Time to sign
By Bette Flagler,
[SCIENCE]
Stem cell research can’t be left in the too-hard basket
Two of the hottest science topics around are global warming and stem cells. Everyone in the world is either talking about how we’re going to fuel our cars without melting the planet or how we’re going to cure diseases and grow new organs by using embryonic stem cells. Here in New Zealand, we’ve finally got the global warming gig covered. But embryonic stem cells? Not even on our radar. Why? Because while the rest of the world has been negotiating the ethical minefields associated with using embryonic stem cells in research, building laboratories to grow them, and raising billions of dollars in private capital when governments have dropped the ball, New Zealand has pretty much been a no-show.
In order to understand how New Zealand—which claims to be innovative and a hotbed of world-class science—fell so far behind in a field that is less than a decade old, we need to rewind a bit. In 2004, Parliament passed the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology (HART) act, which established a framework that allowed certain reproductive procedures such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF) to be performed without regulatory oversight (let’s face it, this act was already overdue: the first IVF baby would have turned 26 in 2004). The HART act prohibited some procedures like reproductive cloning and allowed others—for instance, embryo donation—to be carried out with oversight. It also lumped a few things into the too-hard basket. For those procedures, which included research on embryos, the act specified that an independent advisory committee be formed to provide the Minister of Health with information, advice and, if it sees fit, recommendations.
The resulting Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology (ACART) “sits between the government and the people of New Zealand” and is due to drop its report on Health Minister Pete Hodgson’s desk in June. Then it will be up to Hodgson to decide what comes next; according to Professor Sylvia Rumball, ACART chairperson and Assistant to the Vice Chancellor of Ethics and Equity at Massey University, no further legislation is required. Hodgson can sign the report off and the growing can begin.
Whether or not setting up a panel to make a recommendation on a complex research issue that has social implications is the best move, I don’t know, but apparently it’s how we do it here. “New Zealand is becoming more of a participatory democracy,” says John Pennington, the executive director of New Zealand’s Bioethics Council. “The trend is to bring the public into the discussion from the very beginning.”
The Bioethics Council worked in partnership with ACART, undertook public discussion on embryo research and provided ACART with a summary of its findings. In order to further gather public opinion (which the committee is required to do), Rumball explains that ACART released a discussion document in December 2006; in February and March this year ACART held a series of public meetings, focus groups and hui.
It all sounds completely fabulous, but gathering the public’s opinion is a long, cumbersome process. Time and science march on while we fall further behind. With no homegrown human embryonic stem cell lines, scientists need to look abroad and in 2004 and 2005, two New Zealand research groups requested approval to conduct research on imported stem cell lines. With no legislation governing existing or imported lines, then-Minister of Health Annette King requested the Ministry of Health to draft interim guidelines that would allow New Zealand researchers to use cells from established human stem cell lines in research until the time when the ACART recommendations were completed. Those guidelines—which followed a targeted public consultation—will be modified to incorporate the recommendations from ACART. At the time of publication, one research group had lodged an application with the ethics committee to import cell lines and another group was working cooperatively at Melbourne University.
There are no guarantees that stem cells will be the greatest thing in healthcare since antibiotics and, even if they are, we are still years away from having treatments available for the most likely targets: diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and spinal injury. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be exploring the path and it certainly doesn’t mean we should sit back and let everyone else enjoy the opportunity to do fantastically exciting and potentially groundbreaking work.
I’m not holding my breath, but my fingers are crossed that ACART recommends Hodgson give the green light to embryonic stem cell research as fast as he can. I hope Hodgson muscles that along and doesn’t —God forbid—decide we need a moratorium or think it’s a good idea to play it safe and wait until after the next election. We’re already bringing up the rear.
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