Was stem cell action in Senate strictly political?

I watched many hours of the stem cell debates in the Senate Monday and Tuesday, taking a break mainly when the Senate went to lunch on Tuesday.

Actually, one had to watch only once in a while, because much of the information presented was repeated over and over. I believe the whole discussion was strictly a political move on the part of both Democrats and Republicans. Democrats and Republicans alike pushed to have the measure discussed so that the public could see them on stage making their pitch. All are eager to look good to their constituents and others and most really believe what they were saying.

The "deal" to put 3 bills together and to vote on the newer ones before the older H.B. 810 gave everyone an opportunity to speak on behalf of two bills considered not controversial. Then, each could give their spin to the controversial bill. Meanwhile, though, everyone "knows" that President Bush will rescue the millions or billions that might be spent on stem cell lines created after August, 2001 by vetoing the bill.

The following statements have been around for a long time (certainly since 2001):

Treatment with adult stem cells (and cord blood stem cells) has shown positive results for 65 (68, 70, 72?) diseases [the number varies, but no one ever mentions that almost all represent infusions of blood-forming cells in patients treated for cancer]
Embryonic stem cell research has not "cured" a single disease [note the difference between "positive results"--the new mantra--and "cure". This statement is true; however, clinical studies of embryonic stem cells are just beginning, and those funded by the federal government can only be done with 6 (4?) "healthy" but mouse-contaminated cell lines. Studies with adult stem cells (eg, bone marrow) have been going on for decades.]
Creation of embryonic stem cells requires the killing of embryos. [Yes, removal of the inner cell mass from a very early embryo does mean that the embryo will never develop into a human being. If you agree that this is killing an embryo, the rest of the text here doesn't apply. However, no blastocyst is guaranteed life: many embryos do not succeed in implanting when they are put into a woman's uterus; some embryos are "killed" when too many embryos implant and develop, and a multiple-birth is risky; many embryos are allowed to die (from storage beyond a couple of years); many embryos are discarded because they are not needed by the people who supplied the egg and sperm.]
Some people have adopted embryos (having one or more introduced into a woman's uterus and allowed to develop). These are the Snowflake children. [The numbers naturally have increased since 2001.]
Stem cells from a source other than the person receiving them can cause immune reactions in the recipient. [Speakers generally accused the non-favored type of stem cells of causing this problem. Yes, there is always a chance of rejection, graft-vs-host reaction, and other immune problems when foreign cells are introduced. However, The stem cells taken from a person and injected back into that person have the same genetic components; if the person developed a genetically-influenced condition, giving back the same genes cannot help forever. Cord blood cells are not the answer: Most adults didn't save their umbilical cord cells, and if they did, the cells wouldn't be healthy in storage over more than 5 years or so. There are very few stem cells in the umbilical cord, so even an infant or child who was originally attached to the cord cannot get more than one stem cell treatment without growing the cells in test tubes.]

Here are some of the newer arguments for and against embryonic stem cell research:

Stem cell lines have been created by "alternative" means--one of the three bills requires Congress to spend money to further research these methods. [Did you know that one method creates a defective embryo and then uses it as a source for stem cells and that another method removes one cell from an 8-cell embryo and uses this to develop a stem cell line? Both techniques are new, not fully tested, and other possibilities certainly exist.]
Embryonic stem cells injected into mice create teratomas (cancers). [One speaker said, "that's how scientists tell the cells are stem cells, because they are capable of growing in the new location"; another said "we can never control these teratomas, which will kill the recipient"--these are not direct quotes.]
Adult stem cells have been used to create new heart tissue and repair damaged spinal cords. [This work is still early, only on individual patients generally outside the U.S. and not in controlled clinical studies, and neither is a "new" use of stem cells. The stem cells used--either hematopoietic (blood-forming) or connective tissue (also generally from bone marrow)--could be expected to develop into the resulting tissues.]
Stem cell lines have been created from eggs and sperm (germ cells). [I need to research this one further; since eggs and sperm have only 1/2 the chromosomes of other cells, this statement cannot be totally true. The research must refer to cells in the body that can develop into eggs and sperm. Also, in women, all egg cells have already been formed at birth so it is hard to tell what cells are being described.]

I think that list gives you enough-perhaps more than you wanted to know--about some of the arguments presented during Senate presentations. You can read everything, including all information a Senator asked to have "put into record" by going to www.senate.gov and accessing the Daily Digest--and then the detailed text--for each day.

Marie Godfrey, PhD