Embryonic stem cells: rhetoric and politics
Gonzalo Herranz.
department of Humanities Biomedicas, University of Navarra.
article published in Diario Médico, 29 November 2002, which was awarded the national award "Reflexiones 2002".
The arguments of politicians and scientists in favour of research with embryonic cells are futuristic and create false expectations. Scientists should be objective and not raise unfounded hopes.
A very strong case is often made in favour of human embryonic research to develop stem cell lines: that adult stem cells are not sufficient to achieve the benefits of reparative medicine, and only embryonic stem cells ensure this. The argument is based on a futuristic. It assures that, with embryonic stem cell technology, but not with the limited technology of adult stem cells, many degenerative diseases can be cured. And he takes it for granted. The sum total of what he promises is immense: embryonic cells alone will cure both diseases we know a lot about (diabetes, cancer, certain forms of blindness, immune deficiency syndromes) and others we still have a lot to learn about (multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, osteoporosis and congenital metabolopathies). Although incomplete, the list is impressive.
I leave aside the analysis of the theoretical merits that can be invoked in favour of the two families of stem cells, embryonic and adult, to look at the ethics of this promise. It seems to me to be overconfident about the benefits to be derived from embryonic cell research. The academic community and the public have been convinced that these cells will solve many of the problems facing medicine. On academic community, optimism is almost obligatory. A few days ago, a journalist stated that "many relevant scientists have shown themselves to be in favour of this research" and an eminent Spanish researcher replied: "There is no serious scientist that I know and well informed who is not in favour".
False hopes?
Society has been sent a fascinating media message: embryonic stem cells will simply work miracles. Newspapers and television and TV news programmes are fuelling hopes. Some patient groups demand the removal of legal obstacles, convinced that the delay will rob them of years and quality of life. Politicians do not want to miss out on the ideological and electoral gains that the discussion on stem cells could bring them, and are competing in an unprecedented spectacle to win the patronage of the new scientific adventure. Reading the news, one gets the impression that it is not a matter of faith or hope; patients and politicians are sure that results are just around the corner. Is this status a good thing? I think not, neither for scientists nor for the public.
Historical experience and good academic manners tell us that scientists, when addressing the public as scientists, are obliged not to stretch their arm more than their sleeve: they must be objective, they cannot raise unfounded hopes. As ordinary citizens, they can give free rein to their imagination and dream aloud, but they must then refrain from cloaking themselves in the authority of science. In recent years, scientists have made public promises, many of which have never materialised. It is curious how stubbornly they choose the recipients of their blessings: it is always the patients with Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, diabetes or multiple sclerosis. Robin Cook opens his novel The Manipulation of Minds with an article from the New York Times in July 1974, which already spoke of curing diabetes and spinal cord injuries by injecting foetal cells into the injured organs. The same list of curable diseases was published as an endorsement of the healing potential of project Human Genome, unfortunately so far unpublished. Advanced Cell Technology, to attract financial financial aid , used the same list when it unveiled its more than dubious human embryo cloning experiment.
Unbreakable ethical standards
When informing people, it is more scientific and more humane not to refer only to favourable expectations. We must tell them that we do not know whether or not there will be good results, that there will be difficulties, sometimes insurmountable ones, and also that there are ethical rules that must never be violated. These are the ones that teach us how to respect the life and dignity of human beings, and which have been expressed in documents - the Nuremberg Code, the Belmont report , the Helsinki Declaration - to which we must return time and again. They remind us of fundamental things, such as that before moving on to human beings we must fill in much work preclinical testing on animals; that ethically problematic experiments should not be started on human beings if the expected knowledge can be obtained by paths free of ethical conflicts; that we must always start projects with the types of research that are ethically least conflictive. These are simple, obvious, humanising criteria.
The researcher is subject to many impulses: the thirst for knowledge, the altruistic imperative to remedy illness, the desire for prestige, the ambition to go further and further than his competitors. Sometimes, ideological convictions and economic interests dominate. These impulses can intertwine in a myriad of ways and make the work of researcher extremely complex. It is in the interest of researcher not to lose his head. He must remain cool when planning, carrying out and publishing his work. And if he is driven by a passion, let it be the Popperian passion of trying hard to prove that the hypothesis of his work is falsifiable.
Marriages with politicians do not suit him either. Let us remind ourselves of this. In the last days of 2001, British MPs, spurred on by scientists, passed a law authorising the internship of therapeutic cloning. Last September, the famous PPL-Therapeutics of Edinburgh, having spent a lot of money on its attempts to clone human embryos to derive embryonic stem cells from them without obtaining anything positive to encourage it to go ahead, has put its regenerative medicine business up for sale, together with the production of transgenic animals for organ transplantation purposes.
Nobody knows what consequences will come from this failure of the group issue worldwide in cloning and whether it will cause much or any delay in the random and absurd degree program production of human beings to be destroyed for the benefit of others. Ethical reasons aside, it does not hurt to advise politicians and scientists to exercise a little restraint and good sense.