http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/18/health/genetics/18CELL.html?pagewanted=print

December 18, 2001
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 — When President Bush announced on Aug. 9 that the government would pay for certain studies on human embryonic stem cells, many Americans thought he had settled the stem cell debate, at least until the initial experiments determined whether the government- approved research would bear fruit.

But now, before the first stem cell grants are even awarded, Washington's biopolitical wars are heating up again.

The recent announcement by a Massachusetts biotechnology company, Advanced Cell Technology, that it is trying to clone human embryos for stem cells has reignited a controversy in Congress over the ethics of embryo experiments. A debate that was virtually extinguished by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is now very much alive. The next battleground will be the Senate, where, as early as February, members are expected to consider two bills related to stem cells. One would allow a wider range of federally financed research than the president wants. The other, a broad ban on cloning, would effectively end Advanced Cell's work.

"The president's Aug. 9 speech managed to confound both sides," said Daniel Perry, executive director of the Alliance for Aging Research, an advocacy group that promotes stem cell science. "It was a temporary compromise that allowed voices on both sides to be calmed temporarily."

At the heart of the debates over stem cells and cloning are questions that politicians cannot settle: When does human life begin, and what is the moral status of the human embryo? As Richard M. Doerflinger, an associate director at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which opposes the research, said, "We are talking about not only the direction of genetic science, but also the direction of society in dealing with questions of human dignity."

Stem cells, which are extracted from embryos when the embryos are still tiny clusters of no more than 300 cells, are generating great excitement in science because they can, in theory, grow into any of the body's cell types. So scientists hope one day to use them for replacement tissue and organs for patients with a variety of diseases, including Parkinson's and diabetes.

But the research leaves some people, including Mr. Bush, deeply uneasy because the embryos are destroyed when the cells are extracted.

In deciding whether taxpayers would pay for the work, Mr. Bush announced a careful compromise: so as not to encourage the destruction of more embryos, federal financing would be restricted to experiments on those colonies of stem cells that had already been created by 9 p.m. on Aug. 9 — the moment he announced his decision. Almost immediately, however, there were questions about the quality of the government-approved colonies, called lines. Last month, the National Institutes of Health said 72 lines qualify for government research. Scientists and patients' advocates say that while this number might be enough to get basic research started, the lines are not fully developed enough, or genetically diverse enough, to produce therapies for patients.

These complaints have fallen upon the sympathetic ears of Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, who has introduced legislation to allow scientists with federal financing to experiment on any stem cell lines, and even to create their own by extracting the cells from embryos.

It is unlikely that the House will pass such a bill, and even less likely that the president will sign it. Persuading other senators to vote to relax the limits will be difficult, as Mr. Specter acknowledges. The lawmakers have been diverted by the Sept. 11 attacks, and some want to see how Mr. Bush's compromise works before trying to change it.

"When the president acted, it took a fair amount of the pressure off," Mr. Specter said. He said he intended to argue that more lines are necessary, during a series of hearings early next year.

Those hearings will take place against the backdrop of an even bigger fight in the Senate, this one over cloning.

In July, the House passed a bill to ban any human cloning, not only for reproduction but also medical research. Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, is pressing the Senate to adopt an identical bill. If it passes, Mr. Bush says he will sign it.

Most lawmakers believe that making babies by cloning should be outlawed. Far more contentious, however, is the type of research cloning, called therapeutic cloning, that is being conducted by Advanced Cell Technology. Although the federal government will not pay for therapeutic cloning, the issue is deeply entwined with the stem cell debate.

To realize the promise of stem cells, scientists say they need to develop cell lines that are immunologically compatible with patients. The idea behind therapeutic cloning is to create embryos that yield tailor- made stem cells, which exactly match patients' tissue.

The National Academy of Sciences recently endorsed the technique, saying stem cell researchers will inevitably need a bigger supply of lines. The report was issued on Sept. 11, and so it has attracted little notice.

But therapeutic cloning is extremely controversial, and even some supporters of stem cell research oppose the technique, saying they cannot accept the idea of creating embryos just to destroy them. (The embryos used in other stem cell experiments are typically left over from in vitro fertilization, and would be discarded anyway.) To Mr. Brownback, who regards embryos at any stage as nascent human life, the research is ethically abhorrent.

"This is a moment in the history of humanity where we should pause and think this through," he said at a recent Senate hearing, where he advocated a six-month moratorium that would put a stop to Advanced Cell's work while the Senate considered a ban. "Does a cloned human embryo have any moral significance? Is there a difference between a human embryo created by man and one created by God?"

Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader, has promised both Mr. Brownback and Mr. Specter that the Senate will debate their bills in February or March. So opponents and proponents of the research are gearing up for what Mr. Specter predicts will be a "knock-down, drag-out fight."

The main task for patients' advocates and scientists, said Mr. Perry of the Alliance for Aging Research, will be to teach lawmakers the difference between cloning for reproduction and cloning for research. One lesson of the stem cell debate is that the issue does not break down along traditional party lines. Some conservative Republicans, for instance, broke with abortion opponents to support stem cell studies.

Mr. Perry said scientists, patients' advocates and academic institutions are beginning to assemble a coalition, similar to the one that helped persuade Mr. Bush to pay for at least some stem cell research.

"When people talk about cloning, they're thinking about multiple copies of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and they're scared about that," Mr. Perry said. "This is treading into the unknown, so inevitably it is going to spark some fears."

But Mr. Doerflinger, of the bishops' group, said he was putting together his own coalition of abortion opponents, religious conservatives, environmentalists concerned about genetic tinkering and women's advocates who oppose cloning research.

"If scientists can just manufacture embryos in the lab to order, then that has implications that go far beyond cloning," he said. "I'm sure it will be a very intense debate."
 

Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company