Delight and alarm greet new stem cell policy

President Barack Obama's executive order reversing federal policy on stem cell research delighted some and dismayed others.

After hearing of today's action, Sharon David expressed relief. The 38-year-old Hanahan resident has multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease of the nervous system.

"I have MS, but MS doesn't have me," she said. David takes 10 pills a day and is undergoing chemotherapy once a month in an effort to slow the disease.

She was diagnosed in August 1998. A week later, she found out she was pregnant. The ban former President George W. Bush imposed on embryonic stem cell research, in place since August 2001, means eight lost years when progress might have been made toward treatments or cures, David said.

"It's a mess. It's a big mess, and we have to suffer for it."

Obama signed an executive order toay that reverses the Bush administration's restrictions on federally funded stem cell research, prompting some to charge the administration with violating the sanctity of human life.

Before, federal dollars were limited to research using adult stem cells and about 22 lines of embryonic stem cells already in existence. The executive order makes taxpayer money available for research that uses a wide array of embryonic stem cell lines, including new colonies not yet created.

Obama said he hopes new research prompted by his executive order will "make up for lost ground" and promised that he would "support it only when it is both scientifically worthy and responsibly conducted."

The move was part of Obama's effort to restore the White House's commitment to science, he said. Religious groups and conservatives decried the new policy.

"Today's decision by President Obama is the latest in a troubling series of actions from the White House that undermine the dignity of human life," said U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C.

Many doctors and researchers say that stem cell research is among the most exciting recent developments in medicine because of the wide-ranging health implications.

"Anything we can do more to learn about stem cell biology can have a broad impact," said Steve Lanier, associate provost for research at the Medical University of South Carolina. "If you look at what's been achieved, it's just amazing."

Stem cells, especially those derived from a human embryo, are part of the basic building blocks of life. They can develop into various kinds of tissue, holding out the promise of regenerative organ treatments and cures for ailments such as heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cancer and even spinal cord injuries.

Extracting stem cells from the blastocyst destroys the embryo.

MUSC has conducted some research with stem cells but has never used embryonic stem cells. Recent work has shown that adult stem cells, typically drawn from bone marrow, can be prompted to transform into various tissue forms, Lanier said.

The school receives about $101 million from the National Institutes of Health in the form of research grants and awards, half of its total research funding, according to Heather Woolwine, director of media relations.

The S.C. Bioengineering Alliance, a coalition formed by the Medical University, Clemson University and the University of South Carolina, will break ground on its new Charleston facility later this year, Lanier said. Stem cell research will be part of the center's activities.

The Catholic Church has been outspoken about the moral and ethical implications of embryonic stem cell research.

Steve Gajdosik, spokesman for the Diocese of Charleston, said adult stem cells show great promise, but using embryonic tissue amounts to murder.

"Why do we find it necessary to sacrifice one person to another?" he said.

Gajdosik said the Obama administration was forcing some taxpayers to support a policy that contradicted their conscience.

"Just because it's microscopic doesn't change the reality that it's a human person," he said.

In December, the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, its highest law-making body, released an "instruction" stating that embryonic stem cell research, along with assisted fertility, freezing of embryos and oocytes, gene therapy and human cloning are unethical.

Covering the politics of the Lowcountry, South Carolina and the Nation.

Robert Sade, a heart surgeon and bioethicist at MUSC, summarized the ethical debate this way: One side argues that "killing" a human being, or a potential human being, is wrong no matter what; the other side insists that the embryo at its earliest stages is only a cluster of undefined cells with no ability to think or act (the requirements of a moral agent).

If these embryos are not moral agents, it follows they do not have the same rights as fully developed human beings, Sade said. At some point, they surely do, he said. The question is when.