To the editor

The long-awaited guidelines for stem cell research were issued on December 4 by the board of the Swedish Science Council (http://www.vr.se/press/). During the summer of 2001, the Council had released the proposal to the public to encourage debate about the ethics and acceptability of stem cells research in Sweden.

One reason that these guidelines were approved appears to have been a change in position by Sweden's second-largest party, the Christian Democrats. In late November, the party's leading expert—who was outspoken against any use of embryos in research—was omitted from a working group set up to determine stem cell policy for the party. And on December 2, Christian Democrat leader Alf Svensson wrote an article in a leading Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter arguing that “...in a not too-distant future, one could find methods to produce individual specific pluripotent stem cells by inserting a cell nucleus from an individual...into an empty unfertilized egg, which is capable of providing ES cells, but not of totipotency (our translation in italics)”. That is, he argued that embryo destruction could be avoided using approaches such as therapeutic cloning or some “as yet unknown method”. Most importantly, he concluded that research on ES cells was necessary and should proceed.

The guidelines published by the Swedish Science Council endorse the existing practice of using donated spare embryos from in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment, call for a legal framework to regulate therapeutic cloning (but find no ethical objections), but at present rule out somatic-cell nuclear transfer using unfertilized eggs. They also state there should be no commerce in embryos; the donors should not gain any financial benefits. However, it remains unclear who controls the use of the ES cell lines. At present, the couple who donates the spare embryo in the IVF clinic used to derive a stem cell line can order destruction of “their” cell line. This has already occurred for one stem cell line, when the donor couple did not consent to continue cultivation beyond the first period granted by the ethics committee. When it is time for international co-operation, the consent of the donor couple must also be obtained for the export of ES cells from Sweden.

Even more troubling, a proposed law on biobanks (PROP 2001/02:44) strengthens the control of ES cell lines by donor couples. The idea seems to be that all research on human tissues, cells, etc. should be treated in the way the Helsinki declaration treats medical research on humans. Even if the Science Council has given green light to human ES cell research, it is imperative these issues be further clarified.