Embryonic Stem Cell Mishap

Biomedical advancements promise to lead to new discoveries in healthcare; discoveries for cures, treatments, and genetic design. Before biomedical advancements can be made, biomedical research and testing must first occur. Bioethics, ethical standards for biomedical research and practice, demands that research and testing done on live participants, particularly human participants, follow certain criterion to be considered ethical. At a minimum, ethical basics should include 1. an obvious need where research and testing would benefit: 2. patients, 3. society, 4. the medical profession, 5. further research, and should include 6. proper consent from participants, while 7. following ethical standards set by society and governmental bodies. Following these ethical standards is sometimes abandoned by scientists because they get in the way of quick progress. Due to this abandonment, biomedical research and testing often causes more ethical conflict than the application of the biomedical practices and applications themselves.

Embryonic stem cell (ESC) research is highly ethically complex and questionable between science and medicine, and the public. Research practices often conflict with current biomedical ethical acceptance. The main reasons for embryonic stem cell research conflicts are consent and how the cells are retrieved. The government offers very limited funding for this type of research at this time, mostly to enable bans and limits- keeping the research ethical in the US- and to avoid condoning using tax payer dollars on controversial bio medicine. “This law effectively prohibits the use of federal funds to support any research that destroys human embryos or puts them at serious risk of destruction. It does not, however, prohibit the conduct of such research using private funding.” (The President’s Council on Bioethics (TPC), 2004, p 26, ¶ 2). The studies and applications of embryonic research are primarily funded by institutions and private investors. “This work, conducted in university laboratories in collaboration with and with financial support from Genron Corporation,” (TPC, 2004, p4, ¶ 2). Additional funds come from patients hoping to find a personal cure through advancements in ESC research.

            Retrieval of embryonic stem cells must come from a human embryo. Some ESCs are made in a Petri dish and the DNA is reused repeatedly to make more ESCs. However, a potential limit exists to how many times an embryo can be made using the same strands (TPC, 2004, p 5, ¶ 1). Federal funded and private funded ESCs can now be obtained by patient consent, in the US. In-Vitro Fertilization clinics and abortion clinics in the US can ask the woman for permission to use the extra embryo, or the unwanted embryo, for scientific research. By signing a consent form, the ESCs are then obtained through ethical and legal means. However, other countries may have different rules, or no rules at all, on consent rights and ethics.