BUSH'S STANCE MAY AFFECT RESEARCH
BY MARTHA STODDARD -- Lincoln Journal Star

    A few hundred votes in Florida may have changed the future of medical research - and the lives of millions of Americans.
    Those votes gave the presidency to George W. Bush, who has said he opposes federal funding for stem cell research that involves destroying a living human embryo.
    What that means after the Republican takes office Saturday isn't clear, however.
    "We have not speculated at all about future action or future executive orders," said Bush spokesman Ray Sullivan.
   Embryonic stem cell research has been one of the hottest areas in science recently because of its promise. The cells can produce the more than 200 types of specialized cells in the body, creating the possibility they can be used to treat myriad diseases and disorders.
    That possibility moved a giant leap forward in 1998, when two teams of researchers funded by a private corporation reported success in keeping the cells alive in a laboratory. One team used days-old embryos left over from in vitro fertilization procedures. The other got similar cells from the developing sperm and egg cells of aborted fetuses.  

Harold Maurer, Chancellor of the University of Nebraska Medical Center

But using those sources also made embryonic stem cell research one of the hottest areas in politics, with people who believe life begins at conception lining up against those who hope embryonic stem cells can save lives.
    "If you're going to talk about stem cells, you can't bypass the issue of abortion" - or the heated politics of abortion, observed Tom Shepherd, a professor of religion and ethics at Union College in Lincoln.
    Vice President Al Gore, the pro-choice Democratic presidential candidate, was expected to let the National Institutes of Health move ahead with granting the first federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. The funding would go out under a set of guidelines approved in August.
    The guidelines skirt a 1996 congressional ban on funding for "research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death ... "
    NIH counsel concluded the law bars funding for the actual destruction of human embryos while allowing it for research on cells after they have been removed from embryos.
    Bush could throw out those guidelines and block federal funding for any research on embryonic stem cells by executive order. Like his father, former President George H. Bush, he also could ban funding for research on aborted fetuses, which would close off a second source of stem cells.
    That would leave the field of embryonic stem cell research entirely to private corporations, as it has been until now.
    Daniel Perry, chairman of the national Patients Coalition for Urgent Research, said he has hope the new president will allow the funding to proceed.
    "I don't believe that Governor Bush has really given this serious thought," Perry said, "and so I believe it is incumbent on all of us to make the case to him and to his health and health research advisers."
    He argues that federal funding would speed up research and allow for greater ethical oversight than if the research remains in the private sector alone. Public funding also ensures research findings will be available to help the greatest number of people.
    The coalition includes 34 patient advocacy groups. They were among 107 scientific, medical and academic groups that signed a letter to Congress in support of stem cell research in April.
    Lobbying on the other side, however, will be groups like Do No Harm: The Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics, the National Right-to-Life Committee and other pro-life organizations.
    They call the NIH guidelines illegal and the research immoral because both depend on destroying a human embryo within days after conception.
    "Clearly we must continue to fight to help cure disease and to alleviate suffering," said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan. "However, it is never acceptable to deliberately kill one innocent human being in order to help another."
    No matter which lobby prevails with the president, the battle over stem cell research will continue in Congress and the states.
    Sens. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, last year introduced the Stem Cell Research Act of 2000, which would have lifted the congressional funding ban entirely. The act likely will be reintroduced this year.
    Meanwhile, if Bush leaves the funding guidelines in place, the 70 members of Congress who signed a letter objecting to the guidelines could attempt to block them in law.
    The politics of embryonic stem cell research in Nebraska could be equally contentious in the future.
    The issue rose in priority for local pro-life groups last May, when University of Nebraska President L. Dennis Smith asked the Nebraska Bioethics Advisory Committee to create a set of guidelines for embryonic stem cell research at the university.
    The draft guidelines, which will go to a public hearing Jan. 23, would allow such research under many of the same ethical restrictions that NIH set.
    The University of Nebraska Medical Center currently has no projects involving human embryonic stem cells, said Chancellor Harold Maurer. But he expects that to change within a matter of months to a year or so, depending on when the Bioethics Committee completes its work and a research proposal comes forward.
    "This is something that's happening in the medical scientific world," he said. "It is conceivable that embryonic stem cell work would be done at the Medical Center somewhere."
    The University of Nebraska Board of Regents will have a chance to consider the issue when the committee guidelines come before them. Faced with a similar issue in 1999, board members voted unanimously to continue research involving tissue from aborted fetuses.
    But the board chairman and the three regents who represent Lincoln and Southeast Nebraska said they will reserve judgment about embryonic stem cell research until they see the committee guidelines.
    Meanwhile, pro-life leaders would like to add Nebraska to the list of states that prohibit research on embryos outside of the womb. Eight states have such bans, according to the Do No Harm coalition.
    But pro-life groups likely will focus this year on banning the use of aborted fetal tissue for research and address embryonic stem cells later. No bill addressing the topic of stem cells had been introduced as of Friday. Two more days of bill introductions remain.
    Maurer said a state ban would harm the Medical Center and Nebraskans.
    "It would be a terrible mistake to try to politicize the science," he said.
    "This has the potential to really repair dysfunctional tissues and organs and literally millions of people who are alive would benefit from this stuff. If it were to be banned from research in Nebraska, we would lose people that are here now and there is no way we would be able to recruit people."