Print Issue: March 6, 2003

USCCB Backs Collecting Newborns' Stem Cells

By Gretchen Keiser

ATLANTA-What is being done through Babies for Life shows that treatment for and research into serious diseases can be accomplished without destroying human embryos, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Richard Doerflinger, deputy director of the Pro-Life Activities Secretariat at the USCCB, said Feb. 28 that umbilical cord blood has been used to treat childhood leukemia, sickle cell anemia and other life-threatening illnesses.

"Stem cell research is advancing by leaps and bounds. All the advances are occurring in areas like this," he said, referring to umbilical cord blood and adult stem cell research.

The stem cells found in umbilical cord blood seem to be "very versatile," said Doerflinger, an adjunct fellow in bioethics and public policy at the National Catholic Bioethics Center.

In clinical trials with animals it has been shown they can be used to reverse damage caused by strokes, he said.

Encouraging people to make an informed decision to donate umbilical cord blood is laudable, he continued, because it preserves potentially life-giving stem cells that otherwise would simply be discarded as medical waste in the delivery room.

"This is something we throw away four million times a year in the United States (the estimated number of live births each year). Most of the time they are thrown away without harvesting these very versatile cells."

Placing them in a public blood bank, rather than a private bank accessible only to the donor, provides a resource that can be used to find a match for a person sick with leukemia, sickle cell anemia or other illnesses.

In seeking a match for a bone marrow transplant, Doerflinger said, doctors try to match seven factors in order to find bone marrow that will not be rejected by the recipient. However, with umbilical cord blood, because the cells are much more immature than adult bone marrow cells, it is "more readily accepted with a less exact match. With three or four of the seven factors, you would still have a very good chance of a viable transplant."

During last week's debate in the U.S. House of Representatives over human cloning, members of the Congressional Black Caucus circulated a letter stating that embryonic cloning was necessary to research treatments for sickle cell anemia, Doerflinger said. "One of our allies in Congress was able to read into the record information that shows the cutting edge in treating sickle cell anemia is through umbilical cord blood and adult stem cells."

Members of Congress and the public are being encouraged to support embryonic stem cell research, in part through the appeals of such celebrities as Christopher Reeve and Michael J. Fox, who suffer respectively from paralyzing spinal cord injuries and Parkinson's disease. However, Doerflinger said, contrary to the arguments made in these appeals, the most promising research is coming from stem cells derived by morally acceptable means, umbilical cord blood and adult stem cells, not from embryonic stem cells.

The Babies for Life Foundation is one of the efforts around the country encouraging people to donate blood containing stem cells that are not acquired through the destruction of life.

In fact, unless the blood is captured at the time of the live birth, the placenta and umbilical cord are discarded as medical waste.

"This doctor's effort is very welcome. It is a very laudable project," Doerflinger said of the Babies for Life Foundation.