Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T11:32:44.078Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Why Scientific Details are Important When Novel Technologies Encounter Law, Politics, and Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Lawrence Goldstein
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Lost at times in the heat of debate about stem cell research, or any controversial advanced technology, is the need for precision in debate and discussion. The details matter a great deal, ranging from the need to use words that have precise definitions, to accurately quote colleagues and adversaries, and to cite scientific and medical results in a way that reflects the quality, rigor, and reliability of the work at issue. Regrettably, considerable inaccuracy has found its way into the debates about stem cells, on all sides, with consequent fogging of the issues.

A key detail that is often overlooked in the debates about the uses of human embryonic stem cells in research comes from the nature of in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment for infertility. Specifically, there are many frozen human embryos (more precisely called blastocysts) that are in excess of reproductive needs of the couple who generated them, and that must be either frozen indefinitely, donated to another couple, or destroyed.

Type
Symposium
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , Summer 2010 , pp. 204 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

National Research Council Committee on the Biological and Biomedical Applications of Stem Cell Research., Stem Cells and the Future of Regenerative Medicine (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 2002): at xv, 94 [hereinafter cited as NRCC].Google Scholar
Weiss, R., “Stem Cells an Unlikely Therapy for Alzheimer's,” Washington Post, June 10, 2004, at A03, available at <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29561-2004Jun9.html> (last visited March 18, 2010).Google Scholar
Weiss, R., “Stem Cell Fairy Tales and Stem Cell Fables,” available at <http://www.scienceprogress.org/2009/03/stem-cell-fairy-tales/> (last visited March 18, 2010).+(last+visited+March+18,+2010).>Google Scholar
I. Mebane-Sims, and Alzheimer's Association, “2009 Alzheimer's Disease Facts and Figures,” Alzheimers & Dementia 5, no. 3 (2009): 234–270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
See <http://www.clinicaltrials.gov> for more information.+for+more+information.>Google Scholar
Selkoe, D. J., “Alzheimer's Disease Is a Synaptic Failure,” Science 298, no. 5595 (2002): 789–791.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardy, J. and Selkoe, D. J., “The Amyloid Hypothesis of Alzheimer's Disease: Progress and Problems on the Road to Therapeutics,” Science 297, no. 5580 (2002): 353–356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
See NRCC, supra note 1.Google Scholar
Testimony of Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) to Senate Appropriations Committee-Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies, April 26, 2000.Google Scholar
Voltarelli, J. C. and Couri, C. E. et al., “Autologous Nonmyeloablative Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation in Newly Diagnosed Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus,” JAMA 297, no. 14 (2007): 1568–1576.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Couri, C. E. and Oliveira, M. C. et al., “C-Peptide Levels and Insulin Independence Following Autologous Nonmyeloablative Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation in Newly Diagnosed Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus,” JAMA 301, no. 15 (2009): 1573–1579.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skyler, J. S. “Cellular Therapy for Type 1 Diabetes: Has the Time Come?” JAMA 297, no. 14 (2007): 1599–1600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, D., “Diabetics Cured in Stem-Cell Treatment Advance,” The Times (London), April 11, 2007, available at <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article1637528.ece> (last visited March 18, 2010).Google Scholar
Amariglio, N. and Hirshberg, A. et al., “Donor-Derived Brain Tumor Following Neural Stem Cell Transplantation in an Ataxia Telangiectasia Patient,” PLoS Medicine 6, no. 2 (2009): E1000029.CrossRefGoogle Scholar