Question

Choose one of the following examples relating to the use of ethical analysis: budgets for family planning programs, restrictions on using embryonic stem cells for medical research, profiling in airport security screening, or an opting-in system for organ donation. How would you apply ethical analysis to clarify the policy choices involved in that case?

Answer 1

Restrictions on using embryonic stem cells:

  

Stem cells have raised tremendous expectations among the medical doctors, researchers, patients, and the general public due to their capacity to differentiate into a broad range of cell types. Stem cell researchers are engaged in different endeavors, including treating genetic disorders and generating new stem cell-derived human tissues and biomaterials for use in pharmacy genomics and regenerative medicine. Results obtained from completed and on-going clinical studies indicate huge therapeutic potential of stem cell-based therapy in the treatment of degenerative, autoimmune and genetic disorders .

However, clinical application of stem cells raises some ethical and safety concerns

Nevertheless, the ethical dilemma involving the destruction of a human embryo was and remains a major factor that has slowed down the development of hESC-based clinical therapies.

It is important to highlight that beside ethical concerns, safety issues regarding hESC-based therapy are the main problem for their clinical use. The pluripotency of hESCs is a double-edged sword; the same plasticity that permits hESCs to generate hundreds of different cell types also makes them difficult to control after in vivo transplantation  When undifferentiated hESCs are transplanted, teratomas, tumors that contain all three germ layers, could develop . Studies have revealed that appearance of teratoma is between 33-100% in hESC-transplanted immunodeficient mice, depending on the implantation site, cell maturation, purity, and implantation techniques