Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the motions in Group 4. I commend the member who just spoke for her comments on Motion No. 72. I am certainly willing to consider her comments on Motion No. 71, although it is important to remember that men are also affected by reproductive technology, but she has done that. I appreciate her reminder and recognition of the fact that Preston Manning, who was for some time the leader of the Reform Party, played a key role in helping to craft this legislation.
I do not think there has been anything this exciting in medical research for some time as the whole issue of assisted human reproduction, and from listening to the speakers today we can tell that. There is excitement. There is actually a renewed interest in science on the part of many of our younger people because of the potential. They are already receiving benefits from stem cell research.
There are very few issues surrounded by more concern and controversy than this issue. For this reason it is the responsibility of all of us in the House of Commons to deal carefully and thoughtfully with this important legislation which regulates stem cell research activities and assisted human reproduction. That is what we are doing as we go through these amendments and move on to debate on this issue at third reading stage.
The Group 4 motions deal with a fairly wide range of issues in the legislation. Some of these have been discussed already, and I have heard some excellent debate on these issues. When considering these issues, it is important that we look at some of the base issues and the basic facts about stem cell research and the issue of adult stem cell research as compared to embryonic stem cell research.
I will to take a bit of time in considering the Group 4 motions to compare and contrast the benefits and the pitfalls of these two sources of hope, and they truly are sources of hope. As I go along, the House will see that certain conclusions can be reached about adult stem cell research as compared to embryonic stem cell research. I will start from foundation comments on these two different sources of hope.
First, adult stem cells are easily accessible, which is a huge advantage. Another huge advantage is the fact that they are not subject to tissue rejection and pose minimal ethical concerns. Ethical concerns are important in the debate on stem cell research.
On the other hand with regard to embryonic stem cell research, cells are derived from embryos and implanted in a recipient. They are foreign tissue and thus very much subject to immune rejection. In most cases that leads to years and years anti-rejection drug therapy which is a very expensive and very dangerous kind of therapy. That is the difference between adult stem cell research and embryonic stem cell research.
Second, adult stem cells are being used already to treat Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis and spinal injuries, while research using human embryos has not yet lead to any healing therapies. We should focus our energy and scarce resources on research that is now already making a difference. That is important to know.
If we look in contrast to stem cells taken from embryos, rats that were injected grew brain tumours in 20% of the cases. When there is that kind of response to early research, we have to wonder how long it would take to get any kind of situation where these could actually be used in the treatment of some of the serious diseases which are being tackled by stem cell research.
I just want to quote a researcher from Cambridge University on this issue. He said “I don't think this will be a treatment in humans for quite some time”. That was from BBC News on January 8, 2002.
What a thing to do to a person. Someone who is looking for a miracle cure and the hope that stem cell research can provide ends up with something like a brain tumour. There is the hope and then the terrible, bitter reality in finding that one has a brain tumour resulting from something that was hoped would be a miracle cure. There is a long way to go when it comes to embryonic research. As I have said, there already have been a lot of very positive results from adult stem cell research.
The standing committee said, “in the past year, there have been tremendous gains in adult stem cell research in humans”. We also heard that after many years of embryonic cell research with animal models, the results had not provided the expected advances.
We have heard, and I have certainly heard, from many of the companies that have invested millions and billions of dollars into stem cell research. They have placed all or most of their hope on embryonic stem cell research. Quite frankly they have been bitterly disappointed in the results, but those companies that have focused more on adult stem cell research already have had tremendous results which are very encouraging. The standing committee recognized that fact and that situation.
On the other hand, medical therapies developed using human embryos may be refused by people who do not believe they are ethically derived. Why require people who find this morally objectionable and who are extremely ill and in a very difficult situation violate their consciences to be made well if adult stem cells show at least as much promise? That seems to be the case and I will go through some of the evidence to demonstrate that.
Before I get into some of the examples, I want to point this out. In its presentation the CHIR said this that research using adult stem cells would also be eligible for funding under specific conditions, making it seem that maybe adult stem cell research has some promise as well so it will make it eligible. In fact the reality is that it seems that most of the hope is with adult stem cell research.
Canada is already the leader in adult stem cell research. For example, by supercharging adult blood stem cells with a gene that allowed them to rapidly reproduce, the team of Canadian researchers at the University of British Columbia healed mice with depleted blood systems. Someday these adult stem cells could replace bone marrow transplants in humans. What an advance and what an exciting thought that is, when it comes to people with the diseases which involve bone marrow. It would be a huge advance for them.
There are other examples. There are numerous examples of recent advances in adult stem cell research as well as the ones I have mentioned already. Researchers have found evidence that stem cells circulating in the blood stream can grow new tissue in the liver, gut and skin. Adult stem cells are therefore more versatile than previously thought. This is something that was totally unexpected by the researchers who dealt with stem cell research in the early phases. They believed that embryonic stem cells would be the cells that would be able to adapt better. Instead they found that some of the adaptation from embryonic stem cells led to some very unstable situations and some serious problems.
The University of Minnesota Stem Cell Research Institute has shown that adult bone marrow stem cells can become blood vessels. Will that not be an advancement when it can be fully developed? The researchers said, “The findings suggest that these adult stem cells may be an ideal source of cells for clinical therapy”. That was from the University of Minnesota press release of January 30, 2002.
At the Duke University Medical Centre, researchers turned stem cells from knee fat into cartilage, bones and fat cells. The researchers said, “Different clinical problems could be addressed by using adult cells taken from different spots throughout the body, without the same ethical concerns associated with embryonic stem cells”. That is very important because we could then avoid the ethical questions that result from embryonic stem cells.
I would like to conclude that on this issue the official opposition minority report calls for a three year prohibition on the experimentation with human embryos. Let us give adult stem cells a better chance. We have seen some wonderful results and we will see exciting results into the future.