TORONTO, June 9, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A team of scientists at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto has announced today that they have produced Canada’s first two human embryonic stem cell lines. Trotting out the now-traditional sound bite reference to Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, team leader, Andras Nagy, told reporters, “My hope—and the hope of my world-class laboratory team—is that our step of developing the first Canadian embryonic stem cell lines will ultimately bring Canada and the world closer to treating or curing diseases such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes and spinal cord injuries.”
The fact that these diseases are currently being treated in successful experimental trials with adult stem cells – those that can be obtained without killing the donor – and that every attempt to use embryonic cells on patients has failed, seems not to deter either the researchers or their friends in government and media. Dr. Peter Hollands, PhD in Stem Cell Biology from Cambridge University in the UK, told LifeSiteNews.com already in 2003 that “adult and umbilical cord blood stem cells are readily available, have no objections associated with them and are tried and tested in clinical use,” adding that, “Umbilical cord blood stem cells, for example, have been used over 3,000 times for 45 different diseases.”
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and Britain’s International Stem Cell Initiative approved the Toronto research saying that the stem cells were produced in a manner consistent with the country’s stem cell guidelines. The CIHR is in accord with most national regulatory bodies around the world in their agreement that no mere embryonic human has the same worth as an adult human and that moral concerns about such experimentation are irrational, religiously based alarmism.“The endorsement of this procedure as being acceptable to the CIHR confirms our worst fears that this purportedly ‘watchdog’ organization of the federal government has no intention of protecting human life, and the guidelines will be interpreted so liberally that Canada will join the other countries of the world who are determined to take us down this disastrous path of using human beings for research,” said Mary Ellen Douglas, National Organizer of Campaign Life Coalition (CLC).
Since the baby body parts business was pioneered by abortionists interested in making a few extra dollars, the idea of traffic in embryo stem cells has become respectable, even lauded as morally admirable. Embryo stem cells have no fingers or toes and do not make a mess when cut apart for their tissue. There can be no gruesome photographs of bloodied embryonic children so lobbyists have been hampered in their efforts to rouse the emotions of the public in protest.Â
The perennial Canadian inferiority complex that powers much of Canada’s envy-politics has pushed the drive in this country for researchers to catch up with Korea and Britain in the creation and use of human children in experimental research. “This is an important step; this places Canada on the map of embryonic stem-cell research,” said Nagy.“Having our own cell lines gives Canadian researchers access to a valuable research tool. They are a valuable contribution to stem cell research on a global scale,” said Dr. Michael Rudnicki, the scientific director of Canada’s Stem Cell Network, a research and lobbying organization.Â
CLC National President Jim Hughes told LifeSiteNews.com, “How can we boast of taking home-grown Canadian embryonic children and dismembering them for stem cells?”
The passage of Canada’s Reproductive Technologies act allowed scientists who had been champing at the bit for years, to move forward with creating lines cultivated cells that had started with live embryonic children abandoned in IVF facilities. Then Health Minister, Anne McLellan on the day she announced the tabling of the bill, gave a quote that has become proverbial as an example of Parliamentary callousness. Echoing the theme of most of the research witnesses to the Parliamentary health committee, she told reporters, with a sneer that those lobbying against the bill will not soon forget, “Do you know what’s going to happen to those embryos? They’re just going to be thrown in the garbage.” CLC National Affairs Director Aidan Reid told LifeSiteNews.com, “It’s analogous to the Nazi’s use of human skin for book covers and lampshades suggesting that the skin would go to waste anyways.”
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