Source: San Francisco Chronicle

By Christopher Wolf

San Francisco Chronicle
 
Ask the person next to you if they know of any therapies based on stem cells that have been clinically successful; better yet, ask yourself the same question. Now consider the case, in 2003, of a 16-year-old boy in the United States who had his heart pierced with a 3-inch nail from a nail gun, which caused one of the pumping chambers to fail. In a case such as that, the patient usually would need either a heart transplant or a device to assist the heart in pumping blood. In this case, however, a different approach was taken; namely, the peripheral, the so-called "adult" stem cells, were harvested from the boy's blood, cultured and subsequently injected into the coronary artery nearest the injury. "Six months later, the patient is attending school and playing basketball with friends," according to the Genome News Network. Today, three years later, adult-stem cell therapies such as this are reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration, with some trials that may bear fruit. Stem-cell therapies, however, have not made significant headway into the clinical setting. Why? For one, comparatively little federal money has been applied toward substitutes for embryonic-stem cell research, such as adult-stem cell research. If federal funding for embryonic-stem cell research is marked as off-limits, then shouldn't at least some of the funds go to alternative solutions?

Second, the public has not been fully educated to the benefits of any form of stem-cell technology, much less whether embryonic-stem cells or adult-stem cells are being used. Should the public become better informed about regenerative medicine and what it entails, the government would be driven to take a leading roll on stem-cell research.

The Bush administration's current policy on stem-cell research is not wrong per se; it is simply misinformed. The American government is for the people, however, the people have yet to demand better government leadership in health-care research.

The entire, embarrassingly small, $28 billion budget for the National Institute of Health is dwarfed by the staggering annual health-care costs of $1.9 trillion; it just surpassed 16 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product in 2004. With such health costs building up, the aging Baby Boom generation may bust the American economy; stem-cell research is needed to
extend health care beyond treating symptoms to curing disease.

Regenerative medicine could be used as a tool to reduce the costs in our already overloaded health-care system and to lessen the occurrence, as well as the severity, of some of the more common afflictions. A small investment now has the potential to save us hundreds of millions later on.Although the federal government spent 60 percent more this year on stem-cell research than last year, the $37 million allocated pales in comparison to
the $300 million a year that California plans to spend on stem-cell research over the next 10 years.

The question now is not whether the federal government funds stem-cell research or not; but rather, what we can do in the meantime to make progress with the potential therapies? Just like saving for the future (something we already do too little of, unfortunately), investing today in research that can produce new and beneficial therapies tomorrow should not be overlooked.As it stands, the FDA cannot approve new technologies that use human embryonic-stem cells because that would involve federal funding, which
President Bush has banned.

This lack of federal research may foster private interests to step in and reap the benefits. For example, say a biotech company develops a fundamentally new therapy; given enough marketing and initial capital, such a company could monopolize that portion of regenerative medicine and start hindering any further advances that involve its patented technology. Under such a circumstance, regenerative medicine could become a set of monopolies
controlled by corporations and/or other countries.

Other countries, most notably South Korea, have invested millions of dollars in stem-cell research, and increase the funding from year to year. They are quite close to matching the state of stem-cell technology in the United States. Suppose one country -- China, say -- using government funding to develop a new clinical therapy based on embryonic-stem cells. Then imagine your doctor telling you, "Well, we might have a shot at treating you, but
you have to know that this is new technology for us and we don't know all the risks involved; plus, you should go to China to have it done correctly." Doesn't sound too hot, does it?

While studying medicine and human anatomy, I have seen human organs bristling with hardware in our "mechanical" way of repairing the body. One particular cadaver had his thorax surgically exposed, which showed and enlarged heart amid abundant hardware, including a triple bypass (staples and all), a stent (metal mesh sleeve to support an artery) and a pacemaker (small tin can with wires). Do you think that this fellow, when alive, would
have preferred engineered tissue from his own body to repair the ravages of time?

Had he been given a choice, do you think he would have donated to or advocated for regenerative medicine research? Would he have voted for a federal initiative to promote regenerative medicine? I think so.

Christopher Wolf is a student in the College of Engineering, Department of
Bioengineering and the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley.