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Bush's Deadly Blunder
One of Obama's first acts must be to overturn Bush's ignorant ban on federal funding for stem cell research. Then American scientists can compete with the rest of the world to cure life threatening illnesses.
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As we glance back at the gravest blunders of the Bush administration, let us ponder this one: In August 2001, Bush issued an executive order blocking federal funding for embryonic stem cell research except for some lines that were still in existence. “It’s wrong to destroy life in order to save life,” he explained. That required one to agree that a group of cells the size of the period at the end of this sentence is as important as a desperately ill human being.
Bush may have severely limited what research America could engage in, but he couldn’t build a cognitive wall around the United States. Scientific developments in other nations were written up in refereed journals and became universally available. And support for Bush’s position was crumbling within the U.S. In 2004, voters in California passed a resolution authorizing the state to spend $4 billion to support embryonic stem cell research. This immediately became the subject of litigation, but Governor Schwarzenegger enabled California laboratories to proceed by lending them money from state funds. With California now funding the research, American scientists who had moved to Singapore returned to work in California.
Private universities, Harvard and others, also went forward with their own funds. In 2004, Harvard created a multi-million dollar Harvard Stem Cell Institute, which will occupy prime real estate in the vast new Allston science campus. Since 2004, the HSCI has been a leading force in research, making dozens of new stem cell lines available for scientists nationwide.
Bush may have severely limited what research America could engage in, but he couldn’t build a cognitive wall around the United States.
One concrete example of what these efforts have wrought: A major problem has existed for the therapeutic use of embryonic stem cells. To prevent rejection of the cells by the patient’s immune system, they needed to be cloned. That is, a nucleus from the cell of the patient had to be substituted in a donor’s egg for the original nucleus. But in September, Rob Stein reported that in a major breakthrough, Harvard scientists have found a new way to reprogram cells backwards, turning them into embryos. Instead of using a retrovirus (as Japanese scientists had done) that can cause cancer, they are using an adenovirus which is safe. This would avoid the long-standing cloning problem.
Pluripotent embryonic stem cells develop to eventually create an entire human being. They also possess the capability of repairing damaged organs, and treating such conditions as diabetes, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and spinal cord and other nerve injuries. Bush’s own bio-ethics committee, and its chairman Leon Kass, voted in favor of federal funding, though with minor qualifications.
No doubt Bush’s executive order reflected evangelical and Catholic support for his position, as seen with the evangelical leader James Dobson and the exponent of Catholic Natural Law, Prof. Robert P. George of Princeton.
But the following conservative publications also vigorously supported Bush’s position: National Review, The Weekly Standard, The American Conservative, Commentary, The Claremont Review of Books, and First Things. National Review editorialized, “A single embryo must not be destroyed no matter how noble the goal.”
None of these conservative publications reviewed Cynthia Fox’s important book, Cell of Cells (2007) Fox, a science journalist, described the vigorous embryonic stem cell research that was then going forward in Israel, Singapore (which was making a huge investment), South Korea, Japan, and China, in cooperation with the EU. Some scientists in Egypt tried to start up a program, but ran into problems from their government--not ethical, but because they were exchanging emails with Israeli scientists.
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Jeffrey Hart is professor emeritus of English at Dartmouth College. He wrote for the National Review for more than three decades, where he was senior editor. He wrote speeches for Ronald Reagan while he was governor of California, and for Richard Nixon.
Thank god for the independent drive of true scientists. Now we can get back to all that subversive fruit fly research Sarah Palin ridiculed ....
The Hypocrisy of a man that will block the developement of a life giving science to save a few hundred blastocytes and force a nation to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis by lying is horrifying.
Why are we letting any church drive government decisions?
What is it with these religious fanatics that they will support a man that brings America to it's financial knees while promoting the killing of hundreds of thousands because he will block stem cell research on religious moral grounds (that are murky at best)?
Why did the Republican party dominators let a small group of religious fanatics dictate terms to their party, this reeks of the same stench as the Taliban influence in Afghanistan.
What happened to the party of Abraham Lincoln over the last 4 decades that it should be attempting to bring religious politics into the policy and law of our American Government?
Mr. Hart is ignorant or a liar.
