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Progress in embryonic stem-cell
research encounters Bush veto threat |
Washington / AFP
05/27/2005
President George W. Bush threatened to veto any bill allowing US federal
funding of embryonic stem-cell research on Friday after a South Korean
team announced advances in their work.
“I’m a strong
supporter of adult stem cell research,” the religiously conservative
president told reporters.
“But I’ve made it
very clear to the Congress that the use of federal money, taxpayers’
money, to promote science which destroys life in order to save life,
I’m against that. And therefore, if the bill does that, I will
veto it.”
Bush spoke before a House debate on stem-cell research scheduled for
Tuesday, congressional sources said, as scientists made giant strides
in their tantalizing quest to transform cells harvested from early
embryos.
Eleven new stem cell lines created by a Korean team are an exact DNA
match to the volunteers involved in creating them: sick donors of
DNA. Many hope the achievement points toward potential cures for their
illnesses.
Opposed to what many here view as killing of human beings, Bush in
August 2001 banned new federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research.
“Destructive embryonic stem cell research has not produced
one treatment in humans, while at least 58 real human treatments have
resulted from adult and non-embryonic stem cell research,” Republican
Senator Sam Brownback said.
Several prominent Republicans have urged Bush to rethink his position,
including former first lady Nancy Reagan, whose husband, ex-president
Ronald Reagan, died last year after a long battle with Alzheimer’s
disease. US scientists also have complained that the 60 embryonic
stem cell lines allowed for research are becoming contaminated because
they existed prior to the ban.
Those who support an easing of the ban, including some moderate Republicans,
would allow use of days-old embryos held in the freezers of fertility
clinics and donated for research by couples who no longer need them.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid from the opposition Democrats said
that Bush “has made the wrong choice, putting politics ahead
of safe, responsible science.”
Another Democrat, Senator Edward Kennedy said, “Veto threats
like that, and his insistence on picking fights over extremist judges,
show how beholden the White House is to the radical right wing of
the (Republican Party).” Californians in November approved three
billion dollars in state funds for embryonic stem-cell research, circumventing
Bush’s federal ban.
Heading two announcements was a South Korean team, which reported
in the US journal Science Thursday that it had made cloned embryonic
stem cells tailored to match the DNA of patients suffering from disease
or spinal cord injury.
They took donated human eggs and replaced the eggs’ core of
genetic programming with DNA from skin cells of people aged two to
56 who were suffering from spinal injuries, juvenile diabetes and
an inherited form of immune deficiency.
Instead, researchers let the embryos develop for six days, long enough
to develop into a cluster of the early human cells that develop into
any of the more than 200 different types of cells in the body.
The idea behind these kinds of stem cells is to coax them to grow
into fresh tissue to replace or replenish damaged cells.
However a remaining hurdle is making sure that these replacement tissues
are not rejected as hostile by the body’s immune system. |
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