January 11, 2007
MR. SMITH of New Jersey: Mr. Speaker, by now most of my colleagues know that on Sunday a team of scientists from Wake Forest University and Harvard Medical School announced the stunning news that they had discovered a new, readily available source of potentially life saving stem cells derived exclusively from amniotic fluid.
For those of us who passionately support expanding ethical stem cell research to effectuate cures and mitigate disease, news of this breakthrough was particularly encouraging.
News media around the world seemed to appreciate the enormity and historical significance of the findings:
: "Stem Cells discovered in Amniotic Fluid: Researchers Say Stem Cells Can Be Taken From Amniotic Fluid With No Harm to Mother or Fetus.”
- “Researchers at Wake Forest University and Harvard University reported Sunday that the stem cells they drew from amniotic fluid donated by pregnant women hold much the same promise as embryonic stem cells."
The Los Angeles Times: "Stem Cells In Amniotic Fluid Show Great Promise, A study finds they offer key therapeutic benefits but avoid controversy."
- "So far, we've been successful with every cell type we've attempted to produce from these stem cells,’ said study senior author Anthony Atala…
For those of us who strongly support taxpayer funding for ethical stem cell research (the Bush Administration spent over $600 million on stem cell research in 2006 alone) the news of this breakthrough suggests that we can and must do more to finance this kind of ethical research.
And for those of us who oppose taxpayer subsidies to facilitate the destruction of human embryos, this latest breakthrough is yet another vindication and underscores the fact that ethical alternatives to embryo destroying research are available now and are likely to expand.
Let me reiterate one more time, especially for the press, I—we—on the pro-life side strongly support stem cell research as long as it does not require the killing of human embryos. In that vein, let me remind my colleagues that I was the prime sponsor of the bipartisan Stem Cell Therapeutic Research Act of 2005—a law that authorized $265 million for cord blood and bone marrow stem cell programs including a new, nationwide program to collect, research and help disseminate these vital stem cells.
By way of update, last fall, pursuant to the new law, the Bush administration issued contracts to establish a national inventory of umbilical cord blood. Contracts totaling $12 million dollars were awarded and more contacts are expected this year. The establishing of this national cord blood inventory marks the beginning of the effort to increase the total number of available umbilical cord blood units making life saving cord blood stem cells available to Americans in need of a transplant. That’s really good news for patients suffering from a myriad of diseases such as sickle cell anemia and leukemia.
Mr. Speaker, it was just six months ago—in July—on this Floor, that opponents of Roscoe Bartlett’s alternative pluripotenct stem cell legislation, belittled and scoffed that adult and cord blood stem cells were capable of pluripotency—the ability of a stem cell to grow into any cell in the body. Despite the fact that numerous scientists had published findings of pluripotency in cord blood stem cells and adult stem cells, Ms. DeGette dismissed alternative sources for pluripotent stem cells as “fake”.
She dismissed it all as “fake research, that doesn’t really exist,” and that “alternative methods for creating pluripotent stem cells are not a real scientific prospect at this time.”
Mr. Speaker that was false then and it is false now. The scientific evidence clearly refutes that. In 2005, researchers from the University of Minnesota Medical School verified that umbilical cord blood stem cells expressed pluripotency genes and can repair neurological damage.
In like manner, researchers at the University of Pittsburg demonstrated that placental stem cells express pluripotency genes and can potentially form any tissue, with no signs of tumor formation.
Recently, researchers in France and Switzerland discovered pluripotent bone borrow stem cells into insulin secreting cells—an important step in curing diabetes and the list goes on.
And now the Wake Forest/Harvard Medical School research has come to the same conclusion, this time about amniotic fluid-derived stem cells: “We conclude that amniotic fluid-derived stem cells are pluripotent stem cells capable of giving rise to multiple lineages including representatives of all three embryonic germ layers. Amniotic germ layers derived from stem cells hold potential for a variety of therapeutic applications.”
In case you missed it, that’s why Newsweek magazine this week boldly wrote:
- “A New Era Begins: Stem cells derived from amniotic fluid show great promise in the lab and may end the divisive ethical debate once and for all.”
o “Like those from embryos, the AFS cells are pluripotent, or able to transform into fully-grown cells representing each of the three major kinds of tissue found in the body… amniotic-fluid stem cells share another unique characteristic with embryonic stem cells: they multiply quickly and are remarkably long-lived.
Mr. Speaker, lost in the hype by proponents of embryo killing stem cell research is the fact that embryonic stem cells have an enormous proclivity to grow into tumors and are likely to trigger an immune response if they are ever transplanted into a human. Writing in Scientific American, Robert Lanza, medical director of Advanced Cell Technology, an advocate of embryonic stem cell research admitted that the likelihood of immune rejection may “require millions” of embryos to be destroyed. Is that the future you want to promote with the DeGette bill? Millions of human embryos killed?
Finally, just a brief word on embryo adoption:
Arguments were made on this floor, Mr. Speaker, that we are just using spare or leftover embryos for research as if they exist as a subclass of surplus human beings that can be experimented on or slaughtered at will.
On numerous occasions I’ve had the privilege of meeting some of those snowflake children, all of whom were adopted while they were still in their embryonic stage and frozen in what we like to call frozen orphanages. Believe me, watching snowflakes children laugh, smile and act, well, like kids underscores the fact that they are every bit as human and alive and precious as any other child. Under the DeGette bill, these so-called surplus humans will be killed. Adopt them, don’t destroy them.
Last year, Hannah Strege, the first known snowflake embryo adoption, told a small group of us: “Don’t kill the embryos, we are kids and we want to grow up too.” How come a 7-year-old gets it and we don’t? Vote NO on H.R. 3.”
