PS: No and you wont, not until this legislation is passed through. So our objections are both ethical and scientific. That's why we are pushing for a ban. We don't think we'll get it cos the indoctrination is too deep and vested interests are too strong.
The saviour siblings, it's like these hype cancer cures. Someone comes along and says don't go down the route of radiotherapy, chemotherapy, take this new remedy and it will cure your cancer. And people with cancer are desperate. And if they are dying they are extremely gullible. I think these patient groups have been led down the garden path. They don't understand the science.
The way the debate is being spun is that we have these religious fundamentalists, evangelicals and Catholics who don't care about suffering people and who are trying to stop it because there are concerned about embryos that no one else is concerned about it, whereas our real objection is a scientific one. We think people are being lied to and misled. I'll make a prediction: no therapies whatsoever will come from human animal hybrids.
CT: If cures for serious diseases were to come from embryonic stem cells, do you think exceptions could be made?
PS: No, because they are still unethical and unnecessary. There are ethical treatments around. If you've got an ethical route that works, if you've got one that's already delivering across a whole range of different diseases and a limited amount of tax payers' money to invest where are you going to put your resources?
I see animal human hybrids as a dead end street scientifically. Saviour siblings are unnecessary. We should have been banking cord blood for the last ten years and then we would have had enough cord blood to effectively provide a match for everyone in the country. There are 600,000 births and we've got less than a few thousand cord blood units banked around the country. There just hasn't been the investment.
CT: Some scientists argue that this Bill will help keep British scientists at the forefront of stem cell research.
PS: No, they will be left behind. With saviour siblings, the Bill allows them not only to use cord blood, but bone marrow and part organs. And Lord Winston said he was very unhappy about the saviour siblings proposals because of the pressure it would place upon children.
You put Mr [Jayson] Whitaker on national television saying how his son was saved by a saviour sibling with no bad effects and then the heart of the whole nation goes out. But it's one case. We don't hear anything about the Hashmis case because saviour siblings didn't work for the Hashmis. You could count on one hand the number of cases where it's actually worked.
It is very wasteful of embryos, using around 50 embryos per saviour sibling produced because you throw away every one that is not a proper match or doesn't carry the gene. And there are ethical alternatives like using adult stem cells and umbilical stem cells.
CT: So you would like the Government to shift the focus of its investment away from stem cells from embryos to the ethical alternatives?
PS: Yes. We would like to see the Government put a huge amount of investment into cord blood banking and adult stem cell research and I believe Britain is falling ever further behind on those areas internationally.