Bush was the 1st president to fund human embryonic stem cell research. During his presidency almost $1/2 federal dollars went just to that - 20x what went to cord blood studies, and cord blood has been shown to be used therapeutically for repair, drug/gene transport and even organ creation!
Embryonic stem cell research is legal in the US with NO restrictions. Unlike most other countries, you can make embryos for research and attempt to clone (I say attempt becasue it doesn't work in people for biological reasons unique to them).
Bush worked within the frame of the Dickey Amendment given him by President Clinton, which prohibits funding research that destroys a human life.
He even issued executive order 13435 to fast-track funding for what might be held up under Dickey, like arrested embryos and parthenotes.
Mr. Hart's ignorance extends to what stem cells can and are doing.
Diabetes - Type 2 ... 85% subjects off insulin after a transplant using their own stem cells. Similar results were were reported Ap.'07 JAMA for T1. Being an autoimmune disease, embryonic couldn't help T1.
Parkinson's: Animals had functional recovery using both 'embryonic from skin' and their own stem cells. They also had it with embryonic, but then 100% developed brain cancer within 10 wks. Neither of the other two sources had the same complication.
Alzheimer's is a whole brain disease. No right-minded researcher thinks embryonic can help because they are only cut/replace therapies. Granny won't survive the surgery, let alone remember you after you do that much brain damage to 'fix' her. (Conversely, a nasal spray/vaccine is in development to blow out the placques with minor damage replacement via the brain's existing stem cells ... the regrowth allows memory restoration.)
'Embryonic stem cells cannot be used directly in therapy because they cause cancer' - Scientific American.
Playing in a jar is not the same as using therapeutically, and NONE of the forementioned countries are using embyronic therapeutically because they are too dangerous. They cause cancer and are rejected by the subjects.
Now we have Obama, the false hopes and empty promises of embryonic will be obvious.
It seems to me that there is a significant difference between trying to thwart stem cell research and providing federal funds for that research. No matter what Bush did, stem cell research was going to continue, as it did. Was progress toward solutions slowed dramatically by lack of federal research funds? Probably not! Was a political promise kept to a large segment of the American people? Without a doubt!
Who knows how many lives have been lost or impacted adveresely by this ignorance created out of idolatry. We as a race can only hope that logic, common sense, and rational thought somehow continue to win out over fairy tales and superstition.
The superficiality of this article reminds us that English professors should not write about science they do not understand. Professor Hart apparently does not know the stem cell question is now essentially dead, because (as evangelicals and Catholics predicted) scientists have developed a way to use adult somatic cells to become embryonic cells. He glosses over this in the article, but fails to recognize its moral implications: we don't need to create embryos to work with cells as good as those from embryos.
Professor Hart clearly lives in a world of transparent moral binaries, in which the public discourse on stem cells can be divided into two clear groups: evangelicals/ Catholics "against" it and enlightened progressive people "for" it. Of course, many people "against" stem cell research are actually only opposed to embryonic stem cell research and to over-eager, naive, and scientistic hope in scientific progress.
The story as it will be told in the future and has already been told in an excellent article in First Things (November 2008) by Joseph Bottum and Ryan Anderson, will be that the search for a "third way" produced a viable alternative that prevented a "Brave New World"-like scenario. The story will not Professor Hart's triumphalist story of how Bush stood in the way of science. (Remember that President Clinton opposed both stem cell research and cloning and no one is telling the story of his anti-scientific agenda.)
The opening paragraph in this article says everything about what is wrong with current attitudes in the US. It should read
"One of Obama's first acts must be to overturn Bush's ignorant ban on federal funding for stem cell research. Then American scientists can *co-operate* with the rest of the world to cure life threatening illnesses."
But I guess given the author's resume, it isn't surprising that he should see the only way that the US can benefit is if it 'wins' and the rest of the world loses.
I think when life is need for such a research, because any person who has a diseased body and is dying from anything from cancer to aids needs stem cell research. A chance to see life on this earth and to enjoy it for a long as one could want to coninue on to love life and everyone within it is very important to me and anyone who feels the same way. Who cares where it comes from the point is that any loved one could survive a castrophic disease and walk out of a research facility to come back to his or her family and the world to live life to the fullest.That is what we all want in life is to live on and on thourgh the years and if possible forever to continue in life to love the world and everyone in it.
Thank you.
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