The Tease of Things I Don't Need

The body of the problem

A piece from the newly-returned Tony Collett on stem cell recearch included a question on adult stem cells, which led me into a long comment on his site. Referenced in Tony's entry is the generally solid article by Patti Davis on stem cell research with a view through the window of Chris Reeve's death -- the article that led Tony to post on the subject. Having quickly written that comment there, I took a few more minutes to refine it and turn it into a post for my site. Minor clarifications needed to be made, and a little more praise given for Davis' article than came through in my first reaction. Moreover, this is an important issue for humanity, and is one of many potentially life and death matters to be considered in the presidential race. President Bush is on record as blocking the use of new lines of embryonic stem cells for research, while John Kerry has pledged to reopen the door on federally funded research if he becomes president. It deserves some of your attention.

Here's what seems to be a fairly balanced and hopefully not boringly technical piece on adult stem cells. The most promising source of "adult" stem cells - the "adult" being a partial misnomer, meaning merely that they are found among already differentiated tissues in the bodies of human beings - involves tissue from bone marrow, though some such cells have been found in other parts of the body, including - I believe - the lining of the mouth.

So, first, it's to some degree an invasive procedure to get any quantity of these adult stem cells. Next, the process of weeding out true stem cells from the mass - cells that haven't differentiated into specific types of cells - reduces the useful portion of the extracted sample, and all of the manipulation will almost certainly reduce it farther. Even then, there are likely to be protein mis-match problems leading to rejection in a new host organism if we attempt to use adult stem cells from one person in an implantation treatment in another person.

The advantage seen so far in embryonic stem cells is that they are part of a large mass of cells that have not begun to follow any path to becoming a specific sort of tissue. They have thusfar proven to be more adaptable and accomodating, on the whole, to implantation in foreign tissue, though in theory any stem cell should by definition demonstrate some degree of that tabula rasa characteristic and adapt to become part of the new organism.

Adult stem cells, however, generally are limited in their ability to turn into different types of tissues (stem cells from bone marrow are mostly good for producing more marrow or blood cells only, and wouldn't be very useful in fixing a heart, liver, etc.), and have proven difficult to culture, while embryonic stem cells will readily become whatever type of cell they're introduced into a mass of, and have demonstrated a relative ease in being cultured outside of a body. I also find it significant that the only really glowing reports for adult stem cell research appear to be three years or so out of date. The information available, and the lack of a significant push in that direction, indicates to me that it has demonstrated its limitations and is considered to be a virtual dead end by most researchers.

As for the above mentioned, praiseworthy Patti Davis article on stem cell research and the death of Christopher Reeve, it only stuck in my throat a little at two junctures.

First, I found her assertion as if a statement of fact that Chris Reeve would have died when he did in any event to be bolder and more forgiving of this administration's policies than is warranted. Granted, significantly new paths of research commonly do take many years to unfold, but it's been over three years since Bush's decision. A more open and supported body of research might have made tools available - especially to someone with the sort of celebrity clout that could have rushed promising elements to the level of a human trial sooner. Who knows what was lost in that time? Some incremental advance, a therapeutic pathway could have seen him following a less degenerative arc of health.

Second, and this is a stickier and likely offensive bit of likely over-reaction from me - I'd feel terrible if this took the discussion off in a different direction - but I can't easly take the faux philosophical, quasi-religious, feelgood sentiments slipped in the middle of her closing paragraph (like some found in so many articles on Reeve's death) about how he's running, sailing or flying somewhere now. I appreciate the poetic sentiments, and it's certainly a happy and unproveable at the moment perspective, but... he's dead. If we're going to start embracing all of these empowering, limitless horizons afterlife beliefs then why don't we all just step on up to a happy eternity now? I realize it's comforting to the bereaved, but these sentiments worry me in the way that having someone who believes in Biblically-foretold End Times in control of laws and the nation does. In matters of life and death I want people in control who believe in the absolutes of Life & Death.