and vocal) proponent for abortion and embryonic stem cell research, Cheryl Crow.

Ms. Campbell states the problem well:

Today’s religious leaders increasingly face a double standard when it comes to their public pronouncements: They can say what they want as long as they express politically correct views or stay mum on hot-button social issues. Where secular pundits and celebrities are given free reign to plead their case to the public, religious leaders are derided as theocrats for injecting religiously derived moral principles into political debates. This stifling of religious voices is intended to prevent religious conflicts in the public square. But it also prevents the most fundamental form of deliberation necessary to the functioning of a pluralistic democracy: honest debates about right and wrong, good and evil, truth and falsehood.

However, I would add that the zealotry of some who complain about activism by any and all religious people in any public dispute is near-religious in itself.

A case in point:

The journal, Nature Neuroscience published an unsigned, unattributed essay in the April, 2007 issue, entitled "Shaky arguments against stem cells: Recent attempts to use scientific findings to discredit embryonic stem cell research are distorting the state of the field." (I'm not sure whether this requires registration to view.)

(Amazing, huh, that the editors could afford so much space for their title, but none for their own names?)

The editorial is nothing but a call for all embryonic stem cell research and nothing short of the same, without comment, without restrictions.

In order to illustrate their point, the authors (whoever they are), discuss an essay written to inform the readers of First Things. The authors (whoever they are) state that the content of the article is "correct," but feel it necessary to stress that the journal is a "conservative Roman Catholic magazine" and cite Maureen L. Condic, Ph.D. for "trying to spin science—both its problems and successes—to fit an anti-scientific purpose."

In fact, they seem most offended that Dr. Condic commented at all.

As I wrote the editors, the editorial reflects a deep bias and a "spin" of its own, discrediting their journal and "distorting the state of the field," indeed.

If we knew who these anonymous authors were, perhaps we could ask them why their own position is "right" and the Dr.s' is "wrong." I would also ask them why they insist on bringing religion and politics into the debate, when Dr. Condic so obviously - as they state - avoided both.

Yellow Brick Award

The Yellow Brick Award will note those in the Biotech and Bioethics research and policy communities who attempt to lead us down a winding, deceptive path, using explosions, smoke and mirrors, pulleys and levers, novel definitions, distraction, projection and destruction. There are usually at least a few wicked witches, projectiles (not necessarily houses), lots of hot air and maybe a few gene-mod flying monkeys and a forest of threatening trees.

When we look behind the curtain, we find that with stem cell research and abortion, we're just like Dorothy and the gang: we already have what we thought we needed. We just didn't know how to use it or notice when we did.

Texas Politics, Bias and Bioethics

"All politics is local," is a quote attributed to - and the title of a book co-authored by - the late, former Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill.

The lesson seems to be one that Texas State Representative Juan Garcia, D-Corpus Christi, learned well. It doesn't hurt to stack the deck in your favor, either.

Evidently, the Representative held a meeting at a church in Corpus Christi, Texas and only invited the people that agreed with him to present arguments on stem cell research to a local group of clergy.

Read "stem cell research" to include embryonic stem cells from human embryos.

I'm certain that the Representative knows the names of groups who could have directed him to people like me who could make the case for the basic science and human rights issues inherent in "the stem cell debate." (Okay, I did say, "people like me.")

Instead, the clergy evidently found themselves faced with advocates who do not believe that research in stem cells and regenerative, cellular medicine can proceed without embryonic stem cells. Advocates who include representatives from State Universities and from the "Texans for the Advancement of Medical Research," a group dedicated to the advancement of destructive embryonic stem cell research and cloning.

A similar one-sided, and self-serving argument was made this week by Tom Okarma, the president of Geron, one of the biotech companies that holds the patents on human embryonic stem cells.

This, in spite of proof such as that given to the House State Affairs Committee last Monday, of children who are alive because of stem cell transplants from cord blood. And the hope of so much more from readily available umbilical cord cells: including functional liver tissue, lung cells, nerve cells and pancreatic islet cells.

Language change alert ("Embryonic" at 8 weeks)

We were due, I guess. We went through the redefinition of pregnancy (implanted in a uterus"), embryo (after 14 days or implanted in a uterus), cloning (therapeutic cloning, then somatic cell nuclear transplantation, nuclear transplantation, patient specific stem cells, production of "early stem cells, etc.)

