British Section of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life

Salford City Council is putting out a card for individuals to carry, refusing medical treatmet if they should be unable to speak for themselves (BBC News, 21 May 2008).  Note: since the Leslie Burke case we have no legal right to request treatment, but only to refuse it.

Profess Peter Millard, FRIP, comments:

Advance directives have fatal flaws. As Cicely Saunders said 'The one thing we cannot do is speak to the dissatisfied dead'.

Organ Donor cards inform relatives and medical staff of our desire to bring life to others after our death. In contrast, Advance Directives state that under certain circumstances, we would prefer death to life.

There lies the fatal flaw. Written in health, what if, your plea "I don't want to be kept alive on a life support machine" led to your not having life support for an illness from which you may recover?

Think about it – "That's not what you meant". Perhaps what you really wanted to say is, 'If my death is inevitable and all efforts at intensive care are unsuccessful, I would not like you to continue life support."

Prof Peter Millard, Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics, St. George's University of London

From Wesley J. Smith:

This is great: A child with a fatal genetic disease has apparently been treated effectively with a combination of adult/umbilical cord blood stem cells. From the story:

In October 2007, Nate Liao received marrow- and umbilical cord blood-derived stem cells and progenitor cells from his healthy, tissue-matched brother. Over the next six months, the skin and lining of his GI tract slowly improved, and skin biopsies on days 60, 130, and 200 documented increasing amounts of collagen type VII. By day 130, Nate's skin and the lining of his GI tract were beginning to show clinical signs that his skin was anchoring to his body.

Regenerative medicine has tremendous potential--and so much can be done without moral controversy.

A big proof of principle advance has been announced on the IPSC front. Human brain cells have been reverted to an embryonic-like state with drugs--and without using any cancer-causing gene, reducing the need for virus vectors. From the story:

A major advance in transforming one kind of cell into another is reported today that will likely to render plans to clone human embryos redundant in the quest for revolutionary new treatments...Now a team at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Germany, reports in the journal Cell Stem Cell that they have used drugs to help turn brain cells from an adult back into embryo like stem cells.

And what does this potentially mean?

While Yamanaka introduced four genes, at least two linked with cancer, to turn back the clock so they became more embryo like, Dr Ding uses just two genes, along with drugs, reducing the need for viruses and doing away with the cancer gene.

Dr Ding believes that, someday, chemical cocktails might be used instead of viruses to reprogram cells for cell-based therapy. One cocktail of small molecules would be used to revert specialized adult cells back to an earlier developmental stage, and then a second cocktail would differentiate the cell into the type needed to replace diseased cells in any organ or tissue. "This study is a proof of principle that this kind of approach is possible," he says.

So adult stem cells seem to be the therapeutic answer whether made from pluripotent stem cells or in their own right.

23rd May 2008

Daily Telegraph

The politicians may have cast their votes on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, but is the conscience of the nation at ease with itself? Far from settling the issues until the next Bill comes along, this week's extraordinary debates have in fact woken us all up to the reality of what is being done in our name. Many people are left deeply uneasy and perplexed, profoundly worried about the direction we are now taking.

And yet, for me it has been one of the most significant debates that the House of Commons has had in recent times, undertaken with a sober recognition that it was dealing with fundamental questions which transcend party politics. Although I would have much preferred other outcomes on all four of the debates, including the issue of fatherhood, I was glad at the sincerity and thoughtfulness of the discussion.

However, it would be wrong for us to think that the debate within society is over. A vote alone cannot and should not close the discussion. Underlying it are crucial questions. What is it to be a human being? What conditions do we need for our flourishing? In what sort of society can we put our faith and know that we are cherished and valued and above all enabled to grow in our search for what is right and true? It is in this context I want to make two practical suggestions.

First, it is increasingly clear that we need a statutory National Bioethics Commission. The parliamentary debate showed that for the moment we will have to live with an unresolved and deep tension between competing views on these fundamental questions. We need to use that tension creatively. We must search together to discover the deeper truths that enable us to secure the common good with justice for all, especially the disadvantaged and disabled, the elderly and, yes, the unborn too.

