Bioethicists lead call for public debates on future uses of stem cells

Science is running ahead of public debate and guidelines to grapple with use of stem cell-derived eggs and sperm

EurekAlert!, Public release date: 2-Jul-2009
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-blc070109.php

More than 40 scientists, bioethicists, lawyers and science journal editors are calling on their colleagues, policy makers and the public to begin developing guidelines for the research and reproductive use of stem cell-derived eggs and sperm, even though such use may be a decade or more away.

"Science has always moved faster than social debate or society's ability to grapple with these issues," says Debra Mathews, Ph.D., lead author of a paper published in the July issue of Cell Stem Cell and assistant director of science programs at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. The paper calls for all parties to begin engaging in open discussion and debates, and describes the need for informed social policy well in advance of the eventual use of eggs and sperm derived from pluripotent stem cells.