Stem cells should be tested on humans, says scientist

Professor Ian Wilmut, the scientist who cloned Dolly the sheep, has said that terminally ill patients could be used to test stem cell therapies. Wilmut, who was appointed last month as the first director of the new Centre for Regenerative Medicine at Edinburgh University, Scotland, claimed that using human volunteers would both help to save lives and speed up the pace of this area of vital medical research. He also said that he knew of a number of people who would agree to participate in such trials.

Currently, it is thought to be unethical to use experimental treatments on humans, and such treatments are usually tested on animals for years before clinical trials begin. Scientists believe that stem cell therapies - particularly embryonic stem cell therapies - may one day be used to treat a number of conditions, including spinal cord injury, diabetes, heart disease and Parkinson's disease, because of the potential that some stem cells have to diversify into any type of cell.

In an interview with the Scotsman newspaper at the end of last year, Professor Wilmut said that the view that therapies should not be tested on human volunteers should be questioned. He said that patients facing certain physical and mental decline before imminent death should be given the chance to help themselves and other people in the future. 'I've come across people who have neuro-degenerative disease and who face a steady, slow decline and premature death - they would be only too keen to participate in trials', he said. He added that 'if we wait until things are totally tested and analysed on animals, it will deny some people treatment...if we wait until all the tests have been done, some people will have passed away'.

However, others disagree with Wilmut on this issue. Josephine Quintavalle, of the pro-life campaign group Comment on Reproductive Ethics (Core), said that Wilmut is 'out of touch with reality', adding: 'With the current state of knowledge it would be unethical to offer so-called treatment to patients desperate for a cure'. She went on to say that to do so would be offering them 'false hope'. But Professor John Burn, head of the Institute of Human Genetics at Newcastle University told the BBC that Wilmut's suggestion could be popular amongst people suffering from serious disease. He said: 'If you've developed a treatment that might be beneficial in, say, motor neurone disease, then it's reasonable to allow people who are in the last stage of that disease to offer themselves'.