People Want to Donate Embryos for Research

A new study published in Science says:

Of the 1020 respondents who reported that they have embryos currently stored, 495 (49%) indicated that they were somewhat or very likely to donate their embryos for research purposes. These 495 individuals controlled the disposition of from 2000 to 3050 embryos. Even if only half of these embryos ultimately were donated, this finding suggests that around 1000 of the 3900 to 5900 embryos currently stored by the infertility patients in our sample would be available for research purposes.

Respondents to the survey expressed even greater willingness to donate embryos to research when certain characteristics of the research were specified. In particular, the percentage reporting that they would be somewhat or very likely to donate increased from 49% for medical research (in general) to 60% for research in which stem cells are derived. [Similar increases were observed for research to understand or develop treatment for human disease or injury (62%) and for research to improve infertility treatment (61%)]. Perhaps most surprising, 28% indicated that they would be somewhat or very likely to donate embryos to improve cloning techniques for medical science.

Our data suggest that it is reasonable to assume that 50% of infertility patients with cryopreserved embryos would be willing to donate their embryos for stem cell research. If only half of these embryos were to be donated, then, based on the Hoffman et al. (7) finding that 400,000 embryos are currently cryopreserved in the United States, as many as 25% of them, or 100,000 embryos, could be available for stem cell research. If we continue with the Hoffman et al. assumptions about the success of deriving lines from cryopreserved embryos, we can calculate that if 65% of the embryos survive the freeze-thaw process, then 65,000 embryos would be available, 25% of which (16,250) could be expected to develop to the blastocyst stage. Of these, a conservative 15% could be expected to become a viable stem cell line, resulting in roughly 2000 to 3000 viable stem cell lines, about 100 times the number of lines currently available for federal funding.

The study is "EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS: Willingness to Donate Frozen Embryos for Stem Cell Research" by Anne Drapkin Lyerly1 and Ruth R. Faden. (Science 6 July 2007: Vol. 317. no. 5834, pp. 46 - 47)

Comment: This is another indication of how wrongheaded is the Bush administration policy on embryonic stem cell research. JAD