Vatican theologians have a long history of going to extraordinary lengths and convolutions to align theology with every new scientific advance. It has not been unknown for theologians to try and massage the facts and to direct new research along theologically “acceptable” paths.
The Vatican – and other religious organisations – consider the use of adult stem cells to be ethically quite acceptable whereas they consider the use of embryonic stem cells to be unethical since it involves the “murder” of the embryos. And they have put their weight behind VSEL (very small embryonic-like) stem cells. But they have gone overboard in promoting the possible benefits of the use of adult stem cells even to the extent of holding conferences about the potential benefits. But many researchers are appalled by theology overriding science and holding out false hopes.
Nature: April 2013
The Second International Vatican Adult Stem Cell meeting, held on 11–13 April in Vatican City, was a shamelessly choreographed performance. Sick children were paraded for television, sharing the stage with stem-cell companies and scientists desperate to hawk a message that their therapies must be speeded to clinical use. ….
A kilometre away at the Italian senate, meanwhile, parliamentarians further eroded protection for vulnerable patients targeted by stem-cell companies. On 10 April, they amended an already controversial ministerial decree (see Nature 495, 418–419; 2013) with a clause that would redefine stem-cell therapy as tissue transplantation, thereby releasing it from any regulatory oversight. If the second parliamentary chamber endorses this amendment, Italy will be out of step with the rules of the European Union and the US Food and Drug Administration, both of which define stem cells modified outside the body as medicines.
Many scientists around the world were appalled by the events in Rome, and rightly so. It is wrong to exploit the desperation of the disabled and the terminally ill and to raise false hopes of quick fixes, as some at the Vatican meeting tried to do. It is also wrong to try to use such patients as experimental animals by bypassing regulatory agencies, as the Italian parliament seems to want to do. ….
Now it seems that the Vatican has either been duped about very small embryonic-like stem cells or has been involved in perpetuating the myth that these cells even exist and offer an alternative.
RawStory:
Scientists at Stanford University School of Medicine issued a report this month that said a type of stem-cell alternative approved by the Vatican and other theologians has turned out to be a myth. According to an essay by bioethicist Arthur Caplan, Dr. Irving Weissman and his team have concluded that so-called very small embryonic-like (VSEL) stem cells are at best a laboratory error and at worst a deliberate fraud perpetrated on the scientific and religious communities.
In 2011, the Vatican called a press conference to present Polish stem cell biologist Mariusz Z. Ratajczak, who claimed that he had discovered heretofore unknown stem cells present in adult cells. These tiny cells, he claimed, could perform the same tasks as embryonic stem cells, including tissue regeneration and the miraculous capacity that embryonic stem cells have to mimic other types of cell tissue. Moreover, these VSEL cells, said Ratajczak, could be harvested from adult cells without harming human embryos or relying on them for cell material.
“The theologians,” wrote Caplan, “were delighted.” They believed that the new technology could halt what they see as the murder of unborn children. The Vatican took the unprecedented step of investing heavily in NeoStem, a company claiming to specialize in VSEL research and production, in hopes that the new technology would render the destruction of embryos for stem cells obsolete. ….. The trouble is, the cells don’t exist. At least, according to Weissman, who said that his team not only hasn’t been able to make VSELs perform their tissue-regenerative miracles in the laboratory, they can’t find them at all. …
….. Rüdiger Alt, head of research at Vita 34, an umbilical cord blood bank in Leipzig, Germany — whose team also failed to get results from Ratajczak’s methods — told the journal Nature, “Weissman’s evidence is a clincher — it is the end of the road for VSELs.”
Bioethicist Caplan wrote that supporters of VSEL research “say their peers just don’t have the techniques down for finding them. But it is just as likely that in their hope to find a solution to stem cell research acceptable to the Roman Catholic Church and other religious groups they have let themselves find something that is just not there.”
He concluded, “Until someone other then those tied to the power of VSELS for religious or business reasons can find them, be wary of any claims about their power to heal.”
The k2p blog 