In unpublished initiative, 34 specialists - as Mayana Zatz (USP) - they participated in audience to give scientific subsidies to the decision of the ministers (picture: STF)
Agency FAPESP. should The human embryonic cell-trunk be used in scientific researches? The importance, doubts and the complexity of the subject are so big that, for the first time, Federal Supreme court accomplished (STF) a public audience on a subject in judgement in the house.
In the audience, accomplished in Brasília on last Friday (20/4), 34 scientists presented favorable positions and contrary to the use of the cell-trunk. The objective was to supply scientific subsidies for the 11 ministers that compose STF.
In March of 2005, the researches with human embryonic cell-trunk were approved in Brazil, in the extent of the Law of Biossegurança. In May of the same year, however, the then procurator-general of the Republic, Cláudio Fonteles, entered in STF with a Direct Action of Unconstitutionality against the article regarding the researches, under the allegation that studies of the gender "hurt the right of embryos."
The request of Fonteles was accepted in the end of 2006 by the minister of STF Carlos Ayres Britto, that was reporter of the case. To decide the subject, the ministers will need, according to Britto, to discuss when the human life begins.
The reporter summoned the audience then, for which invited 18 scientists. Other 11 were called by the General Attorney's office of the Republic. Four were invited by the presidency of the Republic and one for the National Confederation of the Bishops of Brazil (CNBB).
For Ayres Britto, of the technical point of view it doesn't exist in the Constitution a clear concept of when it begins the life. The subsidy offered by the scientific community, according to him, it would allow to the ministers of STF to formulate "an operational concept of life."
For some of the present scientists in the audience, the life begins in the fecundation. Others alleged that she just appears in the third party or fourth day, when it happens the nidação. I process in that the cell migrates for the maternal uterus. A third group defended that the embryo can only be considered alive when the formation of the nervous system happens and that ethical subjects that involve the theme impeded, up to now, the progress of researches in the area.
Geneticist Mayana Zatz, of the Center of Studies of Human Genoma of the University of São Paulo (USP), detached the importance that the legislation allows the researches with human embryonic cell-trunk, that, according to her, they are today the only ones with potential to recover certain incurable neurological diseases.
For Mayana, the possibility of researches be developed with such cells will define, in the future, the existence or not of treatment for countless degenerative diseases that reach the population. According to her, to embryonic cell-trunk only if it would turn a fetus through the human intervention, since, for that, she has to be inserted in the uterus.
What is ethically more correct: is to preserve an embryo frozen, same knowing that his probability generates a human being practically zero, or to donate him/it for researches that can result in futures treatments?", it questioned.
In agreement with the scientist, 7 thousand degenerative genetic diseases reaches more than 5 million normal parents' born children in Brazil. Every cell is life, a heart to be transplanted is alive, but he/she is not a human being. We are defending that, just as an individual in cerebral death donates organs, a frozen embryo can donate their cells", he/she said.
A lot of discussion, little conclusion
Patrician Pranke, teacher of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and director-president of the Institute of Research with Cell-trunk, spoke in the audience in STF that only starting from the fourth day the embryo (blastocisto) can be implanted in the uterus, the only atmosphere in that can grow. According to her, the embryos or they are implanted in the uterus or they are frozen. "The own freezing reduces the possibility of the embryo to grow later. Why not to donate them for pequisa?", he/she said.
For Lúcia Braga, of the Rede Sarah of Hospitals of Rehabilitation, the correct question to be done is: which destiny will be given to the embryos that were implanted in the uterus? We can be here days discussing when the life begins, without reaching a conclusion", he/she affirmed.
Already for the teacher-attached of the Department of Cellular Biology of the University of Brasília (UnB) Lenise Martins, the human life begins in the fecundation. According to her, every alive being has different phases during his/her life cycle.
As example, she used the development of the caterpillar and of the butterfly, that you/they are a same animal in phases different from a same life cycle. "The individual doesn't need to begin to manifest his/her wisdom for human to be considered. The human embryo is already of the species Homo same sapiens that he/she still cannot learn", he/she affirmed.
Doctor Marcelo Vacari Mazzenoti, of the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp), specialized in children with bad-formation, it also defended that the human life begins in the fecundation and he/she affirmed that the human embryonic cell-trunk use is not necessary for the current medicine.
We can use adult cell-trunk in several situations, as [in the study of treatments against] disease of Wounds, solemnity-immune diseases, cerebral vascular accidents, lesions of spinal marrow and genetic diseases, among others. Already regarding the embryonic use of cells trunk, no there is objective and concrete fact to confirm his/her usefulness", it defended.
Mazzenoti mentioned that there are 72 clinical applications described with the adult cell-trunk use and any embryonic described application of cell-trunk human. It "is not necessary to interrupt the life to work with cell-trunk."
The teacher of the Federal University of Rio of January (UFRJ) Cláudia Maria of Castro Batista defended the autonomy of the human embryo. For her, the human life is a continuous process, coordinated and progressive that begins starting from the fecundation of the ovum for the spermatozoid.
"Once the ovum is fecundated, he/she is formed the first cell of the Homo sapiens and an entire fertilization program is shot. The right to the life and the physical integrity since the first moment of the existence is the beginning of equality that should be respected", affirmed.
Lílian Piñero Eça, of the Institute of Researches with Cell-trunk (IPCTron), made an exhibition on the dialogue between the human embryo and his/her mother. The scientist defended that two at three hours after the fecundation, after the encounter of the spermatozoid with the ovum, the embryo already communicates with the mother.
"At least a hundred neurotransmissores are emitted by the embryo for the 75 trillion existent cells in the pregnant woman's body, that it begins to suffer hormonal changes", he/she said. According to the researcher, that is the form of the embryo to "speak" for the mother's body to get ready for the pregnancy.
The coordinator of the Division of Bone Medicine of University of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto (FMRP) of USP, Júlio César Voltarelli, questioned what considers the main argument on the part of the ones that are against the use of the cells of embryos: that would not be necessary once clinical benefits could be gotten with the adult cells.
For Voltarelli, the use only of adult cell-trunk it is not enough to treat several solemnity-immune diseases in precocious apprenticeship. Besides, in the case of the sclerosis lateral amiotrófica, for instance, 95% of the patients die to the 4 years of age. "Only the use of cell-adult is not enough in those cases. We needed to use embryonic cell-trunk", he/she said.