The bodies set up to regulate embryonic research and to comment on bioethics are too limited in their scope. A high-level national bioethics commission with the best expertise from different disciplines might not always be unanimous in its view. But it could greatly serve the common good simply through continuing dialogue and exploration.

As a society we urgently need to create the capacity for continuing ethical reflection. Ethics needs to keep pace with the science, and the public must not be left behind. Many other countries have such a commission and the UK is badly served without one.

Second, the vote to maintain the current status quo on abortion is not the end of the question. The idea of 'viability', prominent in the debate, is a concept dependent on the availability of resources and technology; not one that is able to found a moral distinction between a life that is worth our respect and protection and one that is not.

Life in the womb needs all our resources and protection and makes that claim from the moment of conception. For everyone involved, abortion is often a painful and shattering decision and it can only be a source of profound distress. That is why I believe we must all, whatever our beliefs, work together to find a better solution.

There are many people of all sides of the abortion debate who yet agree that 200,000 abortions a year is far too many. Even without a change in the law, the number of abortions could fall dramatically if more people worked together to foster a new understanding and approach to relationships, responsibility and mutual support.

Over the past few weeks, these profound questions have sometimes been falsely polarised as science against religion. The truth is that 'science' is never in itself on one side or the other. Of course we all need to understand what scientific advances tell us about the physical and biological worlds, about the material out of which human lives are made, and the breathtaking beauty and complexity of human development from the embryo.

But science remains a human activity. It takes place in moral space not a moral vacuum. What we are dealing with are profound ethical judgments which are informed, but not determined, by the insights of science. Our views will be shaped not only by scientific facts but also by our basic understanding of what a human life is, and also our philosophy of life (which may or may not be informed by a religious belief). Science cannot replace ethics.

I believe there is no conflict between faith and reason, and the positions articulated by people of faith about the ethical basis of law should, like those of anyone else, be tested at the bar of reasoned debate. They should not be excluded or marginalised simply because they come from a religious perspective, and nor should they be given special privilege in democratic debate.

The Church puts forward its teaching, but does not seek to impose its views nor indeed to tell any individual how to vote. What matters is the appeal to reason and intellectual argument, and the coherence of the vision of human life that we present. Reason and faith go hand in hand, and, for me, faith brings an insight into the truth which helps reason.

The gift which the Christian faith brings to all these discussions is a vision of humanity in which every human life has infinite value and dignity because it is made in the image and likeness of God. Whether or not we share this vision of faith, cherishing life and protecting the vulnerable, especially those who are unseen or unheard, is a central value of every society that wants to flourish.

This week's debate does not mark the end of the discussion but in fact, paradoxically, opens up the possibility of one that is much deeper. I hope this can become a conversation for everyone marked by a new openness and mutual respect in which we have much to learn from each other. This is because it is a common search about nothing less than the ultimate truth of who we are and what we are called to become.

By Jennifer Lahl

Monday, as was expected, the United Kingdom approved the creation of human-animal hybrids for research. British officials have bought it hook line and sinker . . . they want to maintain their reputation as leaders in stem cell research. And since a strong contingent of organized groups have been successful at slowing down the human egg trade, creating a shortage of human eggs for research, the researchers are moving forward using enucleated animal eggs and adding in human genetic material, typically from a skin cell. Add a small jolt of electricity and Voila! The cybrid is here. Interspecies cloning has occurred.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said, “these embryos would bring to an end 'the critical limiting factor in stem cell research: the lack of human eggs from which to create embryos and collect stem cells'. They would also bring new cures and treatments to millions of people.�

The bill also backs the creation of “savior siblings�. This means, if you have a sick child who needs a genetic match, you can make embryos in the lab through IVF technology, test them to identify the match, and then implant that embryo in order to save your sick child. Of course, this also means, generally the other embryos are either discarded or donated for research. Perhaps some of you have read Jodi Picoult's book, My Sister's Keeper? Chilling what happens when we treat people as means to an end.

