[BobbyB]

Stem cell research is vital and can save lives

The use of lawfully-obtained, anonymised cells must be permitted
Sir, Both Gordon Brown and Tony Blair have called for the UK to be a world leader in stem cell science, aimed at increasing knowledge about the causes and potential treatment of serious, incurable degenerative conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, diabetes and motor neurone disease. This Government has a good record in ensuring that such research is permitted in this country, but strictly regulated by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. The new Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, currently going through Parliament, is generally progressive in its proposals for regulating the production of embryos, up to only 14 days-development, in the laboratory. However, we, as stem cell scientists and and supporters of biomedical research, are very concerned about the proposed ban on the generation of embryos in such research by the use of cells for which the donors did not, or could not, give specific consent.

We fully agree that in the future such consent should be a requirement and that it would be wrong to use previously donated cells if there were good reason to believe that the donor would have specifically objected to their use in embryonic stem cell research. However, many existing cell and tissue samples and cell lines were donated, for any research purpose, by patients (now untraceable) with particular diseases, before this sort of research was even imagined. These cells have been well characterised over many years, or have unique properties and may therefore be the best samples to use for the derivation of embryonic stem cells. Such stem cell lines would be of great value in understanding how diseases develop, as well in the search for therapies.

Lord Patel, the Chairman of the UK Stem Cell Network Steering Committee, is today seeking to amend the bill in the House of Lords to allow the use of existing, lawfully obtained, anonymised cells or cell lines, with untraceable donors, where the HFEA agrees that they are more scientifically suitable than alternative sources.

We are alarmed that the Government has expressed opposition to this amendment, even though it mirrors a similar provision in the Human Tissue Act 2004, regarding anonymous untraceable “existing holdings”.

We urge the Government to accept this important improvement to the Bill, which will help to maintain the UK’s reputation as the place of choice for this exciting and world-leading medical research.

Sir Martin Evans
Professor of Mammalian Genetics Cardiff University, Nobel Laureate 2007 for stem cell science

Sir Paul Nurse
Rockefeller University, New York. Nobel Laureate 2001.

Sir John Sulston
The Sanger Centre, Hinxton, Cambridge. Nobel Laureate 2002.

Sir Ian Wilmut
Director, MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, University of Edinburgh.

Sir Richard Sykes
Rector of Imperial College London & Chair of Trustees, UK Stem Cell Foundation.

Lord May of Oxford
Former Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government and past-President of the Royal Society.

Martin Bobrow
Emeritus Professor of Medical Genetics, University of Cambridge.

Robin Lovell-Badge
Head of Division of Developmental Genetics, MRC National Institute for Medical Research, London.

Sir Gregory Winter
Acting Director, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge.

Chris Mason
Head, Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Bioprocessing Unit, University College London.

Dame Julia Polak
Director of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Centre, Imperial College London.

Stephen Minger
Director, Stem Cell Biology Laboratory, King's College London.

Alison Murdoch
Professor of Reproductive Medicine, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Lyle Armstrong
Lecturer, Institute of Human Genetics, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Peter Braude
Head, Department of Women's Health, King's College London.

Marcus Pembrey
Professor of Paediatric Genetics, Institute of Child Health, University College London.

David Whittingham
Emeritus Professor, St George’s Hospital Medical School, London.

Baroness Susan Greenfield
Director, Royal Institution.

Anthony J. Pinching
Professor of Clinical Immunology, Peninsula Medical School.

Nick Ross
Trustee, UK Stem cell Foundation.

Steve Jones
Professor of Genetics, University College London. Trustee of the UK Stem Cell Foundation.

Roger Morris
Head, School of Biomedical and Life Sciences, King's College London.

Colin Blakemore
Professor of Neuroscience, Universities of Oxford and Warwick. Former Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council.

Peter Andrews
Co-Director, Centre for Stem Cell Biology, University of Sheffield.

Robert Lechler
Dean of Guy's, King's and St Thomas' School of Medicine, London.

Justin St John
Professor of Reproductive Biology, University of Warwick.

Anthony P. Hollander
Head of Academic Rheumatology, University of Bristol.

Dame Mary Archer
Chair, East of England Stem Cell Network Steering Group, Trustee of the UK Stem Cell Foundation.

Evan Harris
Lib-Dem MP for Oxford West and Abingdon.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/com...cle3221046.ece

[BobbyB]

Stemming Cells
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill should be made more flexible
The Government once again finds itself in a muddle over the relationship between the state and the human body. Last week, Gordon Brown signalled a willingness to embrace the principle of “presumed consent”. Put simply, the National Health Service will presume that any patient consents to give over his or her organs after death, unless there is written evidence to the contrary or a veto by relatives. The Government’s laudable intention is to address the shortage of human organs available for those people desperately in need of transplants. The proposed solution, though, fails to deal with the Government’s own inefficiency in recruiting organ donors. Rather than assuming ownership of people’s bodies after their death, the state should require people while they are living to give or withhold consent.

Today, the Government is in danger of stumbling again over the complex ethical issues surrounding the use of human tissue. In the House of Lords, ministers will come under fire for proposing a regime which is accused of being too restrictive over the quest for consent when it comes to stem cell research. Rather than assuming the rights of the state, the Government is this time presuming the inclinations of the individual. Science could, as a result, suffer.

Sir Martin Evans, awarded a Nobel Prize for his work last year, and a host of similarly distinguished scientists, writing in the letters page of The Times today, endorse the core of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. But they urge the Government to be flexible and accept amendments which will make it easier for the material necessary for research to be used in future.

Stem cell research as a whole opens up huge opportunities for progress in the effort to cure or contain conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, diabetes or motor neurone disease among many others. Yet the use of embryonic tissue also, of course, raises ethical questions. There is a need to strike a balance between these considerations.

The question is whether the Bill as framed has achieved this. In its current form it would prevent research relating to embryos from being undertaken from human donations made either by those who are dead, but were willing to leave all or part of their bodies to science and thus the decisions of scientists, or others who are alive but have donated tissue, for example, anonymously.

The principle of consent as such is not at stake here. There is no dispute about it, nor is there debate over whether those who make contributions of this kind in the years ahead should be asked if they would care to make an exception, on moral grounds, to anything which might become connected with embryonic stem cell activity. What is being suggested, however, is that it should be presumed retrospectively that, as some donors who it is impossible to contact might have objected to being associated with this branch of research, there should be a blanket prohibition in this area.

This does seem too restrictive. Ministers would be wise to accept an amendment put down by Lord Patel, the Chairman of the UK Stem Cell Network Steering Committee, which designates seven conditions that if satisfied would allow for past donations to be utilised provided that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority were then convinced that this was appropriate.

Britain is a world leader in this crucial area of research. It would be lamentable if a confused interpretation of what to do with those who wish to assist the cause of science were to be adopted, only to damage medical progress.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/com...cle3221385.ece