LONDON, June 15, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com/Culture of Life Foundation) – The prestigious British medical journal has denounced media claims that cures for diseases from embryo stem cells are around the corner. Calling it “sensationalist” and “hype.” In a June 4th editorial titled “Stem cell research: hope and hype,” The Lancet warns that “no safe and effective stem cell therapy will be widely available for at least a decade, and possibly longer.”
While this warning may be true for stem cell therapies derived from human embryos, the Lancet mentions that the future of stem cell therapies is far from dead in the water. Dozens of diseases are currently giving way in experiments to treatment with adult stem cells. Several forms of cancer are already routinely treated using the patient’s own stem cells derived from his blood or bone marrow.
The Lancet quotes Neil Scolding, a British neurology researcher at the University of Bristol saying, “(An) increasing appreciation of the hazards of embryonic stem cells has rightly prevented the emergence or immediate prospect of any clinical therapies based on such cells. The natural propensity of embryonic stem cells to form [tumors], their exhibition of chromosomal abnormalities, and abnormalities in cloned mammals all present difficulties.”
Scolding said that the addition of cloning only compounds the ethical difficulties. “[W]hat is unarguable is that the human embryo is alive and is human, and intentionally ending the life of one human being for the potential benefit of others (ie, for research) is not territory to which mainstream clinical researchers have hitherto sought claim – or which ethically conscious objectors could ever concede.”
Unfortunately the Lancet’s warning has come far too late to correct the false impression in the minds of legislators. The push to legalize emrbryo research, based as it may be on very flimsy evidence and a deluge of media dis-information, has been successful in creating permissive laws in nearly all western countries.
Austin Ruse, President of Washington’s Culture of Life foundation commented, “One of the saddest aspects of the debate over embryo-destructive research is the false hope that has been given to thousands of sick people who are told that a cure for their disease is imminent.”Â
HW