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Organization Details Serious Problems With University of Toronto “Engage - Stem Cells” Project

Says “Engage” uses outdated, distorted and false information to convince students to support Bill C-6

TORONTO, March 2, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Life Ethics Educational Association (LEEA) has published its Toward a Balanced Presentation: Critical Analysis of the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics “Engage - Stem Cells” Program. The University of Toronto issued its program in October, 2003, which was then offered to Canadian high schools as a curriculum tool for helping students understand the complex issues surrounding the debate on embryonic research. The LEEA has described the program as “a seriously unbalanced presentation of the ethical debate.”

The LEEA is critical of many facets of the program, namely that it does not acknowledge the arguments of the many groups, religious and secular, who oppose the position of the Centre. By ignoring these views, the Centre gives the “impression that those positions are inconsequential.”

The LEEA illustrates the Engage program’s goal as being the same as “the position of some in the research community in their efforts to have legislation passed that will legalize the use of human embryos for any kind of experimentation.” The LEEA expresses an opposing view held by many Canadians, religious and secular. It explains, “we feel that students cannot fully grasp the complexities if they are offered only one side of the debate.”

The LEEA offers the opposing ethical view of human embryo research in the following argument:

* The field of human embryology asserts, without exception, that a human embryo is a human being. There is no difference in kind between an adult and an embryonic member of the human species.
* It is the internationally accepted agreement that it is unacceptable to experiment on human beings without their consent. (Nuremberg Code)
* Therefore, it is never acceptable to use human embryos for experiments.

The LEEA further illustrates the fallacy perpetrated in the program which suggests that fetal stem cells are superior to adult or umbilical stem cells in research, when in fact there has never been a successful use of fetal stem cells for the treatment of any condition. On the other hand, many instances of successful treatments of chronic debilitating diseases such as Parkinson’s exist that utilize adult stem cells.

The LEEA analysis exposes the conflict of interest at the Centre: sponsors of the program include pharmaceutical companies who have a vested interest in legislation that will allow the creation of embryonic stem cells for experimental use, thereby securing lucrative public grants for such research.

The LEEA analysis reveals the deficiencies in the program materials, which are outdated, distorted, and filled with omissions, such as one example from the program which states that “adult stem cells are extremely rare, difficult to isolate and typically grow for limited periods.” All of the above statements are entirely false, as revealed in numerous LifeSiteNews.com reports.

The wording of the program is such as to lead a reader to assume that “the embryo is a
mere material thing of no intrinsic value,” as described in the LEEA analysis.

The program erroneously represents the proposed stem cell research legislation C-6; it claims “Therapeutic cloning and creating embryos for research is not permitted,” whereas the proposed bill actually says that “Clauses 5(1)(b) and 5(1)(c) respectively allow the creation of embryos for research and the creation of clones…” and that “No restriction is placed on the use of the clone” created by the method described in the clause, whether that be for so-called therapeutic uses or reproduction.

In direct contrast to the tone and letter of the Engage program, the LEEA analysis concludes by saying “Adult stem cells are repeatedly identified in the text as inferior for research because they are merely ‘mulitpotent’ as opposed to the totipotency and pluripotency of early-stage embryonic stem cells. This information is false. Adult stem cells are being found to be as elastic as embryonic stem cells and they avoid the serious medical hazards of embryo stem cells.”

The LEEA analysis ends with a quote from the January 2002 New Scientist: “Multipotent Adult Progenitor Cells (MAPCs) are stem cells… that can “differentiate into pretty much everything that an embryonic stem cell can differentiate into. They seem to grow indefinitely in culture, without losing their characteristics, and do not seem to form cancerous masses, or cause tissue rejection. These cells may turn out to be the most important cells ever discovered.”

Read the related LifeSiteNews.com coverage: “Students Used as Political Fodder in Effort to Pass Controversial Canadian Stem Cell Bill” at: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/oct/03101504.html

Read the actual Engage program at: http://www.utoronto.ca/jcb/main.html

Read the cover letter to schools from the LEEA at: http://www.lifesite.net/features/stemcellembryo/leeacoverreengage.pdf

And the full LEEA analysis: http://www.lifesite.net/features/stemcellembryo/LEEAresponsetoengage.pdf

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