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American Morning
President's Stem Cell Announcement Sure to Cause Controversy
Aired August 09, 2001 - 10:04 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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We want to take another big story, this hour waiting to hear from a spokesman in Crawford, Texas. We're waiting for a major development in the debate over embryonic stem cell research. President Bush tonight is expected to announce his long awaited decision on whether to allow federal funding for such studies. It is an issue that is fraught with controversy, some saying that stem cell research is cutting edge technology that could lead to dramatic medical breakthroughs. Critics, though, claim it is unethical.
Our White House correspondent Kelly Wallace standing by in Crawford, Texas -- Kelly, good morning.
KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Daryn.
You are exactly right. Just moments from now we're expected to hear from Scott McClellan, who is the White House deputy press secretary, and serving as the spokesman for this western White House while the president is vacationing at his nearby ranch. So we are expecting to hear more details from Scott just moments from now.
We do know from White House officials that President Bush made his final decision yesterday and that yesterday he also made the final decision to go forward today and talk directly to the American people.
Now, White House officials saying that they presented a range of options to the president such as traveling to a city around the country or, of course, delivering a nationally televised address to the nation, and the president signing off on that.
As you noted, he will be speaking at 9:00 P.M. Eastern tonight. He will be speaking from what's called the Governor's House on his 1,600 acre ranch and we understand that is the old ranch house where the Bush family lived before, until their new home was built on that property.
Now, we also understand the president spent several hours on this yesterday, according to White House aides, including spending time with Karen Hughes, one of his top advisers. She was at the ranch with the president. Now, the White House is not revealing, of course, what the president's decision is. We understand that is really a tightly held secret. Only a small group of aides happen to know what he is going to do.
He has all along, Daryn, said that he is grappling with this decision. Aides say he views this as one of the most important decisions of his presidency so far and possibly the most important decision of his entire presidency. He has said that he is trying to balance the hopes and promise of science with the questions of ethics and morality.
As you noted, we've heard Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson saying on CNN earlier today that he has talked with all sides of this issue, supporters who say that it could lead to revolutionary new treatments in the fight against diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Of course, there are opponents. He has heard from them as well, including the Catholic Church and, in fact, the pope, the president meeting with the pope just last month, Catholics and conservatives believing that this research would lead to a destruction of human embryos and a destruction of human life -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Kelly Wallace in Crawford, Texas, thank you so much.
And once again, a reminder for our viewers, we're waiting to hear from the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, coming to us also from Crawford, Texas, and when he does begin to speak, you'll see that live here on CNN.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: All right, from the western White House to the regular old plain normal White House, our Major Garrett standing by there with more on this decision that's coming in, I guess, within about, oh, about nine, 10 hours from now -- Major?
MAJOR GARRETT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Leon.
Here at the plain old White House, there was a senior White House staff meeting that just concluded, and at that senior White House meeting, though there were lots of top presidential advisers, none of them, and I underscore none of them, learned what the president is going to say tonight, evidence that Kelly Wallace is absolutely right when she describes this as a tightly held White House secret.
What they discussed here at the White House was logistics for tonight, as Kelly just outlined. And there is a phrase, I have talked about it before, I'll say it again, around this Bush White House, about decisions such as this. They're kept in the family, so the saying goes. And who is in that family? Well, obviously the president of the United States, the first lady, Laura Bush, and two top presidential advisers, Karl Rove, the senior political adviser to the president of the United States, and Karen Hughes, counselor to the president.
Now, many White House aides say it was a tip off to the pres yesterday when Karen Hughes left Dallas, where she had been visiting relatives, to drive down to consult with the president. We have been told here at the White House that during that consultation they went over the final decision and the draft of the speech written by chief speechwriter Michael Gerson.
This morning here at the White House, senior aides who work with members of Congress were told that later on this evening they may be needed to inform senior members of Congress ahead of time about what the president is going to tell the nation at 9:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time. That is oftentimes a courtesy extended to senior members of Congress just to bring them into the loop when the president has a major address or major statement he wants to make to the country -- Leon.
HARRIS: All right, thank you very much, Major Garrett at the White House.
And I was wrong, it's 11 hours from now. And as Major said, we will have coverage of that event. It gets under way at 9:00 Eastern sharp. We will have live coverage of President Bush's statement so make sure you stay tuned for that -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Let's look at the science that's involved here. As we said earlier, many health experts say that stem cell research could help save many lives. There are, though, a number of ethical questions here.
And joining us now with part of that part of the story is our medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen -- Elizabeth, good morning.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
Now, Kelly and Major talked about the decision that President Bush has to make. Let's talk a little bit about this decision, because it's really not black and white. There actually is some gray area.
The question is should embryos be destroyed in order to make embryonic stem cells, which scientists say will work wonders for diseases -- Parkinson's, Alzheimer's Disease, spinal cord injuries, heart disease. I can't even, I can't even name everything in the list. It has not been proven that it works in humans, but they have worked in animals and so the theory is it could do miraculous things for human beings.
