THE QUEENSLAND BAPTIST

April 10, 2002

Adult stem cells better for research than embryonic ones by Lynne Stringer*

A Queensland doctor has said that diseases are more likely to be cured from research into adult stem cells, not embryonic stem cells.

Dr David van Gend, Queensland secretary of the World Federation of Doctors who Respect Human Life, was interviewed on CTA’s Worldview program, which aired on Channel Nine on Sunday, April 7. He claims that far more success has already been achieved from research into stem cells taken from the average adult than from work on IVF embryos.

“We already have the first initial partial cure of a spinal cord injury in America,” he said, “[A] woman… can now move her feet again, she can use her bladder control again. We have a cure for Thalassemia in a little Singaporean boy. We have a cure to repair heart damage after a heart attack…. we’ve cured corneal blindness in Taiwan. We have half a dozen patients there who are treated with adult stem cells and this is happening for cancers, for immune conditions like Crohn’s Disease.

“Every week, every month, we’re getting new reports. It’s exploding in the field of adult stem cells which are just taken from your blood, from my bone marrow, from the after birth of babies.”

Dr van Gend expressed frustration at the popular view that embryonic stem cells must be used to find cures for many diseases.

“That is false,” he said, “There is not one single cure or application of embryonic stem cells anywhere.

“The initial hype is that it’s all related to embryonic cells in order to get these sort of decisions through, but it’s not true.”

Dr van Gend also expressed concern at the risk that embryonic stem cell research might lead to human cloning.

“Once…you’ve decided that human embryos are there to be used as raw material for the benefit of science, for the benefit of adults, and then you have to move on as a scientist and say, ‘…you’ve got to let us use these embryos which we’ve actually cloned especially, tailor made, because they’re going to be potentially even more useful.’ How are you going to resist that? And then when you’ve got the cloned embryos, away you go with the cloned babies. It’s a Pandora’s Box. You can’t just leave it open this much.”

For more information on adult stem cell research visit http://www.stemcellresearch.org

*Lynne Stringer – editor The Queensland Baptist