WASHINGTON — Inflaming the already heated debate over stem cell research, a team of Virginia fertility researchers report today that it created human embryos for the specific purpose of disassembling them to obtain the valuable stem cells inside.
The experiment, which was legal and used no federal funds, throws a spotlight on one of the murkiest areas of medical research--the creation of human embryos for laboratory experiments--at an unusually sensitive moment. Within weeks, President Bush is expected to announce whether the federal government will fund medical research using embryo stem cells, capping three years of contentious debate.
Several experts said the report, from researchers at the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Norfolk, Va., appeared to be the first published account of scientists producing embryos only to harvest their stem cells.
They said different teams had probably created embryos for other research purposes, but the practice is not widely discussed because of possible public backlash. The report appears in the July issue of the journal Fertility & Sterility.
Embryonic stem cells can grow into any type of cell in the body, and scientists hope to guide the cells to become replacement tissue for patients--new pancreas cells for diabetics, heart muscle for cardiac patients and brain cells for Parkinson's patients. But anti-abortion groups say the research is equivalent to murder because human embryos are destroyed in the process of obtaining stem cells.
To date, scientists have obtained stem cells from embryos donated by fertility patients. These patients often create more embryos than needed in the course of trying to have a child.
The government is also eyeing these "spare" fertility clinic embryos as a source of stem cells should Bush approve a funding plan. In lobbying the Bush administration, many scientists and research advocates have argued that it is more ethical to use these embryos in research than to have them discarded or frozen indefinitely, as patients usually do. They have noted that under National Institutes of Health rules, no embryos would be created for the federally funded research.
"Is it more ethical for a woman to donate unused embryos [for research] . . . or to let them be tossed away as so much garbage when they could help save thousands of lives?" asked Christopher Reeve, the actor and a research supporter, in testimony before the Senate last year.