And no new law would be complete without either a Hollywood celebrity with an illness or a politician with a sick child or relative beating the desperate drum of Cures, Cures, Cures.

May cool heads prevail as it looks as if we will stop at nothing?

Sunday Times, May 18

Jack Straw, the justice secretary, has ordered an inquest into 10 suspicious deaths at an old people’s convalescent unit in Hampshire.

The patients were among a group of 92 who died unexpectedly after being given abnormally large doses of morphine and other drugs at the Gosport War Memorial hospital. Their relatives believe their deaths were a form of euthanasia.

Straw has demanded the coroner’s investigation even though at least seven of the bodies were cremated. An inquest cannot take place in the absence of a corpse unless there are exceptional circumstances.

The justice ministry believes there is sufficient anxiety about the circumstances of the cases to require such a procedure, which, in the absence of remains, will be based only on a review of medical records and witness statements.

The allegation of “murder by euthanasia” is similar to that levelled against Harold Shipman, the GP from Greater Manchester who was Britain’s biggest mass killer. He was convicted of 15 murders but is believed to have killed about 250 of his patients. Shipman committed suicide in prison in 2004.

At Gosport, relatives complained repeatedly that the victims were not sick enough to require morphine. Questions about the hospital’s heavy use of the drug were also raised by the Commission for Health Improvement, the hospital watchdog.

Despite these concerns, police have been unable to gather sufficient evidence to pursue a prosecution. The two police investigations of the affair were themselves criticised for shortcomings.

The inquest into the 10 selected Gosport deaths was opened last Wednesday at Portsmouth and South East Hampshire coroner’s court.

A full hearing is scheduled for this autumn. A different coroner, Andrew Bradley, from Basingstoke, will conduct the process, which is expected to be the largest inquest of its kind.

The patients whose deaths are being investigated are Leslie Pittock, Elsie Lavender, Ruby Lake, Robert Wilson, Enid Spurgeon, Elsie Devine, Helena Service, Arthur Cunningham, Sheila Gregory and Geoffrey Packman. All 10 died between 1996 and 1999.

Ann Reeves, a beauty therapist, whose mother, Elsie Devine, 88, died in the hospital in 1999, has been one of the most vocal campaigners for the bereaved relatives. She is writing a book about the events and claims that questions had been raised as long ago as 1991 about the use of syringe drivers – automatic pumps that produce a continuous flow of morphine into a patient’s body.

“My mother was getting better until she went into that place. We are in no doubt there has been a massive cover-up. We are determined not to rest until we get justice for all of these patients,” she said.

Many of the other families are dismayed that their cases have not been selected for the inquest. Mike Wilson from Gosport says his 91-year-old mother, Edna Purnell, was out of bed and using a walking frame after a hip replacement operation, before she was transferred from Portsmouth’s Haslar hospital for a brief period of rehabilitation at Gosport.

“We have all her notes – we can prove what happened,” he said. “She was put to bed when she arrived there and given oral morphine, then transferred to a morphine pump. They threatened me with arrest when they caught me feeding her. They told me she was demented, which was not the case before they started giving her morphine. We are in no doubt that is what killed her.”

Richard Baker, a professor of clinical governance at Leicester University, carried out the statistical analysis that proved the abnormal scale of the death rate among Shipman’s patients. He is believed to have raised similar concerns about the death rate in Gosport.

The methods of at least two doctors and seven nurses working at Gosport have been subject to scrutiny. One of them, Jane Barton, a local GP who worked part-time at the War Memorial hospital, has been reported to the General Medical Council for unprofessional conduct.

A spokeswoman for Hampshire Primary Care Trust, which runs the hospital, said recommendations for improvements in the hospital’s practice had already been implemented. She pointed out the police investigations had come to nothing, and said the further scrutiny was “hugely distressing” for staff.

