The Cunning of Uncertainty by Helga Nowotny

Author:Helga Nowotny
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2015-11-19T16:00:00+00:00

Sharing uncertainty: how stem cell research ‘got ethics’

Although carrying a biomedical promise similar or even greater than IVF, stem cell research had a far less auspicious start. The history of stem cell research is linked to evolving experimentation with animals and techniques that culminated in the cloning of Dolly the sheep. The unprecedented and worldwide media attention accorded to this feat had barely subsided when the world was alerted to human embryonic stem cell research, or hESC. From his ranch in Texas, US President George W. Bush delivered a speech in August 2001 on ‘research involving stem cells derived from human embryos’. He acknowledged the scientists' belief that using stem cells offered great promise. But, in weighing the promise against destroying human embryos, he warned that ‘even the most noble ends do not justify any means’. Based on the recommendations of the President's Council on Bioethics that advised him from 2001 to 2008, a very restrictive hESC policy ensued which enmeshed hESC research in a political, religious and ethical controversy of the highest order. Yet such controversy has led to some remarkable outcomes.

It is worth noting that the political and ethical constraints that had been imposed on research with human stem cells took place in the United States in the shadow of an intense debate on abortion politics. From the very beginning, a suspicion lurked that research on hESC tried to invent its way around existing ethical roadblocks. This meant researchers had to listen and respond to critical voices as well as to political injunctions that limited further work on a few previously existing cell lines. In the words of Charis Thompson, on whose multi-stranded ethnography of the voyage of science, ethics, economic competitiveness and politics my comments build, the ‘ethical choreography’ that followed eventually led to the consolidation of stem cell research. A field of science emerged that has ethics incorporated in a strong sense (Thompson 2013).

The scientific trajectory of stem cell research and its consolidation was marked by two further highlights, both of them coming from Asia. The first was the publication of two (in)famous papers in Science in 2004 and 2005 by the Korean stem cell researcher Hwang Woo Suk. He claimed to have succeeded in producing stem cell lines from somatic cell nuclear transfer embryos and then to have produced stem cell lines with their own DNA from eleven patients, thus avoiding the destruction of embryos by using mature cells. The publications caused a tremendous stir in the scientific world. The commotion in the political and business world, echoed by the media, was even stronger. Wang's apparent success in applying a difficult veterinarian technique for human benefit was perceived as a threat to US international competitiveness. Asia was suspected to be a regulatory oasis, extremely lax on ethics. But the story unravelled quickly. After accusations of scientific fraud, Hwang had to recall both publications. This generated a scandal accompanied in his home country by stirrings of scientific nationalism and a vociferous reluctance to see a national scientific hero fall.

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