Now, the choices are is that the president could say no federal funding for any kind of embryonic stem cell research because to make the stem cells you have to destroy embryos. The other thing he could say, I think it's so, this research is so potentially useful that I think we should be destroying embryos in order to make them. The middle ground would be that he could say you know what, there are already some stem cell lines out there that people have made with private money and we don't know how many there are out there, there might be 50, there might be a hundred, might be a couple of hundred, and you can only use those. Those have already been made, those embryos have already been destroyed, you can just use those.
So those are some of the choices that are available to the president. Let's listen to Tommy Thompson, what he said this morning about the decision the president has to make.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOMMY THOMPSON, HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: I know that the president has spent a great deal of time talking to experts and just plain individual citizens across America about this subject. And he has spent more time on this subject than probably anybody can really imagine, because he was very concerned about it and he's going to make a very reasoned opinion and decision tonight and I hope that everybody tunes in and watches him because I think it's going to be something that's going to be what the people expect.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: Now, let's talk a little bit about who's been lobbying the president on this. On the one hand, you have the scientists and people who are ill who are saying please allow federal funding. The research can only go at a snail's pace when there's private funding. We have to have public funding for embryonic stem cell research.
On the other side are more sort of people who lean more to the right-to-life side of things, the anti-abortion side of things, who say no, we can't spend any money at all.
So first we're going to hear now from Christopher Reeve, who has been one of the leaders in the fight for federal funding for embryonic stem cell research because of his own spinal cord injury, and then we'll hear from a spokeswoman from the American Life League.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTOPHER REEVE, ACTOR: To have human embryonic stem cell research 77 percent of the public supports it, including 53 percent of Catholics, fundamentalists and anti-abortionists plus Orrin Hatch, Nancy Reagan, Connie Mack. I mean there's a big safety net to where a lot of, you know, people who are very pro-life, very opposed to abortion support this research because they understand that it's not abortion so there's a safety net. And I hope the president can be convinced of that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JUDIE BROWN, AMERICAN LIFE LEAGUE: Let me make it perfectly clear that if the president, for any reason whatsoever, chooses to approve any kind of support for this destructive experimentation on human beings, he will no longer have the right to call himself a pro- life president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: Now, you might be wondering where do embryonic stem cells come from, where do they get these embryos in the first place? Well, let's take a look at how you make a stem cell.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): Just like human beings, stem cells start out as a sperm and an egg. The egg is fertilized in the laboratory.
By the day after fertilization, it splits into a two-celled embryo. The next day it's four cells, then eight cells.
By day six, the embryo is a multi cell ball called the blastocyst. At this point in the embryo's life it's tiny, the size of the dot on an eye. It can either be implanted into a woman's womb, to start a pregnancy, or frozen, to start a pregnancy at a later time.
If the embryo is to be used for stem cell research, however, several hundred stem cells from inside the blastocyst are removed, which destroys the embryo.
The stem cells can then multiply indefinitely in the lab. Stem cells are essentially blank cells with no identity. In the lab, scientists treat the cells to make them specialized, to convert them, for example, into cardiac cells, liver cells, bone marrow cells, or pretty much any type of human tissue.
So how can that help someone who's sick? Let's say someone's spinal cord has been damaged. Doctors could take stem cells, convert them into nerve cells, and give an injection of healthy cells to repair the damage. The same principle applies to the heart: After a heart attack, some of the cardiac muscle dies; stem cells could be made into cardiac cells and then injected, healing the heart tissue.
This explains just one way to make stem cells, which is to take a leftover embryo from a fertility clinic. There are other sources of stem cells--for example, aborted fetuses or umbilical cords. Doctors say each appears to have its own benefits, but that the fertility cells are especially interesting, because at just six days old, they may more easily convert to other types of body tissue, the name of the game when it comes to stem cell research.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COHEN: Now, you saw in that story those frozen embryos. There are about 100,000 frozen embryos from fertility labs. What happens is that couples go there to conceive babies. They often have embryos that are left over that were never implanted in the mother to start a pregnancy.
Now, most of those are either discarded or just sit in the lab for years and years. So some people say well, if they're just sitting there, why not use them for embryonic stem cell research? Others say they should be given to families who don't have their own embryos and they could use them to start a baby.
KAGAN: All right, those are embryos and those are embryonic stem cells. What about adult stem cells? What are those and why don't those work?
COHEN: Well, they do work but some people think they don't work as well. Everyone likes adult stem cells. No one has anything against them. Those are stem cells that you would get, let's say, from an adult's bone marrow or from their pancreases. There are various ways that you can get adult stem cells.
However, the animal studies have shown, some scientists say, that they just don't work as well. Embryonic stem cells are six days old. They're very blank and they're very malleable. You can kind of do whatever you want with them. The fear is that with adult stem cells they're just not as malleable, they won't, they won't, you can't turn them into anything you want.
Ethically speaking, adult stem cells are better because you don't have to destroy any kind of embryo. You don't have to destroy anything in order to get them.
KAGAN: Very good. Explained a lot. Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much.
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