Concern over new clinical stem cell trial

A new clinical trial has been announced that will involve injecting foetal stem cells into babies still in the womb. The trial is already raising serious concerns as the stem cells will come from terminated pregnancies.

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It’s being billed as a clinical trial which could lesson the symptoms of incurable brittle bone diseases, but it will involve the use stem cells of terminated pregnancies

The donated stem cells aim to provide the correct instructions for growing bone, but for groups such as Comment on Reproductive Ethics, this use of cells from deliberately aborted babies is not acceptable.

Spokeswoman Josephine Quintavalle says, "it could never be right no matter what the other ethical considerations are."

The experimental trial, will be led by Sweden's Karolinska Institute and London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital and will start in the New Year.

Fifteen babies will have the injection in the womb and then again after birth.

A further 15 babies will only have the treatment after they are born and the number of fractures will be compared with untreated patients.

Ms Quintavalle says although diseases such as that of incurable brittle bone are very dramatic, one has to be very careful about what is considered a cure, and it must be ethical in the first place.