This article is from the WebMD Medical News Archive

May 24, 2005 (Washington) -- The House of Representatives is set to vote Tuesday on a bill sponsored by Rep. Michael Castle (R-Del.) lifting restrictions on federally funded embryonic stem cell research. The measure makes embryos left over from in vitro fertilization procedures eligible for research as long as donors consent to the research in writing. The bill has sparked sharp debate among lawmakers who promote the potential of embryonic stem cell studies and those who object to the destruction of embryos in the name of finding disease cures. Todd Zwillich sat down with two physician-lawmakers on opposite sides of the issue as they debated the benefits and pitfalls of the research.

Rep. Joe Schwartz (R-Mich.), a supporter of embryonic stem cell research, is an otolaryngologist and head and neck surgeon. He practiced medicine for 31 years before being elected to his first term in Congress in 2004.

What, in your view, is the scientific potential of embryonic stem cell research?

The potential is the treatment of disease as we have not known it before. It's the ability to reproduce from embryonic stem cells any of the more than 200 different types of cells in the body when needed to treat disease. This includes spinal cord injuries, pancreatic islet cells for juvenile diabetics, dopamine-secreting cells for Parkinson's. That potential only rests in embryonic stem cells themselves, not in adult stem cells or in cord blood cells, which have only the potential to form new blood cells themselves.

This is about as pro-life as it gets, and I look at it very much like organ donation. We're using tissue from another individual to help people, to cure disease, to move the ball forward and treat things that we heretofore have not been able to treat.

In August of 2001, President Bush set a policy restricting federal research funding to stem cell lines already derived at the time. Some 77 cell lines were included in the limits. Has the policy been adequate?

It wasn't adequate the day the president announced the policy and it certainly isn't adequate now. As it turned out there maybe were only 22 stem cell lines or so that had any adequacy whatsoever. They are all contaminated with mouse feeder cells, which means they can't be used on humans, so as a result there is no federally supported embryonic stem cell research going on in the United States right now. Only private research, and studies backed by various state governments like the initiative in California, have proceeded. What we need is embryonic stem cell research under NIH guidelines, and if we do this, I believe we could carry on embryonic stem cell research ethically and productively.

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