Political Science on the Hill

...The Senate is likely to take up the issue soon, and there, too, the bill is all but certain to pass...

...Some have described methods of chemically reprogram-ming adult cells to make them plu-ripotent and others, like this latest study, involved the discovery of more mature cells with abilities previously thought to exist only at the embryonic stage...

...What we're seeing is a slow overturning of some key assumptions of cell biology, most notably the belief that the versatility of stem cells is a function of their immaturity and, therefore, that the most versatile cells will naturally be found at the earliest stages of human development: the embryonic stage...

...Last week's debate offered a familiar mix of tragedy and farce...

...of Congress on both sides who have clearly wrestled mightily with their consciences, were interspersed with gross misstatements of the facts of stem cell research and the Bush policy, particularly by advocates of looser ethical limits on funding...

...There is more going on here than efforts to make "embryo-like" cells in the lab...

...The House passed the bill to overturn the Bush policy by a margin of 253 to 174—well short of the two-thirds needed to override Bush's veto, but precisely the margin one would have predicted by looking at last year's stem cell vote and the election results: no surprises, and essentially no changed minds either way...

...The study described the cells as "plurip-otent," meaning they can be transformed into a wide variety of other cells...

...Although unfounded in the facts, this air of urgency has been the potent moving force behind the campaign to overturn the Bush policy for nearly six years...

...The well-known malady of dema-goguery, however, continues to plague us, judging by last week's debate on stem cell research in the House of Representatives...

...On Thursday, the House took up a bill to overturn President Bush's embryonic stem cell funding policy, and for the first time use taxpayer dollars to encourage the destruction of embryos for research...

...To press the point, the White House on Wednesday released a 64-page report, "Advancing Stem Cell Science Without Destroying Human Life," filled with citations to recent studies of ethical stem cell alternatives...

...Many supporters of the president's policy in the House also cited the newer research in their remarks...

...This means not only that these emerging techniques could offer a consensus solution to the stem cell debate, but also that the entire debate has been grounded in false assumptions...

...Working under this assumption, early efforts to produce pluripotent cells without embryos were described as "turning back the clock...

...The same bill passed both houses last year, but was rejected by President Bush in the first and so far only veto of his presidency...

...Behind it all was an implicit sense of urgency, of a desperate need for an infusion of federal dollars right now...

...Genuine and heartfelt stories of suffering and disease, many told by members Yuval Levin is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and senior editor at The New Atlantis magazine...

...But with every new study, it appears increasingly likely that stem cell versatility can be achieved in a number of ways, and may be inherent in numerous kinds of stem cells at various stages of human development...

...But this iteration of the debate also carried with it a particular sense of incongruity...

...Specter's comment marks a new peak in the untamed hype of embryonic stem cell research advocates over the past six years—from early claims of imminent cures for Parkinson's and diabetes, through John Edwards's famous assertion that Christopher Reeve would walk again if John Kerry were elected president, to the oft-repeated notion that 110 million Americans are waiting for stem cell therapies, and, now, quite naturally concluding with the promise of universal healing: "All known maladies" will be cured...

...This is just the latest in a growing number of scientific publications showing that pluripotent cells can be produced without destroying human embryos...

...Tales of a "ban" on the research, of America falling behind, and of cures just The well-known malady of demagoguery continues to plague us, judging by last week's debate on stem cell research in the House of Representatives...

...Stem cell research still won't cure all known maladies, but more and more we are realizing that it can be pursued without eroding America's longstanding regard for human life and dignity...

...So far, though, the changing facts have not made a dent in congressional support for embryo-destructive research...

...Increasingly it appears that the aim of the Bush policy—to advance stem cell science without destroying embryos—may be more attainable than anyone (including its architects) imagined in 2001...

...So far, we've been successful with every cell type we've attempted to produce from these stem cells," the study's senior author told the Los Angeles Times...

...by Yuval Levin 44 t is scandalous that eight I years have passed since we -M- have known about stem cell research and the potential to conquer all known maladies, and federal funds have not been available for the research," Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter told a press conference last week...

...But with time, and with more studies showing success with alternative sources of plu-ripotent cells, the debate may well begin to shift...

...In an interview with the Associated Press last week, George Daley, a stem cell researcher at Harvard, said of the newly reported amniotic stem cells that "while they are fascinating subjects of study in their own right, they are not a substitute for human embryonic stem cells, which allow scientists to address a host of other interesting questions in early human development...

...Stem cell researchers seem increasingly aware of this, and those who want particularly to work with embryonic cells have begun to significantly narrow their case...

...around the corner were the order of the day...

...Just four days before the House took up the issue, the journal Nature Biotechnology published a study showing that cells from amniotic fluid, collected in the course of routine amniocentesis during pregnancy, could have many of the appealing properties of embryonic stem cells, without requiring the destruction of embryos...

...Interesting questions in early human development may well be worthy of study, but they are a far cry from the promise to conquer all known maladies, and it is hard to imagine that many members of Congress on the fence would find in them an adequate reason to vote for federal funding to support the destruction of human embryos...