Bush Stem Cell Research Policy Comes Under Fire in Senate

WASHINGTON (AP) - Researchers in Sweden are developing promising new embryonic stem cell lines, a Senate panel heard Thursday, but federally funded researchers in the United States will not be able to use them because they were created after August 2001.

Leaders of the Senate panel that funds medical research said they were outraged by the restrictions, but the head of the National Institutes of Health maintained that science is not being hampered.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he learned this week that four or five cell lines have been recently developed in Sweden. Unlike lines that are eligible for federal funding here, these have not been contaminated with mouse cells used to spur their growth. That makes them more valuable to U.S. researchers because there would fewer questions about safety for humans, Specter said, arguing they should be eligible for U.S. research dollars.

"The hands of the scientists shouldn't be tied in any way," said Specter, chairman of the Senate Appropriations health subcommittee. He said he was considering legislation to overturn President Bush's August 2001 decision, which limited federal funding to stem cell lines that were in existence at the time to discourage the destruction of human embryos.

Stem cells are the building blocks for all body parts, immature cells that go on to form organs and tissues. They form very early in an embryo's development, present just days after fertilization. Researchers hope to harness them to grow replacement tissues for damaged organs and to cure disease.

Each stem cell line comes from a single embryo. Once fully developed, it can reproduce indefinitely, allowing hundreds of researchers to work with cells from a single line.

Gathering the valuable stem cells requires the destruction of the embryo. Some consider this akin to destroying a life. Others argue that these embryos, typically those leftover after fertility treatments, are going to be thrown away anyway and using them for research could help cure spinal cord injuries and diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, the top Democrat on the subcommittee, said he was extremely frustrated that scientists are being "handcuffed," particularly given the large increases in NIH funding over the last several years.

"Every time I see someone with Parkinson's, every time I see someone with a spinal cord injury, or I see someone with Alzheimer's, I ask the question: Why aren't we moving move aggressively on this?" Harkin said.

NIH Director Elias Zerhouni downplayed the restrictions. He argued that scientists have plenty of work to do with the stem cell lines that are already eligible for funding. There are a total of 11 fully developed lines available for research, he reported earlier this month.

Specter honed in on the fact that all of them were grown using mouse feeder cells, which may have contaminated them and could be a problem in the future if the experiments are to be used to human treatments. The Swedish lines, by contrast, did not use mouse cells.

Zerhouni responded that it's still unclear whether the Swedish lines are viable since those researchers have not published their work yet and it has not been reviewed by others. If they are, he said, then the technique that they used could be applied to 16 lines that are now frozen but were created before August 2001 and therefore eligible for funding.

Harkin said it takes time to grow the cell lines and there's no reason to duplicate the efforts of the Swedes. "You're wasting a year, maybe a year and a half of time," he said.

Zerhouni said that the decision on what research to fund was based not just on science but on "moral and ethical" considerations and noted that private groups are free to fund research using new stem cells.

The subcommittee also heard from outside researchers who were critical of the Bush policy. Specter said he asked the NIH to identify a nongovernment scientist who would testify in support of the policy. NIH officials said they did not name one because they could not find anybody willing to testify.