SPUC's news summary service (for which you can sign up here) reported Friday's news that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US has approved a test of the treatment of spinal injuries in around 10 people with paraplegia using human embryo cells.The company concerned, the Geron Corporation, wants to do a similar test with diabetics. President Obama is expected to lift President Bush's ban on federal funding for research on new human embryo lines.
James L. Sherley, M.D., Ph.D.(pictured), a leading stem cell scientist, senior scientist at Boston Biomedical Research Institute, who has travelled the world pointing out the inefficacy of embryonic stem cell research to his scientific colleagues, has written to me with the following comment:
“Executives of the Geron Corporation in the U.S. must be quite pleased with the news media tizzy inspired by their Obama-timed announcement of a first clinical trial with human embryonic stem cells. Such clamour excites, builds anticipation, and favors optimism over realism, even when the caveats are well known to the approving U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and reporters.You may like to join Dr Sherley in prayer by joining the daily prayer campaign for Barack Obama, and Tony and Cherie Blair, that they will have a change of heart - and that they will use their influence in the world to save lives and become powerful ambassadors in the world for the unborn and for the value and inviolability of human life.
“In fact, the price of Geron's stock has been climing consistently during the month of December, had a sudden pick up in rate during this week, and surged today on the heels of news reports of the approval of their clinical trial. The problem with some Americans is that they will often abandon even our most fundamental principles, if they see an opportunity for personal gain.
“In the case of Geron's approval, reporters are clumsily obscuring the important principle that is being dismissed by Geron and the FDA. Reporters are mechanically penning reassurances from Geron that they are working appropriately with the FDA to evaluate whether Geron's cells will injure patients. Geron's approved phase I trial will evaluate whether spinal injury patients, who volunteer for the trial, experience undue harm after injection of human embryonic stem cells.
“Of course, the whole trial is a complete ruse, since a greater harm already occurred with the deaths caused by making the embryonic stem cells. President Obama's delay in keeping his promise that he would immediately order federally-funded execution of nascent human beings for research could mean that he now experiences a crisis of conscience. I certainly pray that he will.
“After all, how can one lead on a promise of unity and respect for the American principle of the inalienable right to life, but at the same time promote the death of people just because they are younger? Geron's trial may be legal because of a current exception in U.S. law that permits elective killing of persons who are younger than the stage of birth, but it is certainly not right in any sense of the word.”
