Funding fetal tissue
research
In 1992, Senator John McCain agonized over the
choice of maintaining his unblemished antiabortion voting record or
doing a favor for a friend. He followed friendship, and the
consequence is that McCain's votes to allow research on fetal-tissue
and fetal-tissue transplants have come under fire in his
presidential campaign.
South Carolina Citizens for Life aired
radio ads before the primary urging voters to oppose McCain because,
the ads said, the Arizona Republican had "flip-flopped" on a promise
to maintain the ban on federal funds for research "that uses the
body parts of aborted babies."
There's no disputing that
McCain was inconsistent on the fetal-tissue issue, and that the
candidate who rails against special interests gave favor to a
lobbyist who championed fetal-tissue therapies. The lobbyist was
Anne Udall.
"I can still remember John sitting in his office,
not only listening to me on fetal tissue but also talking about what
my dad meant to him," Anne Udall said. "It was very powerful. And he
said, 'If it is the right thing to do, I will do it.' "
Her
brother, Representative Mark Udall, a Colorado Democrat, says the
bond between his father, a liberal Democrat, and McCain, a
Republican, transcended party lines and geography. "I think it was
very personal for McCain, a former prisoner of war, to see my father
just wasted by this terrible disease [Parkinson's] and, over eight
years in a VA hospital, becoming half the man he was."
McCain
said "the spectacle" of Udall's illness had caused his change of
heart. "I'm not supporting abortion to provide" fetal tissue, McCain
said in a television interview. "But the fact is, I've been
convinced that it is a promising way to find a cure for a terrible,
terrible disease."
In a January 1992 letter to the director
of Arizona Right to Life, McCain said the group could count on his
being "steadfast" against abortion. "I have no intention of
supporting the use of fetal tissue" from abortions, McCain
wrote.
Three months later, McCain voted in favor of a Senate
bill authorizing funds for the National Institutes of Health that
included a provision to lift the federal-research moratorium that
presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush had imposed on fetal-tissue
transplants.
"I have lost sleep struggling with this," McCain
wrote to a constituent in May 1992. "My abhorrence for the practice
of abortion is unquestionable. Yet my abhorrence" for Parkinson's
and juvenile diabetes "and the suffering they cause is just as
strong."
Joan Samuelson, who has Parkinson's disease, trooped
from office to office on Capitol Hill with Anne Udall in early 1992
and persuaded some Republicans, including senators Bob Dole of
Kansas and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, to defy the
antiabortion lobby and cast a vote in favor of fetal-tissue
research.
"I see my dad in McCain - not in their ideologies,
which are very different - but in the way McCain seems willing to
stand up for what he believes and take on tough issues, like
campaign-finance reform," said Anne Udall, who is a school
administrator in Charlotte, N.C.
McCain was the chief sponsor
of a bill, enacted in 1997 and bearing Udall's name, that provides
$100 million a year for fetal tissue research. He also opposed an
amendment that would have banned research on fetal-tissue
transplants.
In laboratories, fetal-tissue transplantation
has not proved as practical or promising as once promoted, and many
researchers now call the political debate moot. "No one feels it
provides any long-term solutions," said Dr. J. William Langston,
president of the Parkinson Institute in Sunnyvale, Calif. "The
science is taking us in a very different direction."
One of
those directions is research on transplanting human embryonic cells,
or stem cells. Because harvesting stem cells usually requires
destruction of embryos left over from in vitro fertilization
procedures, antiabortion groups oppose it vigorously. Earlier this
month, McCain joined 19 other senators in asking the National
Institutes of Health to withdraw its new proposals to fund federal
embryonic-cell research.
Cyndi Mosteller of Charleston, S.C.,
a McCain adviser on family issues, said the senator's positions are
consistent: He would support nonembryo stem-cell research, just as
he supports fetal-tissue research, which she feels does not "destroy
a human being." Mosteller said the antiabortion group's ads against
McCain are "disingenuous" and aimed less at his voting record than
at his push to overhaul the campaign-finance laws.
Document:
"Letter of Intent" Human fetal tissue
characterization for transplantation
guide
August 6, 1993
Fetus Transplantation
of Organs, Biological Resources National, Institute of Child
Health and Human Development, National Institute of Diabetes
and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institute of
Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Letter of Intent
Receipt Date: October 1,1993
PURPOSE: This RFA has been
developed to encourage research on the standards and methods
for identifying and characterizing optimal human fetal tissue
for use in transplantation therapy. Joint funding by the
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
(NICHD), the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and
Kidney Diseases
(NIDDK), and the National Institute of
Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) reflects the extent
of interest in evaluating human fetal tissues and their
biological potentials. Attention should be given to proper
collection, processing, culturing and preserving these tissues
to assure highest quality control. This research should
consider addressing methods for acquisition, establishing
morphologic status, determining developmental age and
viability, assessing sterility and genetic normality,
preserving by cryopreservation, and establishing cell
lines.
FUNDS AVAILABLE: It is anticipated that up to
six grants will be awarded under this program, contingent upon
receipt of a sufficient number of meritorious applications and
the availability of funds. To fund these awards, $1,000,000
has been set aside for the direct costs in the first
year.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES The use of human fetal tissue
transplants has been advocated for several years as a means of
treating a number of devastating diseases. Fetal tissue
transplants may allow replacement of tissues and cell products
that have been damaged, destroyed, or that never developed
properly due to disease or a genetic disorder.
Methods
should be considered to optimize and standardize handling and
processing of fetal tissues as well as their preservation and
storage. |
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