“We are confident [the hospital] provides safe, high-quality care,” she said.

Daily Telegraph
By Andrew Gimson

The sight of a legislator trying to stop mankind hurling itself down a slippery slope will always command the admiration of this column.

Edward Leigh (C, Gainsborough) took on this gallant role at the start of yesterday's debate on whether to approve stem cell research on human-animal hybrid embryos.

As Mr Leigh stepped on to the slippery slope, he must have known that he would very soon be run down by the massed optimists sliding so confidently into the abyss.

But before that happened, Mr Leigh conceived it his duty to try to call a halt.

So Mr Leigh urged MPs that the creation of human-animal embryos is "ethically wrong and almost certainly medically useless ... this is a step too far and it should therefore be banned".

Mr Leigh pointed out that even in this liberal age, the Commons does still ban some things.

It did not wish "to better regulate capital punishment. It simply stopped capital punishment".

As far as hybrid embryos are concerned, Mr Leigh referred to the articles of Roger Highfield, Science Editor of this paper, "who doesn't normally support my views".

But the idea that any scientific evidence could conceivably be adduced against the creation of hybrid embryos brought Dr Ian Gibson (Lab, Norwich North) to his feet.

Dr Gibson used to be dean of biology at the University of East Anglia and tried to trip Mr Leigh by asking him: "What is the difference between animal DNA and human DNA in terms of numbers of bases?"

Mr Leigh prudently avoided hazarding a guess, but observed that it was no good attempting "if I may say so ... to blind us with science", after which he showed that he was not trying to found his case on a profound knowledge of genetics.

For Mr Leigh said he had received an email from someone who "told me I was 30 per cent a daffodil and 80 per cent a mouse". We have to say there is nothing mousy about Mr Leigh, and we also find the bit about the daffodil implausible. Nor, if we were forced to suggest a flower to which he might be related, would we say the shrinking violet.

If Mr Leigh is anything, he is a geranium, for his features are bright red.

We met him once at a party, and he observed in a melancholy tone that he is sometimes unjustly assumed by journalists to be a heavy drinker, which is not the case.

Mr Leigh has a skin condition which makes him appear red, though at heart one can be assured he is true blue.

Mr Leigh grew serious again, contended that "we cannot and should not be spliced together with the animal kingdom", and ended with the pitiful words given by Mary Shelley to Frankenstein's monster: "I the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on."

To our delight, Sir Gerald Kaufman (Lab, Manchester Gorton) joined Mr Leigh in warning the House it was on a slippery slope.

"If you permit the creation of a hybrid embryo now what will you permit next time?" he asked.

But Dawn Primarolo, a health minister, was soon putting the case for "a pragmatic solution" and the vote went the Government's way, in favour of hybrid embryos.

One could not help being reminded of Dean Inge's remark about the Gadarene swine: "No doubt they thought the going was good for the first half of the way."

Daily Telegraph, 20 May 2008

For the first time since 1990, the House of Commons will today debate, and vote upon, abortion. Few issues arouse greater passions or raise more profound questions of morality.

There are many who strongly object to abortion on any grounds, other than to save the life of the mother. However, Parliament made the practice legal 40 years ago; and the debate now tends to focus on the upper limit for termination.

A series of votes in the Commons today will invite MPs to reduce the current 24-week limit. Advances in neo-natal care mean that babies born at 23 weeks cannot merely survive, but grow up to lead valuable and valued lives. It is difficult to argue a case against a reduction to 22 weeks (or even to 20, given the pace of medical progress) and we trust MPs will vote accordingly.

There is an even more pressing matter, which is the excessively large number of abortions at well below the legal ceiling. In truth, only a small number of terminations take place at more than 22 weeks. However, there are 200,000 abortions in this country every year at 12 weeks or less.

When abortion was legalised in 1967 no one imagined there would be so many terminations or that abortion would become a form of post-coital contraception. We also have the highest number of teenage pregnancies in western Europe and a growing incidence of sexually transmitted disease.

