Real Harm Being Done to Bone Marrow Donation Due to ESCR Advocacy Strategy
The political strategy of pro-cloners and pro ESCR advocates to conflate "stem cell research" with "embryonic stem cell research"--as Michael J. Fox did in his deceptive ads--may be causing very real, if unintended, harm to human patients. Apparently some people confuse embryonic stem cell research from bone marrow stem cells, to the point that those seeking to add names to the bone marrow donation registry are having trouble meeting their recruitment goals. From the story:
"'Our need is so much larger than the transplants that we do,' [Julie] Tilbury [coordinator of the National Marrow Donor Program for the Rock River Valley Blood Center] said. 'The biggest challenge is we just don't have the donors.' Tilbury said confusion about the difference between adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells is one barrier to convincing people to join the registry. 'Often times, when you hear stem cells, there's a belief that there's only one type of stem cells--those that come from embryos,' she said. 'The reality is that there are so many different sources of stem cells. Our marrow is one source.'
The sowing of confusion to win a political debate, so that "stem cell research" is used as a synonym for "embryonic stem cell research" is not only dishonest, but it could be dangerous to sick people's health.
HT: Rebecca Taylor
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 5:27 PM
7 Comments
7 Comments:
I think there's another way in which the terminology here has been made unclear. Not only has "stem cell research" been used exclusively for ESCR. The phrase "bone marrow donation" has virtually fallen out of use. I pay attention to changes in the language and was much struck by this a few years ago. After all, bone marrow donation has been around longer than ESCR, and the phrase "bone marrow donation" predates the phrase "stem cell donation." _I_ believe that the phrase "bone marrow donation" or "bone marrow transplant" was deliberately dropped and replaced by "stem cell donation" *in order to* deceptively use the undoubted value of bone marrow transplants to make the public think and feel more positively about _embryonic_ stem cell research. I can't prove this, but the terminological change was quite striking.
What this article means is that that strategy, if deliberate, has back-fired.
If ASCR is more promising than ESCR, SCNT too hopelessly impractical for biomedical advancements (millions of eggs needed), etc...what would you do with the 400k + excess embryos from IVF?
What would be the best way to salvage them?
Or, is large-scale salvaging simply impossible?
Royale: Your comment is off topic. We are not arguing the merits of ESCR in this post. It is about how abusing the language and blurring crucial ethical definitions has led to unintended negative consequences.
Newspeak is almost passe these days, Chad, and not just about this issue!
Interesting point, Lydia. Would love to hear other comments about that.
WJS,
With all due respect, you need to either (1) have a place where we can pose questions, (2) respond to questions on older posts that might be related to that question, or (3) don't get on people's cases if they ask a question.
Well, this is just anecdotal evidence, but look back 15 or 20 years and read magazines like Reader's Digest. They often had stories about people going through cancer treatment, including bone marrow transplant. That was what it was always called--"bone marrow transplant." Then the whole stem cell research thing became a hot topic in the news, and about four years ago I became aware that the terminology had changed. I was talking with some (largely conservative) women friends about someone they knew with cancer who was searching for a bone marrow donor. The nurses in the group quite unselfconsciously referred to what the woman was seeking as a "stem cell transplant," causing one member of the group to ask, in some alarm, what that was all about and whether it had anything to do with embryos. They all reassured her, and of course they were correct--it didn't have anything to do with that. But this was one of the earliest times that I heard "stem cell transplant" used instead of "bone marrow transplant." The latter phrase was much clearer and didn't lead to confusion. I know in many, many areas that control of the language is important. I strongly suspect that in medical circles various publishers, med-school teachers, and other disseminators of information just started calling it a "stem cell transplant" to make feel-good vibes about stem-cell research generally. Then unsuspecting medical personnel used the phrase they were hearing instead of the older phrase, and confusion was created in the minds of listeners--with an unintended negative effect on bone marrow donation.
I'll address Royale's question here AND at the new thread you've opened, so that it can be seen.
"If ASCR is more promising than ESCR, SCNT too hopelessly impractical for biomedical advancements (millions of eggs needed), etc...what would you do with the 400k + excess embryos from IVF?"
Royale, most of those 400,000 embryos of whom you speak are NOT being slated for destruction; more than 88% being reserved for future attempts at pregnancy. Of the others, we need to present the idea of embryo adoption fairly. It's starting slowly, as most of everything does, but with promotion and understanding I think it will catch on like wildfire, especially for couples experiencing fertility problems.
bmmg39, the only problem with what you say is that they are going to have to have the permission of the "biological" parents to do this and a very high percentage of these people will not allow this to happen. And, obviously, each of these parents cannot have 20-30 kids so those eggs will sit in their frozen containers for years. They will be destroyed one way or another. And it is usually by system failure such as the machine breaking down and thus causing the eggs to be destroyed.
And I disagree with all of you that the medical community is trying to "fool" people by using stem cell transplant. That is exactly what it is, whether you like it or not. Have you not known that the medical terms and layman's terms for medical procedures are different? They are no more trying to fool you in saying you are receiving a stem cell transplant than telling you that your dad had a myocardial infarction (heart attack), cerebral vascular accident (stroke), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's Disease), etc. I could go on and on. Maybe you guys just don't want to admit that bone marrow transplants are exactly that: stem cell transplants.
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