And now, we're supposed to move the line of "embryonic" to eight weeks of gestation.

And we should just forget all the past promises about "14 days," implantation, along with our objections to killing the youngest of our children.

Some of us have warned that embryonic stem cell research, with it's high risk of teratomas - tumors that (to paraphrase a popular slogan) "contain all the cell lines in the body," would lead to further maturation of human embryos into the fetal stage of development. Since the goal is usable tissues and stem cells, it made sense to us that researchers will eventually get around to demanding for funding to grow the embryos in human or surrogate wombs in order to "save lives," and further their grant requests.

There have been previous examples (I'm on my way to a meeting, so the references will have to wait 'till tonight) in production of "embryonic" nerve tissues being used to treat a few children with neurological metabolic diseases. In fact, the "embryonic" tissues used to harvest these cells must come from children who are aborted at 7 to 9 weeks, technically fetuses, not embryos.

Further evidence of the possible direction of stem cell research - if we allow it - comes to us this week, from the online journal, PLOS-Medicine.

Here's the press release that showed up in my Google alerts file, from Eureka News Alerts, "Human stem cell transplants mature into neurons and make contacts in rat spinal cord.":

Human stem cell transplants mature into neurons and make contacts in rat spinal cord

Human nerve stem cells transplanted into rats' damaged spinal cords have survived, grown and in some cases connected with the rats' own spinal cord cells in a Johns Hopkins laboratory, overturning the long-held notion that spinal cords won't allow nerve repair.

A report on the experiments will be published online this week at PLoS Medicine and "establishes a new doctrine for regenerative neuroscience," says Vassilis Koliatsos, M.D., associate professor of neuropathology at Johns Hopkins. "The spinal cord, a part of the nervous system that is thought of as incapable of repairing itself, can support the development of transplanted cells," he added.

"We don't yet know whether the connections we've seen can transmit nerve signals to the degree that a rat could be made to walk again," says Koliatsos, "We're still in the proof of concept stage, but we're making progress and we're encouraged."

In their experiments, the scientists gave anesthetized rats a range of spinal cord injuries to lesion or kill motor neurons or performed sham surgeries. They varied experimental conditions to see if the presence or absence of spinal cord lesions had an effect on the survival and maturation of human stem cell grafts. Two weeks after lesion or sham surgery, they injected human neural stem cells into the left side of each rat's spinal cord.

After six months, the team found more than three times the number of human cells than they injected in the damaged cords, meaning the transplanted cells not only survived but divided at least twice to form more cells. Moreover, says Koliatsos, the cells not only grew in the area around the original injection, but also migrated over a much larger spinal cord territory.

Three months after injection, the researchers found evidence that some of the transplanted cells developed into support cells rather than nerve cells, while the majority became mature nerve cells. High-powered microscopic examination showed that these nerve cells appear to have made contacts with the rat's own spinal cord cells.

###

The research was funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the Muscular Dystrophy Association and the Robert Packard Center for ALS Research at Johns Hopkins.

Authors on the paper are Jun Yan, Leyan Xu, Annie M. Welsh, Glen Hatfield and Koliatsos, all of Hopkins, and Thomas Hazel and Karl Johe of Neuralstem of Rockville, Md.

On the Web:

http://neuroscience.jhu.edu/VassilisKoliatsos.php
http://www.plosmedicine.org
http://pathology2.jhu.edu/disease/home_files/page0003.htm

There is nothing alarming - and quite a bit that's encouraging - in that press release. However, reading the actual published articles leads to the discovery that the stem cells in question come from human fetuses. I'm afraid that I don't know of any way to harvest neural stem cells from human fetuses without harming those unborn children.
Here's the first article, "Extensive Neuronal Differentiation of Human Neural Stem Cell Grafts in Adult Rat Spinal Cord."

And the second, which explains where we are going:"Making Human Neurons from Stem Cells after Spinal Cord Injury"

Spinal cord cells were obtained from cervical and upper thoracic spinal cord of an eight-week-old human embryo and expanded in monolayer culture in defined medium with the mitogen FGF2 (a member of the fibroblast growth factor family).

