WHEN it comes to deciding what stem cell researchers should and should not be allowed to do, opinion seems as divided as ever. Now the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) has joined the fray by publishing the first international guidelines on embryonic stem cell research.
The guidelines, published on 1 February, are not binding but they do carry the weight of leading scientific opinion and are likely to be influential in many countries. Their stance is permissive on two controversial issues: payment for women donating their eggs to research, and controls on projects involving human/animal chimeras.
鈥淭he rules are permissive on payment for women donating eggs for research鈥�
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Guidelines issued in 2005 by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and laws in other countries, including the UK, prohibit cash payments to women for donating eggs. The ISSCR says the question of payments should be left to local ethical committees to decide.
Its guidelines also diverge from those of the NAS regarding the creation of chimeras by injecting animals with human embryonic stem cells. Both the NAS and the ISSCR outlaw the mating of adult chimeras with each other, as this could accidentally create a human embryo inside an animal. The NAS guidelines also oppose the mating of chimeras with non-chimeras, and while the ISSCR calls for a strict local review of these kinds of experiments it does not rule them out. 鈥淵ou need to figure out a way to write guidelines that maintain flexibility so the science can evolve,鈥� says George Daley, a stem cell biologist at the Children鈥檚 Hospital Boston, who helped draft the ISSCR guidelines.
David Magnus, a bioethicist at Stanford University in California, says the ISSCR has missed an opportunity to address emerging problems such as how to regulate trials of new therapies: 鈥淚t would have been nice if they had tried to break new ground,鈥� he says.