These are all of a piece and cannot be attributed to an absence of sex education, which is available in abundance in schools and in any magazine aimed at young people.

Governments routinely launch campaigns telling us not to drink, smoke, take drugs or eat to excess; yet there is no sense of a similar effort being expended on advising women about the medical and psychological trauma of abortion.

Nor is sufficient emphasis placed on adoption rather than abortion, the former having fallen precipitously while the latter has risen. It is essential that abortions are not made easier to obtain.

The suggestion that a single doctor's approval should be sought or lunchtime abortions be made available at the GPs' surgery must be resisted. We also need to question as a nation how a loss of the taboos that once acted as a constraint on behaviour conspired to make such a distressing procedure almost commonplace.

Nadine Dorries, the Conservative MP whose amendments to the Fertilisation and Embryology Bill have allowed this subject to be revisited in the teeth of government objections, is to be congratulated, not least for standing up to personal intimidation.

But we should not have to wait for the appropriate legislative vehicle to come along: each Parliament should have the chance to review the law.

By Wesley J. Smith

19 May 2008

The UK is debating a new embryo bill that would, among other things, explicitly permit the creation of human/animal cloned hybrid embryos for use in research. And even though there is no attempt in the UK to outlaw human ESCR or human cloning using human eggs, Prime Minister Gordon Brown appears on the defensive due to the great successes so far in adult stem cells. From "Beware False Promises," written by the the neuroscientist Neil Scolding:

Dazzled by the promises, the public stands by in awe of the science. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority allows everything: it has thus far not ultimately rejected a single embryo-research-related application. Pro-embryo-research scientists have a ready mouthpiece in politicians and journalists beguiled by the claims. How could anyone oppose these miraculous cures? What we have seen in the determined efforts of some of the bill's more politically motivated protagonists is a confusion of the issues and a classic sleight of hand--in two separate ways. Both need exposing if people of conscience are to form honestly informed views.

The first is tacitly to allow the exciting advances in adult stem-cell treatments to illustrate the far more speculative therapeutic potential of embryonic stem cells; to use the former to justify the latter. Thus Gordon Brown: "With adult stem cells already being used as treatments for conditions including leukaemia, severe combined immunodeficiency, and heart disease, scientists are already close to the breakthroughs that will allow embryonic stem cells to be used to treat a much wider range of conditions. Medical researchers now believe that stem-cell therapy has the potential to change dramatically the treatment of many other human afflictions: including not only Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's but perhaps also cancer, spinal-cord injuries and muscle damage.

Right out of the Missouri and California playbooks: Sure there have been some successes in asult, but that means embryonic will be even better! Classic.

Scolding points out some other truths:

Adult stem cells, present in most if not all specialised organs, have evolved as cells for repair: that is their purpose, and they successfully achieve this in many ways. But all this is barely relevant to the new bill. For here lies the second sleight of hand. The debate has, falsely, been turned into a referendum on all embryonic stem-cell research. What is proposed is actually "only" the licensing of various forms of mixed animal-human embryos as possible new sources of stem cells. But all the justifications for experiments using cybrids (embryos that are largely human but contain a minute quantity of animal material) are based on the falsehood that they are vital for developing embryonic stem-cell-based cures for dreadful diseases as argued by Lord Patel and Gordon Brown...And the suggestion that there is "no alternative" to cybrids is not even close to the truth. Rather, clinical scientists around the world have been extraordinarily excited by the emergence in the last year of a new technique for producing so-called "inducible pluripotent stem cells" (IPSCs).

Never mind that ESCR still can't be used in humans. And never mind that human cloning remains very rudimentary, or that ISPCs look to do most of what you could get from human cloning research, or that health care systems to treat today's sick are terribly strained or in meltdown--the politicians, Science Establishment, and media demand ethics and financial blank checks. This results in a new Gilded Age and little accountability, as in CA, where the CIRM is pouring hundreds of millions into fancy buildings rather than research.

