blog.bioethics.net

Is New York's stem cell agency sidestepping ethics?

That's the accusation made by Daniel Sulmasy, a member of the Empire State Stem Cell Board's ethics committee. In an opinion piece this week in the NY Post, he writes that the ethics committee was first rushed to make interim recommendations -- and then essentially ignored:

Ethics-committee members hold diverse views on the controversial kinds of stem-cell research. Nonetheless, the committee unanimously recommended that the board hold off on funding these practices for six months so that the committee could examine these thorny ethical issues carefully and recommend guidelines.

The ethics committee thought that ethics mattered.

But perhaps ethics doesn't matter much in New York. The board's funding committee, composed almost exclusively of scientists and advocates for embryonic-stem-cell research, agreed on ambiguous guidelines that permit all the controversial practices noted above: cloning, chimeras, parthenogenesis and creating human embryos solely for research.

The ethics committee's sensible plan of ethical due diligence proved intolerable to the funding committee. It argued that even temporary limits would "send the wrong message to scientists."

On Jan. 7, Gov. Spitzer held a press conference to announce that the first round of funding had been awarded: $14.5 million.

This precipitous funding decision sends the wrong message - namely, that the discussion of research ethics should never encumber scientists' work. That's a dangerous premise for any society to hold. Was a six-month delay to allow ethical review really too much to ask? It's preposterous to propose that this would've had a "chilling effect" on science.

-Greg Dahlmann

Earlier on blog.bioethics.net:
+ New York's stem cell program picks up speed