DO NO HARM - Australians for Ethical Medical Research

Tuesday 6th August 2002.

Media Release

Doctors say "no need" to buy into Trounson's dehumanising factories - yesterday for human embryos, today for aborted foetuses, tomorrow.?

Dr Trounson expresses interest in using tissue from aborted babies to complement his embryonic stem cell industry. He says this will make embryo stem cells "safer", as they will be developed on human tissue, rather than mouse tissue.

"Why go down the unsafe and unethical - and essentially useless - path of embryo factories and aborted foetus harvesting, when an entirely safe and effective alternative is up and running?" asked Dr David van Gend, a spokesman for "Do No Harm", an association of Australians promoting ethical medical research.

"Dr Trounson's distortion of stem cell science is becoming increasingly surreal", Dr van Gend said. "He speaks wistfully of the day when there might be an actual cure from embryonic stem cells, while in the real world on a weekly basis the papers and medical journals are trumpeting new triumphs of adult stem cells. In today's papers, we see a baby in Sydney given a life-saving new immune system from her father's stem cells; last month we read of the other Sydney children cured of "bubble-boy" immune disease using adult stem cells. Even in the few months since the misguided decision of COAG to set up a market for IVF embryos, we have had news of breakthroughs in Parkinson's, heart failure, MS, and even spinal injury - all using adult cells, and all of which are now being trialled on humans in Australia. There is no scientific neccessity to scavenge embryos or aborted foetuses."

"Dr Trounson is asking us to cross a line that must not be crossed - that of defining a subgroup of the human family as mere meat for the consumption of science. First he would have us ransack dismembered human embryos, and now dismembered human foetuses. Is his stomach strong enough to harvest handicapped newborns, as other radical utilitarians have proposed?"

This is the repulsive territory we get into once we approve, on principle, the cannibalising of a human creature in its earliest days", Dr van Gend said. "We must get all the benefits we can from innocent sources of stem cells, but we must say no to Trounson's dehumanising factories - embryos yesterday, aborted foetuses today, and whatever the market will bear tomorrow."

COMMENT: Dr David van Gend, Queensland Spokesman