Support for bioscience has become religion. Facts don't matter. What counts is belief.

Sir, We are convinced that stem-cell research is a highly promising area of science offering potential for new methods of treating many serious diseases. We welcome legal acceptance, public and private funding, and international co-operation for a range of stem-cell research.

But we also wish to caution against false optimism and unrealistic claims for as yet unproven avenues of research. It is irresponsible, unjustified and, especially, unfair to patients for researchers to claim without evidence that a refusal to fund, to license or to approve a particular research approach will “delay treatments for incurable illnesses”.

In particular, given the current state of more conventional embryonic stem-cell research, of adult stem-cell research, and of induced pluripotent stem-cell research, there is no demonstrable scientific or medical case for insisting on creating, without any clear scientific precedent, a wide spectrum of human-non-human hybrid entities or “human admixed embryos”.

We therefore question the scientific validity of proposals to create such embryonic combinations currently before the UK Parliament. We note with concern that, though not widely reported, the Bill does not just propose licensing so-called cybrids (99.9 per cent human, 0.1 per cent other species). It also proposes that embryos “created by using human gametes and animal gametes” (50 per cent human, 50 per cent other species) or human embryos “altered by the introduction of one or more animal cells” (ie, any percentage of human material) could be created under licence (UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill 2007-08, Section 4A(5) and Schedule 2. 3(3)).

All such proposals are highly speculative in comparison to established sources of human stem cells, and we remain unaware of any cogent evidence suggesting any might yield significant therapeutic dividend.

As scientists and clinicians actively involved in stem-cell research and regenerative medicine, we do not hold a single common view about the relative merits, ethics and potential of adult v (conventional) embryonic stem cells. But we all believe that extravagant claims regarding the purported merits of human-non-human interspecies embryos are mistaken and misleading, and that such research would damage public confidence and support, to the detriment both of the cause of stem-cell science and, ultimately, of patients.

Prof Neil Scolding, Bristol

Prof Michael Chopp, Detroit

Prof Dr Wolfgang M. Franz, Munich

Professor Alan Mackay-Sim, Queensland

Professor T. John Martin, Melbourne

Dr Rodney L. Rietze, Queensland

Prof Dennis McGonagle, Leeds

Prof Dr Bodo-Eckehard Strauer, Düsseldorf

Professor Gianni Angelini, Bristol

Dr Roger Barker, Cambridge

Dr Maureen L. Condic, Utah

Prof Dr Ursula Just, Kiel

Prof Dimitris Karussis, Jerusalem

Dr Letizia Mazzini, Piedmont

Dr Jean Peduzzi-Nelson, Detroit

Dr Carlos Lima, Lisbon

Scientists have created what is believed to be the first genetically modified (GM) human embryo.

A team from Cornell University in New York produced the GM embryo to study how early cells and diseases develop. It was destroyed after five days.

The British regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), has warned that such controversial experiments cause “large ethical and public interest issues”.

News of the development comes days before MPs are to debate legislation that would allow scientists to use similar techniques in this country.

The effects of changing an embryo would be permanent. Genes added to embryos or reproductive cells, such as sperm, will affect all cells in the body and will be passed on to future generations.

The technology could potentially be used to correct genes which cause diseases such as cystic fibrosis, haemophilia and even cancer. In theory, any gene that has been identified could be added to embryos.

Ethicists warn that genetically modifying embryos could lead to the addition of genes for desirable traits such as height, intelligence and hair colour.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which will have its second reading this week, will make it legal to create GM embryos in Britain.

The bill will allow GM embryos to be created only for research and will ban implantation in the womb. Ethicists, however, say that the legislation could be relaxed in the future.

The HFEA has said that it is preparing for scientists to apply for licences to create GM embryos. A paper, published by the authority, states: “The bill has taken away all inhibitions on genetically altering human embryos for research. The Science and Clinical Advances Group [of the HFEA] thought there were large ethical and public interest issues and that these should be referred for debate.”