(Emphasis mine)

In the future, perhaps fetal neural stem cells can be developed from cells harvested from placentas collected after the birth of children or as a by-product of amniotic fluid tests done for medical indications and then used as we use other cellular and tissue transplants of adult stem cells and specialized tissues.

Perhaps Dr. Atala and his research group could follow this line.

However, I expect to see a call for more money for fetal stem cell research and for a demand for an expansion of the time that human "extracorporeal" embryos can be maintained.

And won't it be interesting to see how these nascent human beings are grown to eight weeks or so?

Publish (destroy embryos) or perish

Professor James L. Sherley is losing weight on his hunger strike, but Fox News and Reuters are the only mainstream media outlets to take notice. It seems that racial discrimination, storming the Administration building of a university and even extreme measures of weight loss are not newsworthy if you're critical of embryonic stem cell research and cloning.

It doesn't matter that Dr. Sherley reported a break-through on the secret to inducing adult stem cells to divide and how and why these cells can form cancers (here and here). It is of no consequence whatever that he won an award from the NIH, and millions of dollars in research money to go with it. Unfortunately, he also criticized embryonic destruction and cloning in public, with letters to the editors in Science, Nature, and The Boston Globe.


Dr. Sherley has shown rare conscience and integrity by confronting and exposing the bias and prejudice within academia encountered by those who believe that human beings should not be killed in experiments, and most certainly should not be created for the purpose of killing.

He has been a vocal critic - albeit one who is rarely quoted in the media - of embryonic stem cell research, creating embryos for the purpose of killing for research, and of cloning in order to obtain embryos for research and killing in research.

He is using the tools - the legitimate, legal and ethical tools using current law and endangering no one other than himself - that have been provided by the law, the media and his own intellectual and moral adversaries. But, don't expect to see his story in the National news.

In the United States, the law protects those discriminated against because of their race and Dr. Sherley has charged that he is a victim of racial discrimination at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. According to this article (from a conservative news service begun by Brent Bozell - one of the very few reporting at all on the story) points out that Dr. Sherley is "he first and only black faculty member of MIT's Division of Biological Engineering, and he was awarded a $2.5 million research grant last year from the National Institutes of Health." Colleagues support the conflict of interest demonstrated by the choice of the lead tenure reviewer - who is married to someone who was a prior critic of Dr. Sherley:
From the Boston Globe,

Some MIT professors are circulating a letter that asks for further investigation into the process that denied Sherley tenure. The letter states that a head of Sherley's department is married to a senior faculty member whose relationship with Sherley has been "openly contentious." That division head should have recused himself from deciding Sherley's case, rather than soliciting an internal letter from his wife to include in Sherley's tenure file, the letter said.

"We checked to see whether that influenced the decision, and we are confident that it did not," Clay said.

Of 740 tenured faculty members at MIT, 27 are African-American or Hispanic. Three minority faculty members have earned tenure since Sherley was denied, according to the school.

The mainstream media have not given Dr. Sherley the same publicity that they would if he would just advocate for the killing of a few embryos. Even his hunger strike is not very successful at gaining national attention.

Could it be that no one at UPI, any of the big 3 television networks, Time, Newsweek, or CNN cares about racial discrimination at MIT? There's nothing from any of these as of this morning - not one little note - according to my Google News search at about 7:30 AM CST.


Or could it be that no one cares about the discrimination against a man who has had a letter published in Nature criticizing embryonic stem cell research?

Majority of Doctors Oppose Abortion

In that NEJM article that I blogged on earlier, there are numbers about the "Intrinsic religiosity" of physicians, based on the answers of the 1000 or so docs who answered the questionaire.

The authors seem to have no feeling for the history of bioethics as an outcome of the Holocaust or Tuskegee. Instead, the fuss and bother is over docs refusing to follow through on legal killing. (Okay, I will admit that the authors might be trying to avoid in their analysis what they seem to see as a problem: "for the doctor to describe that objection to the patient." Heaven forbid -oops- that anyone name "wrong," wrong!)

