EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS
Science, Volume
292, Number 5523, Issue of 8 Jun 2001, p. 1811.
Robert Koenig and Gretchen Vogel
BERN--An intense debate over the ethics of embryo and genetic research is setting Germany's president against its chancellor, splitting traditional party allies, and stepping up the pressure on a new federal bioethics council that was scheduled to hold its first meeting on 8 June.
The dispute had been simmering for months, but it was energized by guidelines issued in May by Germany's main research funding agency, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), that would open the door for researchers to import embryonic stem (ES) cells (Science, 11 May, p. 1037). The federal research ministry asked the DFG to postpone a decision on the first German proposal to use ES cells--submitted by Bonn University neuropathologist Oliver Brüstle--until political leaders and the new bioethics council had explored ethical concerns over such research.
The council is stepping into a war zone. On 18 May, German President Johannes Rau--whose office is largely ceremonial, but whose opinions carry considerable weight--asserted in a major speech that "certain possibilities and plans of biotechnology and genetic engineering run contrary to fundamental values of human life." Concerned about research on ES cells and on preimplantation diagnosis--the testing of test tube-fertilized embryos for genetic defects before they are implanted into the mother--Rau demanded a strict demarcation of the ethical limits of research. "Questions about life and death affect us all. We therefore must not leave them to the experts," he said. "We must debate these issues and then decide on them together." He also conjured Nazi ghosts, warning that "no one should forget what happened in the academic and research fields" in Germany during World War II. "An uncontrolled scientific community did research for the sake of its scientific aims, without any moral scruples," Rau said.
In response, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder--like Rau, a Social Democrat--led a freewheeling debate in the Bundestag (the lower house of Parliament) on 31 May by defending researchers seeking new treatments against diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. "The ethics of healing and of helping deserve just as much respect as the ethics of creation," said Schröder, who does not want to ban limited stem cell research. He warned that German leaders must keep in mind the potential consequences of "the neglect of research and development" if rules are so strict as to deprive people with intractable diseases of possible treatments. Schröder said it was wrong for politicians to accuse ES cell researchers "of having dark and unethical motives."
But Schröder found limited support for his view in the Bundestag. Several fellow Social Democrats lined up against his position, and the leader of the opposition Christian Democrats, Angela Merkel, argued that even importing ES cells for research "violates the spirit," if not the letter, of Germany's Embryo Protection Law. Merkel plans to introduce legislation that would place a moratorium on such research until Parliament comes to a decision. Delegates of the Green Party--part of Schröder's coalition--also opposed both ES cell and preimplantation diagnosis research. "I've never seen any scientific topic in Germany as vividly debated," says Detlev Ganten, director of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin and a member of the bioethics panel, comprised of 24 scientists, theologians, legal experts, business executives, and philosophers. "I find it healthy."
Others question whether the panel has any chance of mending the political schism. The ethics council is bound to struggle with the issue of ES cell research, says panel member Christiane Nüsslein- Volhard, a director of the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen. "It's likely that such research will be done mainly in England and Israel, and not in Germany and the United States," predicts the Nobelist, who says she finds Rau's approach "too extreme" and generally agrees with Schröder's pragmatic attitude. Brüstle, who was in Israel last week discussing the possibility of importing ES cell lines for his research project, says he does not expect Germany to agree on a new policy on ES cell and preimplantation diagnosis research anytime soon, in part because of next year's federal elections.
Category: 4. Ethical and Social Concerns Arising out of Biotechnology, 31. Stem Cells