The "yuck factor"

Imagine a source of hematopoietic - bloodline- stem cells that is constantly renewing for most of a persn's life, easily becomes cardiac cells, has a higher proportion of stem cells - up to 30 times - the number found in bone marrow, is available in 2 and 3 tablespoon amounts, uh, periodically, and "is going to be thrown away, anyway."

But it makes everyone I know go "yuck." (See "You found stem cells WHERE?" by Michael Fumento) Much, much more reliably than when I mention embryonic or "purified neural fetal stem cells." Even I hesitated to write about it on my blog.

I'm talking about the announcement this week reporting the discovery of stem cells from menstrual blood, or the uterine lining which produces the menstrual blood. There is a very good, matter of fact article in Medical News Today that discusses both these cells and umbilical cord mesenchymal cells and their potential to become therapy for heart disease. The researchers found that the stem cells from both sources were easily induced to become cardiomyocytes or heart cells, that they contracted in unison, and that there were actually electrical signals between the cells.(Readers of this blog were expecting this announcement.)

This is cutting edge, but soon to be routine, medical research and therapy available, today. It is not the black magic that is being mysteriously conjured behind the curtain unfulfilled and unsubstantiated potential benefits from embryonic stem cells.

There is no exploitation of women. In fact, women may benefit from some hot-shot researcher's efforts to collect the samples more efficiently and hygenically. I do worry that there may be a push for "vacuum extraction," with its history of and potential for early abortion. But I would think that the possibility of "contamination" by the presence of an embryo - or for that matter, an infection - would lead the collectors to prefer abstinent women.

But why is the reaction to these stem cells so much more negative than all the hype about cloning over the last few years? We can discuss clone and kill in public, all day. Even CBS' 60 Minutes discusses the destruction disaggregation of embryos and fetal humans for the treatment of disease, without so much as a blush.

But, go to Google News and type in "menstrual stem cells." The result is 10 articles as of this writing. 36 if you expand to include the duplicates.

Now, search for "embryonic stem cells." There are 99 articles cited in the last two days - some of them concerning the menstrual cells. But, there are over 1500 citations in the last 30 days on the embryonic stem cells.

(Note that the exciting news that umbilical cord blood contains stem cells that so easily become cardiac cells receives even less attention than the cells from the uterine lining. It may have something to do with the fact that the latter articles can be accompanied by pictures of pretty young women, to demonstrate the source. Who would want to see a new born baby, a pregnant woman?)

Traditionally, the monthly period or bleeding of a woman has been treated as shameful and "unclean," an idea that is strongly supported by the Mosaic law. (It will be interesting to see how Jewish ethicists - and Jehovah's Witnesses - deal with the status of these stem cells. Perhaps if the cells are collected by vacuum extraction, they will not be "unclean.")

I don't claim to be a prophet, but I don't think G-d would mind if, from now on every conversation about stem cells includes an assertive reminder of the promise of menstrual blood stem cells.

(The press release from AROWS ought to be interesting, too! They're being uncharacteristically quiet. I hope it's not to late for them. To comment, I mean.)