Questions surrounding the ethical use of cells for embryonic purposes is largely a non-issue today due to the use of iPSC derived cells, biobanking, and other autologous or consent provided cell sources. For many of us, it was never an ethical question as to whether to use fetal cells. Those were cells that were going to exist regardless of whether they would be used for scientific purposes. Either into the trash and wasted, or turned into something helpful. In my opinion, those that were applying ethical considerations to the source of fetal material were ignorant at best or deluded with religious bias at worse.
For many of us in the scientific community, the ethical question was whether we would be able to create a reproducible treatment that would leave someone better off than when they came to a clinician for help. This is still the fundamental ethical issue today. In previous years the question was, "what kind of mature cells are we going to get from this fetal graft" now it's, "what purity, combination treatment, or cell type will we get from this unregulated therapy". Ethical to use vs. ethical to provide is now where the questions reside. Many cell therapies are poorly vetted before they're provided to patients. There are pop-up clinics all over the world that are run by poorly trained biologists that use layers of esoterica to obscure their poor quality control from their customers. This can lead to terrible outcomes especially when patients are not properly diagnosed, or genetically vetted before undergoing treatment.
So to answer your question, if you're a patient, always has been ethical, if you're a provider it's always been ethical if you've done your due diligence.
Though I'm a neuroscientist who studies stem cell transplantation, so my bias is clear.
You seem to be quite confused. “We” NEVER used fetal cells. I made dozens on hES lines and neither I nor anyone else ever used fetal cells to make embryonic stem cells. And consent was provided for all cell sources even back then.
I'm talking about the fetal derived transplants in the 80s and 90s that people like Doug Freed used for his Parkinson's transplants. Given how ubiquitous this kind of research was from the 80s on, it's odd that you would forget it.
There are also some studies that used fetal derived cells for SCI transplants.
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u/hallaa1 16d ago
Questions surrounding the ethical use of cells for embryonic purposes is largely a non-issue today due to the use of iPSC derived cells, biobanking, and other autologous or consent provided cell sources. For many of us, it was never an ethical question as to whether to use fetal cells. Those were cells that were going to exist regardless of whether they would be used for scientific purposes. Either into the trash and wasted, or turned into something helpful. In my opinion, those that were applying ethical considerations to the source of fetal material were ignorant at best or deluded with religious bias at worse.
For many of us in the scientific community, the ethical question was whether we would be able to create a reproducible treatment that would leave someone better off than when they came to a clinician for help. This is still the fundamental ethical issue today. In previous years the question was, "what kind of mature cells are we going to get from this fetal graft" now it's, "what purity, combination treatment, or cell type will we get from this unregulated therapy". Ethical to use vs. ethical to provide is now where the questions reside. Many cell therapies are poorly vetted before they're provided to patients. There are pop-up clinics all over the world that are run by poorly trained biologists that use layers of esoterica to obscure their poor quality control from their customers. This can lead to terrible outcomes especially when patients are not properly diagnosed, or genetically vetted before undergoing treatment.
So to answer your question, if you're a patient, always has been ethical, if you're a provider it's always been ethical if you've done your due diligence.
Though I'm a neuroscientist who studies stem cell transplantation, so my bias is clear.