The Cornell team, led by Nikica Zaninovic, used a virus to add a gene, a green fluorescent protein, to an embryo left over from in vitro fertilisation.

The research was presented at a meeting of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine last year but details have emerged only after the HFEA highlighted the work in a review of the technology.

Zaninovic pointed out that in order to be sure that the new gene had been inserted and the embryo had been genetically modified, scientists would ideally need to grow the embryo and carry out further tests.

The Cornell team did not have permission to allow the embryo to progress, however.

Scientists argue that the embryos could be used to study how diseases develop. They also say GM embryos could be more efficient in generating stem cells.

However, Dr David King, director of Human Genetics Alert, warned: “This is the first step on the road that will lead to the nightmare of designer babies and a new eugenics. The HFEA is right to say that the creation and legalisation of GM embryos raises ‘large ethical and public interest issues’ but neglects to mention that these have not been debated at all.”

He added: “I have been speaking to MPs all week and no one knows that the government is legalising GM embryos. The public has had enough of scientists sneaking these things through and then presenting us with a fait accompli.”

by David Thomas, The Daily Telegraph (LONDON) , May 12, 2008 Monday

THE Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday drew moral parallels between the creation of embryos for human use and rape and torture.

On the eve of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill's second reading in the House of Commons, Dr Rowan Williams said: "A human person, an individual body with feelings and thoughts, needs to be treated, as we sometimes say, as an end in itself, not a tool for someone else's agenda.

"So we condemn rape, torture and blackmail. We don't allow experiments on people's bodies or minds without their consent. And we don't breed human individuals to create a pool of organs that could be transplanted to save the lives of others.''

The chairman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, yesterday accused the Roman Catholic Church of using "fatal'' dogma to oppose research on embryos and IVF treatment. Lisa Jardine said: "The Catholic church is opposed to hybrid embryos, but then it is opposed to all embryonic research. The public hasn't taken this on board. For the most part, people don't realise how fundamental this [stance] is.''

Miss Jardine said that once the public understands why scientists wish to create hybrid embryos they approve of the research.

Dawn Primarolo, the health minister, said that claims by anti-abortion campaigners that foetuses could survive from 22 and 23 weeks could mislead parents. She said this could "raise hope when the science doesn't indicate that it should be there''.

SIR - Professor Stuart Campbell (Features, April 30) says he does not foresee an increase in abortions as a result of the proposal to abolish the requirement for two doctors' signatures.

In 1967, David Steel did not foresee that his Bill legislating for "hard cases" would lead to an increase in abortions.

More than six million mainly social abortions later, Prof Campbell advocates making abortion even easier to obtain, with the support of David Steel.

Ann Farmer, Woodford Green, Essex

By Nic Fleming, Science Correspondent

Scientists have created stem cells from skin taken from patients with seven different diseases, raising hopes for potential new treatments.

The breakthrough will allow researchers to gain insights into the cause of illnesses including Type 1 diabetes, Down's syndrome and Huntington's disease.

Last November researchers in Japan and America developed induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cells, which can apparently transform into any of the 200 or so different cells found in the body.

Dr Willy Lensch and colleagues at the Harvard Medical School have used this technique to develop IPS cell lines from seven diseases.

Dr Lensch said: "This will help us to understand the environmental causes that push these undefined cells to become diseases.

A team at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Massachusetts also reported that they had seen improvements in rodents with Parkinson's disease using reprogrammed IPS cells.

Rudolf Jaenisch, who led the research, said: "This experiment shows that in-vitro reprogrammed cells can in principle be used to treat Parkinson's disease."

From the Irish Independent

By David Quinn
Friday April 25 2008

Sir, I will happily respond to David Aaronovitch’s challenge (Comment, March 25) when he will answer me these questions.

