Hi,

Couldn't help but pick out the line in the CQ Weekly-Science article and use it in
the subject header.

 I have a complete list of House members currently in office who voted against
fetal-tissue research, which is not the same thing as stem-cell research. It was
H.R. 4. The NIH Revitalization Act of 1993. I'll post the list as soon as I can get
it scanned in to my computer.

Also, there is supposedly a "ProLife Caucus" that wants to ban all stem-cell
research. Does anyone know whether the 20 who signed the Trent Lott letter
constitute this caucus?

Linda, have you tried the sites:

Contacting Congress-- http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ then go to Thomas' link
(Thomas' has everything that goes on in the legislature), which takes you to a
completely new site.

And Roll Call, a beltway newspaper, whose editor is Mort Kondracke, a champion of PD
advocacy.
  http://www.rollcall.com/newsscoops/newsscoops.html

Charlotte
-------------------------
Linda J Herman wrote:

> I have also been trying to locate information on the viewpoints of
> the candidatess on stem cell research -- including the Democratic
> candidates as well. So far, only can find information on McCain, but I
> found the following two articles which indicate the focus of debate may
> be moving from the NIH to the Congress. The first is about opposing bills
> on funding the research and the 4 Senators sponsoring them. The second
> is long, but gives great backgound info on both the scientific and
> political issues - from BOTH sides. BOth articles are from this week's
> Congressional Quarterly Weekly magazine.
> Does anyone have more info on these bills?
> Linda Herman
>
> CQ WEEKLY - SCIENCE
> Feb. 19, 2000
> Dominant Voices
> By Adriel Bettelheim, CQ Staff
>
> The upcoming debate over whether to allow federal funding of
> embryonic stem cell research will be dominated by a handful of
> lawmakers.
> Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.
> Specter chairs the Appropriations Labor, Health and Human
> Services, and Education subcommittee that oversees the budget of
> the National Institutes of Health (NIH). After initially
> expressing reservations over the legal and moral implications of
> stem cell research, Specter is pushing legislation with Sen. Tom
> Harkin, D-Iowa, that would allow federally funded scientists not
> only to do the work, but also to derive human embryonic stem
> cells from embryos donated by fertility clinics. The bill would
> bar the creation of human embryos for their stem cells and would
> ban the use of cloning technology with stem cells to create a
> human being.
>
> Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.
> A champion of conservative causes with close personal and
> political ties to religious activists, Brownback has emerged as
> the point person in congressional efforts to bar federal funding
> for embryonic stem cell research. Brownback describes draft NIH
> guidelines endorsing the research as an attempt to flout a 1995
> congressional ban on embryo research. "Clearly, the destruction
> of human beings is an integral part of the contemplated
> research," he says.
>
> Rep. Jay Dickey, R-Ark.
> The first Republican to represent southern Arkansas since
> Reconstruction, Dickey authored the 1995 ban on federally funded
> research using human embryos. