Stem cell rift among Vatican
experts
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
NCR Staff Rome
A new method of stem cell research, heralded here in recent weeks
as a way to avoid ethical objections from the Catholic church, has generated an
open rift among Vatican experts who deal with bioethical questions.
Stem cells occur in early stages of embryonic development and have
the potential to produce virtually all types of specialized cells in the human
body, thereby holding out hope for cure of illnesses caused by cell failure or
damage to cells that do not repair themselves. Scientists believe that research
on stem cells may hold the key to treatment of illnesses ranging from heart
failure and Alzheimers disease to paralysis caused by spinal cord
injuries.
The Catholic ethical view could prove critical as new treatments
using stem cells develop and are proposed for use in Catholic-sponsored
facilities around the world.
The debate here centers on whether the new method, known as
somatic cell nuclear transfer, involves creation of an embryo
capable of becoming a human being. Because Catholic moral teaching bans
destroying human embryos or using them for experimentation, the church opposes
stem cell research that could result in human embryos.
Some Vatican officials lean to the conclusion that the new method
does not involve an embryo, while others are unconvinced.
The fracture, played out in the pages of the official Vatican
newspaper, LOsservatore Romano, was triggered by the recent
endorsement of the new method by an Italian commission whose 25 expert members
included seven representatives of the Catholic church. In the commissions
Dec. 28 report, it described the new method as a church-friendly via
italiana, or Italian way, in contrast to therapeutic
cloning of embryos. Therapeutic cloning has found acceptance
in Great Britain and other countries.
The commission is headed by Nobel prize-winning scientist Renato
Dulbecco.
The two most widely used sources of stem cells are embryos
developed in laboratories and aborted fetal tissue, but Catholic authorities
have ethical objections to both. The Vatican holds that an embryo must be
treated as a human being and cannot be created or destroyed in a laboratory or
experimented upon. The use of aborted fetal tissue, according to Vatican
teaching, involves complicity in abortion.
Stem cells can also be extracted from adults. They are found, for
example, in bone marrow. John Paul II, in an Aug. 29 address to a congress of
transplantation experts in Rome, urged use of adult cells as the proper method
of stem cell research.
According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, however, use
of adult stem cells has drawbacks. Among them: Adult stem cells take a longer
time to find and reproduce, reducing their usefulness in treating certain acute
illnesses; adult stem cells are more limited in their capacity to develop into
the specialized cells required for treatment; and adult stem cells may
reproduce the same genetic defects doctors are trying to treat.
For these reasons, many scientists insist that research should go
forward on embryonic stem cells.
In contrast, somatic cell nuclear transfer, the
alternative endorsed by the Italian commission, involves injecting a nucleus
from an adult cell into a donors unfertilized egg from which the nucleus
has been removed. The resulting fusion is then multiplied in a laboratory and
used to derive new stem cells. So far the method has been used only with
animals.
The seven Catholic members of the commission, including one
cardinal -- Cardinal Ersilio Tonini of Ravenna, Italy -- joined in the
recommendation to move forward with the nuclear transfer method. Initial
Vatican reaction was warm. Italian theologian Gino Concetti, in-house moral
expert for LOsservatore Romano, praised the proposal as
substantially positive in an article published Dec. 30.
It is certainly not possible to say that stem cells, before
they arrive at the formation of the embryo, should be considered in the same
way as the embryo, Concetti wrote. In this way the via
italiana of therapeutic cloning differs substantially from other nations
that allow the possibility of producing embryos as sources from which stem
cells are to be derived.
Redemptorist Fr. Brian Johnstone, an Australian who teaches at
Romes Alfonsiana Academy for moral theology, told NCR that
Catholic scientists who support somatic cell nuclear transfer make a similar
argument.
They say that it is not an embryo because it is not the
result of the fusion of a sperm and an egg cell, he said. Their
view is that its very different than what results from sexual
intercourse.
Any sense of an impending Vatican embrace of the method, however,
was undercut six days later by a full-page article in LOsservatore
Romano signed by Juan de Dios Vial Correa, a lay professor and president of
the Pontifical Academy for Life, and Archbishop Elio Sgreccia, vice-president.
In the Jan. 5 article, Correa and Sgreccia questioned the assertion that what
is created in somatic cell nuclear transfer is not an embryo.
The cells produced in this process, the two authors observe,
have in the past been developed, at least in a certain number of cases
and for certain species, into embryos similar to those derived from artificial
insemination, capable of being implanted regularly
and of giving rise to
a cloned animal.
Correa and Sgreccia insisted that, in the absence of irrefutable
proof that the cellular fusion could not develop into a human being, somatic
cell nuclear transfer would be unacceptable.
Johnstone told NCR that the eventual position of the
Catholic church is likely to hinge on this technical question of the
cells capacity to become a human being.
If it were empirically established that this entity would
not, if implanted, develop and flourish as a human embryo does, then in
principle the answer from the church could be yes, Johnstone said.
The Dulbecco commission also recommended the use of so-called
surplus embryos generated during in-vitro fertilization that are
frozen, and, after a period of time, destroyed. The commissions majority
supported allowing researchers to use these embryos rather than discarding
them.
The Catholic members issued a sharp dissent to this aspect of the
commissions report, echoed by the Vatican, on the grounds that laboratory
exploitation of embryos weakens respect for human life.
The e-mail address for John L. Allen Jr. is
jallen@natcath.org.
National Catholic Reporter, January 26,
2001
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