27% of responders measured moderate and 36% were high on the "Intrinsic Religiosity" scale:

"We also assessed physicians' intrinsic religiosity and religious affiliations. Intrinsic religiosity — the extent to which a person embraces his or her religion as the "master motive" that guides and gives meaning to his or her life (12) — was measured on the basis of agreement or disagreement with two statements: "I try hard to carry my religious beliefs over into all my other dealings in life" and "My whole approach to life is based on my religion." Both statements are derived from Hoge's Intrinsic Religious Motivation Scale13 and have been validated extensively in previous research.(13,14,15) Intrinsic religiosity was categorized as being low if physicians disagreed with both statements, moderate if they agreed with one but not the other, and high if they agreed with both."

10% of the docs said they had no religious affiliation, while 18% identified as Protestant, 22% as Catholic, 16% as Jewish, and 14% as "other." The surveyors defined other as "a category that included Buddhist, Hindu, Mormon, Muslim, Eastern Orthodox, and other."

52% of the docs object to abortion for failed contraception, by the way and 46% object to providing contraception to children 14 - 16 years old when their parents object.

Oddly, the authors cite a lack of consensus about these matters of conscience, and don't seem to question the moral rightness of any of the practices, only to the fact that a some few docs might actually follow through on their beliefs.

And watch out, docs! The authors suggest a need to actually observe your reaction when patients ask for abortions.

Bad, Bad Doctors (Religious, with Consciences)

The NEJM has a free on line article evaluating the results of a survey of doctors, "Religion, Conscience and Controversial Clinical Practices," which is a perfect example that far too much of the effort of "medical ethics" or "bioethics," goes into deciding who can be killed.

"In recent years, several states have passed laws that shield physicians and other health care providers from adverse consequences for refusing to participate in medical services that would violate their consciences. For example, the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act protects a health care provider from all liability or discrimination that might result as a consequence of "his or her refusal to perform, assist, counsel, suggest, recommend, refer or participate in any way in any particular form of health care service which is contrary to the conscience of such physician or health care personnel." In the wake of recent controversies over emergency contraception, editorials in leading clinical journals have criticized these "conscience clauses" and challenged the idea that physicians may deny legally and medically permitted medical interventions, particularly if their objections are personal and religious. Charo, for example, suggests that the conflict about conscience clauses "represents the latest struggle with regard to religion in America," and she criticizes those medical professionals who would claim "an unfettered right to personal autonomy while holding monopolistic control over a public good." Savulescu takes a stronger stance, arguing that "a doctor's conscience has little place in the delivery of modern medical care" and that "if people are not prepared to offer legally permitted, efficient, and beneficial care to a patient because it conflicts with their values, they should not be doctors.""

"If physicians' ideas translate into their practices, then 14% of patients — more than 40 million Americans — may be cared for by physicians who do not believe they are obligated to disclose information about medically available treatments they consider objectionable. In addition, 29% of patients — or nearly 100 million Americans — may be cared for by physicians who do not believe they have an obligation to refer the patient to another provider for such treatments. The proportion of physicians who object to certain treatments is substantial. For example, 52% of the physicians in this study reported objections to abortion for failed contraception, and 42% reported objections to contraception for adolescents without parental consent."

Not surprisingly, these "controversial" "legal" practices are abortion "for failed contraception," giving "birth control to teenagers between the age of 14 and 16 if their parents do not approve," and "sedation to unconsciousness in dying patients." For some reason, the authors do not give results or even discuss the other "Controversial Issues in Medicine": Physician assisted suicide, withdrawal of artificial life support or abortion for congenital anomalies.



First, "elective" abortion is neither mandatory nor beneficial.

Second, I guess that the first discussion must be whether or not "legal" implies that a practice is necessarily "beneficial," moral, or required.

Third, the legality of providing contraceptives to minors under the age of consent, against their parents' wishes, is questionable, except in Federally funded clinics, where it is mandated under Title X funding for Family Planning clinics.

Fourth, it is illegal in most states to participate in "Physician Assisted Suicide."

And fifth, the "monopolistic control" is distraction. Are all professionals who are licensed by the government required to do whatever is demanded of them by whomever can use their services? Let's see: architects, engineers, all those media types?

