James Holsinger: First of all, the paper does not represent where I am today. It doesn't represent who I am today, and it's represented a specific time, a specific context, and a specific purpose.
It's not a published paper -- I've published outstanding scientific papers. In fact, if somebody really wants to read a good paper that I wrote, I just published one last year on what physician professionalism in the 21st century should look like. And it says that we need to get away from being independent as physicians and place our effort on the needs of the patient, for example.
I think that, you know, you raised the Copenhagen study. I specifically selected the Copenhagen study for a specific reason -- it's because of the things that were going on in the committee at the time. A paper from the US would have been suspect, from the point of view of American homophobia, to the committee. A paper without male and female authorship would have been considered patriarchal by the committee. I was looking for a paper that addressed not only homosexuality, but bisexuality and heterosexuality to give balance to the paper. It was a specific effort to try and do something that would be found by the committee members to have some substance.
I was faced with major issues in this committee over those kinds of issues -- that's the reason why it is a selective paper. It was not meant to be all-inclusive. It was not meant to be a scientific paper that I would have published. The fascinating thing is that it has had wider distribution than anything I have ever written, and yet it was never meant to be distributed beyond a few people for their own personal use. It's an amazing situation as far as I can tell. I'm sorry, but I wish I could give it a different...
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Senator Edward Kennedy: Let me go into stem-cell research. I don't think there's many other areas that have been as politicized and distorted as the issue of stem-cell research -- basically it's not a partisan issue. Our colleague Senator Hatch, others on this committee, Ms. Reagan, others have been strong supporters of it.
In March 20, 2002, at a Kentucky Senate Judiciary Hearing, you voiced opposition to a bill that would have criminalized embryonic stem-cell research.
Let me remind you of some of the other provisions of the Kentucky Human Cloning Prohibition Act: it banned both the cloning of a human and the development of stem cells for research purposes; it made embryonic stem-cell (ESC) research a Class C felony and could have led to the imprisonment of doctors, scientists, and researchers, and also subjected doctors to millions of dollars of fines for working with stem-cell lines that the National Institutes of Health were providing the funds for. Do you remember which of the provisions caused you the greatest concern?
JH: Well, the entire bill caused graved concerns for me. The reason is is that it would have banned all the research, regardless of whether it met the President's decision in 2001. We were doing research under that decision on the current stem-cell lines, but it would have banned all research -- and not only that, any patient who left the commonwealth of Kentucky and went to another state, should it have passed, and come back to the come back home to Kentucky with tissue implanted in them secondary to a[n] ongoing study in another state, it would have criminalized their return to the state; it would have made it a Class C felony. In Kentucky, it's the same level as a second-degree rape or a second-degree manslaughter, it's 5-to-10 years in prison. It was a huge issue for me, likewise for our researcher scientists. Virtually every research scientist with a federal grant has part of their salary paid off of that grant -- that's part of what has to happen in order to pay their salaries. It would have criminalized that to the tune of a million dollar fine and a Class C felony.
EK: Let me just ask. The overwhelming scientific community, including the Director of the NIH, says that the current restrictions on stem-cell research are unjustified. How do you stand? Do you stand with the scientific community and agree that we oughta move ahead with the ESC research?
JH: Well, in the case of stem cells, I'm in favor of doing stem-cell research. Now, we are currently doing that. We are doing that effectively under the President's current 2001 decision, which allowed for, as I remember, for the first time for federal funds to be used for stem-cell research. It seems to me that we're going with an effective program at the moment, and that we should continue to track and see how things look going forward.
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EK: On the stem-cell research, there are obviously moral and scientific judgements, I'm interested just in the scientific judgement. Would the opportunity for scientific and medical progress be greater if the President's restrictions on stem-cell research were rescinded?
JH: I have to confess, Senator Kennedy, that I have -- since the 2002 hearing -- not had a lot of reason to stay involved in the stem-cell discussions, so I am not as informed on both the science on current stem-cell work as well as some of the new alternative processes that are coming. I simply do not feel comfortable giving you my opinion when I don't feel I've had the proper time to study it.
Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) offered James Holsinger, the nominee for Surgeon General, a final opportunity to defend himself against the accusations that he is anti-gay. Holsinger's answer demonstrated that he has no problem writing a paper to support a "specific purpose," which isn't likely to raise his support among Democrats.
