"Stem cells have the potential to be used to treat and better understand deadly and disabling diseases and conditions that affect more than 100 million Americans, such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury, and many others," wrote the Senators in a letter to President Bush.
"We would very much like to work with you to modify the current embryonic stem cell policy so that it provides this area of research the greatest opportunity to lead to the treatments and cures for which we are all hoping."
The Senators state that current stem cell policy faces the following challenges:
While it originally appeared that 78 embryonic stem cell lines would be available for research under the federal policy, now only 19 are available to researchers;
All available stem cell lines are contaminated with mouse feeder cells, making their therapeutic use for humans uncertain; and
ยง Scientists are reporting that it is increasingly difficult to attract new scientists to this area of research because of concerns that funding restrictions will keep this research from being useful.
Embryonic stem cells can be derived from in vitro fertilized (IVF) embryos that are left over from the procedures used to enable infertile couples to have children. There are estimated to be more than 400,000 IVF embryos that are currently frozen and will likely be destroyed, if federal policy is not altered to allow them to be donated by the couples for stem cell research.
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