If so, I'd like to ask Alta Charo - who, after all is a licensed lawyer, working for a State University that receives Federal funds - to give me some good, solid quotes that do not advocate the taking of human life or the defamation of those of us who act on our convictions.





Take a look at the survey and the article. Take the survey.

Do you agree with the "bioethicists" quoted in the introduction?

Nanofiber Scaffolds for Neural Stem Cells (and some truth)

Johns Hopkins researchers report that they have developed "nanofibers" impregnated with special proteins which allow them to grow neural stem cells from embryonic stem cells without "requiring high concentrations of growth factors."

One of the researchers, Neuroscientist Hongjun Song, comments on the immediate results of the research, which will not include actual patient therapy:

“Eventually, stem cells will be very important for treating disease using cell replacement therapy, but more immediately stem cells offer the opportunity to model human disease and find ways to screen for therapeutic drugs to treat the disease.”

Song is a member of the body which oversees stem cell research at Johns Hopkins, the "Stem Cell Policy and Ethics Program." This means that even though he has a vested interest in maintaining his own lab and promoting his research, he is among those at Johns Hopkins who determine how to follow the institution's mission:

• Facilitate the ability of the public to benefit from advances in cell engineering in morally responsible ways;
  
  
• Anticipate moral and policy challenges in stem cell science and cell engineering; and


• Provide opportunity for careful and interdisciplinary analysis of these challenges that will be of assistance to both policymakers and the public.

The inclusion of Song in justifying and lobbying for his own work under the guise of "ethics" is a serious conflict of interest and can not be called "morally responsible."

The good news is that some people see an end to the use of embryo destruction. From the article posted earlier today on trading eggs for in vitro fertilization fees:

In any case, the need for eggs may only be temporary.

They are, in fact, only a tool to reprogram the inserted DNA so that it will drive the development of an early embryo. Scientists hope to learn enough about that reprogramming process to let them take an ordinary cell from a person and use it to produce other kinds of cells, perhaps without going through an embryo stage. That might happen in 10 years, Murdoch estimated.

And then they wouldn't need eggs any more.

Trading eggs for fertility treatment

Women who are desperatly trying to get pregnant, but who cannot afford to pay $5,000 - $6,000 for in vitro fertilization may be offered lower IVF fees in exchange for donation of some of their oocytes for research in the UK. The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority approved the trades for one lab last July, but are now seeking public comment, according to an Associated Press article.

The limiting factor for embryonic stem cell research has never been the restrictions placed on US Federal funding. The problem is obtaining eggs from women.

So far, the track record for altruistic donations is mixed. On one hand, hundreds of women volunteered to donate eggs in South Korea for research by the now-disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk, who fraudulently claimed success in therapeutic cloning.

But Dr. Robert Lanza, vice president of research and scientific development at Advanced Cell Technology Inc. of Alameda, Calif., said he has given up trying to get donations without compensation. After more than a year of pursuing that strategy and about 100 advertisements, ACT was able to get only one woman to donate eggs, he said in an e-mail.

And Kevin Eggan of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, who's been seeking eggs since May in return for reimbursing out-of-pocket expenses, said recently that the effort had generated some calls but no donors yet. The approach must be given more time to work, he said.

Murdoch, who also directs a fertility treatment center in Newcastle upon Tyne, said that when her lab asked fertility-clinic patients to donate eggs, it received only 66 over seven months. That's just not enough, she said.

In contrast, if her new plan attracts two women a week — chosen because they appear likely to produce lots of eggs — it would provide 20 eggs each week. That's still not a lot, but the supply should be steady, she said.

Her "egg-sharing" plan resembles an arrangement that's used occasionally at fertility clinics. In that plan, a woman shares her eggs and treatment costs with another woman who wants a baby.

Murdoch's group has permission from Britain's Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority to set up the arrangement for stem cell research. Now it's a question of raising money to finance it. Murdoch said she hopes to start offering the deal to British women in a few months, and that she has already heard from dozens of women eager to participate.

Though the HFEA approved Murdoch's plans in July, it has since started gathering public and expert opinions on whether egg sharing should be permitted. "If the consensus is that this is not a good idea, we can change the policy, and rescind the license," said John Paul Maytum, an HFEA spokesman.