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President Bush Takes Heat, Hears Praise for Stem Cell Decision

Aired August 10, 2001 - 08:35   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
VINCE CELLINI, CNN ANCHOR: As expected, President Bush is getting heat from both sides of his decision on stem cell research, but also getting some praise. Mr. Bush says the government will fund using stem cell lines that already exist, but it will not pay for any research that would destroy more human embryos.

COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: A lot of people have been talking about this announcement on stem cell research as a real defining moment in the Bush presidency, so we want to spend a little bit of time on this and invite you to send us your questions to put to our reporters. We're asking some of our people who have been covering this story to weight in for us.

Here in Atlanta, we have our medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta; in Washington, White House correspondent Major Garrett; and in Texas, we've got White House correspondent Kelly Wallace.

Let's start with Major Garrett, at the White House.

How's it playing there today? How well do they think they did on this compromise, as they call it?

MAJOR GARRETT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They generally feel very good here at the White House, not only about the way the president presented the entire issue itself and the compromise he told the nation about last night, but about the Congressional reaction that they received. There's been, from the White House point of view, some predictable complaining from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party -- Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, Democrat, pretty tough on the president -- but other conservative Republicans -- the House majority whip Tom DeLay, the chairman of the House Republican Conference, J.C. Watts, both of whom had co-authored, along with House Majority Leader Dick Armey, a very strong, almost scathing, letter warning five or six weeks ago, warning the president not to endorse any form of federal support for embryonic stem cell research. They were very measured in their reactions, saying they were disappointed, but nevertheless thought that the president had drawn an appropriate line with his decision on funding federal research only into the existing stem cell lines.

Generally, the White House feels very good about the early reaction.

MCEDWARDS: Kelly, what went into this decision? Was there a defining moment for the president, or how much is know at this point?

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is interesting, Colleen. Senior aides say the most critical meeting came in early July -- July 10, in fact -- when the president sat down with two bioethicists, including Dr. Leon Kass of the University of the Chicago, who the president has named to chair this counsel, which will oversee this embryonic stem cell research. They say this meeting was supposed to go 20 to 30 minutes and that it went very late into the night, about an hour and a half longer than expected. They say that's when the president started about the ethical implications of allowing research on embryos that have already been destroyed, where the life and death decision had already been made.

I talk to Karen Hughes, the president's senior adviser, earlier, and she said at that meet that was really the beginning of the solution that the president ultimately arrived at -- Colleen.

CELLINI: Major, we heard from Tommy Thompson. You talked to Secretary Thompson as well. What did you talk about?

GARRETT: After the interview that he did with us, I pulled him aside and said, Secretary Thompson, can you tell me what the government has done up until the this moment to secure this moment to secure these 60 existing stem cell lines.

He told me that the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services has had conversations with those entities -- private entities, most of them -- that have possession of these 60 stem cell lines, and based on those conversations, they believe they will be cooperative in allowing the National Institutes of Health to create a registry.

I said, But if you obtained them, does the government own them? Are there any possession rights as of this moment?

He said, No, we don't have a contract yet. We are hopeful that, and we believe we will be able to obtain these stem cell lines, but we haven't signed anything yet.

So that remains to be something that the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services will have to do to make sure that these stem cell lines are available to medical researchers.

MCEDWARDS: Some of the scientific questions -- the really big ones here. We have Sanjay Gupta, and I'd like to bring him in at this point.

We've got an e-mail here, Dr. Gupta, from John Brymer: He asks, "How do they know that stem cell research will only be used to find cures? Who will they be testing? They don't know the effect it will have on humans yet."

Is that the case?

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: All good points and all good questions. It has been relatively untested, as of yet. We don't know, A, if they will be able to find cures; we haven't done that yet. And for the restrictions and the planning of what the stem cell will be used, we'll still have to wait and see. I think that the folks of the NIH believe a little bit more regulation may both expedite and be able to regulate what these stem cells will be used for. But it's a very good point: We don't know as of yet.

MCEDWARDS: Scientists are concerned about the variety of cells they need to even find out if this is worth pursuing or if embryonic stem cells are better than stem cells from adults.

GUPTA: Right, thousands of scientist think of last night's decision as a significant step forward but they also feel that their hands are tied. They don't know if 60 stem cell lines will be enough to do the sorts of things that they have to do. Some of the concerns are if the stem cells start to differentiate -- go into the different cell lines that they may go into -- sometimes they'll become less useful and productive than otherwise.

The other sorts of things are the guidelines. The stem cell lines have to come from someone who gave consent, who donated this for medical research and knows what its intent is.

So how useful these 60 stem cell lines will be is, again, something we have to wait and see. A lot of scientists were surprised there ever were 60. A lot of scientists that we spoke to said we thought there were no more than a dozen or so useful stem cell lines.

CELLINI: We want to read another e-mail. kelly, maybe you could address this. Of course, President Bush is getting some pats on the back, but it's certainly not from other corners. This one's from Harley Parlin: It says, "It seems an important point has been missed. Last night';s decision only affects federally funded research. Privately funded research will can and will continue without restriction."

So that's one aspect a lot of people didn't talk about, the private side.

WALLACE: That's true, no doubt, Vince, a lot of people knowing there were will be privately funded research. Dr. Gupta probably knows this better, but most scientists believe that you really needed to have the federal funding really to get this research going as quickly as possible. And also the importance of having regulations and some oversight of this research to make sure it's upholding ethics and taking into accounts the needs of science.

So The president calling for this chair of the council that will oversee this embryonic stem cell research and come up with guidelines and regulations -- but I think you will hear more today from some scientists and even other supporters of this research who feel that the president's decision really doesn't go far enough, believing that when you have the federal money behind this, that would really kick this research forward, get it moving as fast as possible so those cures and those treatments could be achieved in the years from now. MCEDWARDS: We've got to leave there, but thanks very much, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Major Garrett, Kelly Wallace -- appreciate your thoughts this morning.

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