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| home : pages : what's new in medicine vol. 6 : stem cells - the facts behind the argument : | |||||
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STEM CELLS: THE FACTS BEHIND THE ARGUMENTWhat are stem cells?They are cells that have the ability to develop a specialized cell of a body: skin, muscle, liver, brain cells and so on. Why are they important? It is believed that stem cells could be used to treat a wide range of conditions from Parkinson's disease to heart failure. Cells derive from fetuses have already shown benefit in experimental treatment of Parkinson's, but it takes six aborted fetuses to provide enough cell for a single patient. So what is the alternative? To create culture of stem cells, kept alive and allowed to multiply, and then used them as a source of the working cells needed for therapies. Where would the cells come from? They could be harvested from umbilical cord blood at birth, from specially-created cloned embryos, or possibly from adult bone marrow or blood. What is the fuss about? The body would reject stem cells taken from somebody else, unless anti-rejection drugs were used. To avoid this, clones of the patient could be created, allowed to develop for a short time, then used as a source of perfectly matched stem cells that would not be rejected. Is this legal? At the present time Korea is the leading country in stem research followed by Britain. The privately funded Institute for Stem Cells Research recently opened in Cambridge, U.K. Can such research be done elsewhere? No legislation exists in Belgium, Holland, Portugal and Italy. In America Congress has prohibited publicly funded embryo research, but there is no limit on such research when it is privately funded. What are the objections? Those opposed to "therapeutic cloning" say that it turns the human body into a commodity, and that it is a step down the slippery slope to reproductive cloning. They also argue that it may be unnecessary, as there is some evidence that adult cells may be used instead. Several companies are now working on ways of "reprogramming" adult cells to turn them back into stem cells - but most experts remain sceptical about claims of real progress. --> return to menu / back ... (click) --> return to top of the page (click) |
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