An anti-abortion group is out with a new video of a cancer patient successfully treated using adult stem cells, in its ongoing effort against President Obama’s expansion of embryonic stem cell research.
Ever since Obama partially lifted a ban on federal funding for research using embryonic stem cells in 2009, Susan B. Anthony List’s research arm has worked to highlight more promising research using adult stem cells, which it finds an ethically acceptable alternative.
The latest video features Cindy Schroeder, a wife and mother diagnosed in March 2015 with a serious blood cancer called multiple myeloma. After undergoing a stem cell transplant in August, Schroeder had recovered by the following January.
“Adult stem cells gave me a new lease on life,” Schroeder says in the four-minute video, given to the Washington Examiner by the Charlotte Lozier Institute.
Eight years ago, Obama’s executive order opened the door wider for researchers to use federal research dollars to study embryonic stem cells left over from couples using in vitro fertilization. Under President George W. Bush, federal dollars could fund research only on a small number of existing stem cell lines that already had been derived from embryos.
Less than 10 percent of federal funding on human stem cells went to embryonic stem cells in 2003; that has grown to nearly 30 percent this year, according to data from the National Institutes of Health.
The political controversy over embryonic stem cell research has faded somewhat in recent years, although conservatives are still opposed to it. David Prentice, a biologist and research director of Charlotte Lozier, says it’s a waste to direct any dollars to research using embryonic stem cells, both for scientific and ethical reasons.
Prentice argues that even though the Food and Drug Administration has approved just one stem cell therapy, involving bone marrow transplants, the pool of peer-reviewed research shows much more promise for cures using adult, not embryonic, stem cells.
All federal funding going to embryonic stem cell research should be redirected to adult stem cell research, he says.
“I think it’s a waste — it’s a waste of lives, it’s a waste of resources, it’s a waste of scientific and medical talent,” Prentice said. “And if our goal is really to treat patients, none of those resources would be going to embryonic stem cells.”
More than one million patients around the world have been treated with adult stem cells and experienced some improved health as a result, according to Charlotte Lozier. The group also notes there have been successful clinical trials using adult stem cells to treat patients with dozens of conditions including heart damage, stroke, sickle cell anemia, spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis and juvenile diabetes.
The group says there’s no “validated, successful patient treatment due to embryonic stem cells” despite all the research dollars given out. But some scientists feel embryonic stem cells do hold promise for future cures.
Kevin McCormack, communications director for the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, pointed to therapies being developed for spinal cord injuries and diabetes that use embryonic stem cells.
“Both adult and embryonic stem cells have their uses,” McCormack said.