First, does he think that there is any difference between humans and other animals, and does this difference matter? Secondly, what makes him think he can reduce the function of religion (which Jews, Christians and Muslims have traditionally seen as being about public truth) to the provision of “comfort and companionship”? Thirdly, where in St Paul’s letters to the Corinthians — or anywhere else for that matter — does the Apostle attack the “sinful mixing” which Mr Aaronovitch seems to think is the sole subject matter of Leviticus?

The Right Rev Tom Wright

Bishop of Durham

Sir, Once the sanctity of human life is abandoned in favour of utilitarian solutions, however admirable, justifications will in time be found for just about anything. Of course, we will always have the good old liberal conscience to restrain us. But evidence demonstrates how easily the liberal conscience deceives itself.

Jonathan Luxmoore

Religious News, Warsaw

Sir, Some journalists and politicians may have missed the point regarding the Catholic Church’s position in relation to hybrid embryos. Even if scientific advances showed that this research could lead to a cure for every known disease, Catholics and many others would still be opposed. This is because the research involves the interference and destruction of human life at an early stage, with potentially catastrophic consequences. In the same way that it is not in the remit of scientists to pronounce on metaphysical issues such as the cause of the material Universe and the “big bang”, scientific advances cannot make experimentation on human embryos morally acceptable. This research has rightly been banned in the majority of other European countries with good reason; to belittle the Catholic Church’s stance on this serious issue is unfair and dangerous.

Dermott O’Gorman

Wallington, Surrey

Sir, It should not be forgotten that the present view about the human embryo was not always held by the Catholic Church. In the Middle Ages its status was argued over seriously, and Thomas Aquinas himself held that for the first few months of life it was, in Aristotle’s classification, only a vegetable. Without wishing to support that, I suggest that the view that at the very first stage of conception the embryo is fully human is only a dogma.

Pamela Huby

Harlington, Beds

Sir, I have been greatly disappointed to learn that the Prime Minister has pledged a free vote on elements of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. This is not because such an issue does not warrant such freedoms of conscience. Maintaining unquestionable ethical standards is vital to any new statute. The reason is that, once again, a religious organisation has successfully managed to introduce its own moral dimension to an issue that will affect the lives of millions of people regardless of their individual beliefs.

Any religious organisation is entitled to air its views and some, if not many, may choose to listen. Some adherents may even choose not to avail themselves of the derived benefits of such scientific programmes. Others, however, will choose to benefit, and no religious group has the right to interfere with freedom of choice. Once again, religion has provided us with a compelling reason for keeping it thoroughly divorced from matters of state.

Dr Stephen Merron

Wolverhampton

Sir, Professor Colin Blakemore (letter, March 24) is right to draw attention to the plight of patients with incurable diseases, but is mistaken in his belief that embryo stem-cell research is the way forward. Despite the huge sums of money that the Government has spent so far in supporting this research, to date it has yielded nothing of significant therapeutic value.

On the other hand, adult stem-cell research is actually yielding promise along several lines of research into serious diseases. Professor Shinya Yamanaka and his team at Kyoto University have now found a way of programming adult stem cells to have the same properties as embryo stem cells. Similar work is going on by Professor Boris Reizis and team at Columbia University Medical Centre, New York, and by Professor Robert Blelloch and colleagues in California. Professor Ian Wilmut, who led the team that created Dolly the sheep, has publicly backed Professor Yamanaka’s work (indicating that cloning is no longer essential). The adult stem-cell route is now being researched for use in a vast range of diseases including heart disease, leukaemias, Parkinson’s disease and motor neuron disease.

Dr Matthew Thalanany

Colchester

Sir, Many opponents of this Bill are concerned less by the issues at hand and more by the failure to make legislation stick. Rabbi Jonathan Romain (letter, March 24) is right that there are many aspects that could be justified, but we know that, like the the gun crime laws, legislation will not be enforced. The Bill must be rejected until we have a legislature that can be trusted to ensure effective implementation of the safeguards he mentions.

G. Sasse

Broughton Astley, Leics