Madam, - Dick Ahlstrom's reasonably balanced account of the debate on stem cell research ( The Irish Times, April 23rd) was spoiled by a seriously misleading assertion at the end. He informs your readers that "while all of these techniques [ of stem cell research] hold promise, there are no guarantees that any of them will ultimately treat disease."
The fact is that, while this is perfectly true of embryonic stem cell research, it is not true of adult stem cell research. To date there are 73 conditions for which treatments derived from adult stem cells have been developed to the point where they have been approved for use in clinical trials.
This remarkable success rate should be borne in mind when assessing the merits of pursuing research on human embryos, which is unethical and of debatable utility. - Yours, etc,
PATRICK CARR, Family & Life, Mountjoy Square, Dublin 1.
Madam, - William Reville's article "The tiny problem with embryonic stem cell research" is a classic example of jumbled thought (Science Today, April 24th). The article calls life a continuum, and then says it begins at conception - a very obvious logical contradiction. In truth life began many many years ago in primordial soup and has continued ever since, even evolving eventually into human life.
Also, the article centres on something that is not disputed by either side of the stem-cell debate - that an embryo is human and alive. As I wrote in the Irish Medical Times, this is science fact and is not argued over. The moral question is: "is the embryo a person?" More particularly, "is an embryo that has no access to the womb a person?"
It is biological fact that an embryo without access to a womb can never become a pregnancy, foetus and/or baby. By not addressing the issue, and instead grandstanding about another issue not contested, the writer is doing Irish science and society no justice whatsoever.
Well done, The Irish Times, for otherwise balanced reporting. - Yours, etc,
Dr STEPHEN SULLIVAN, Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
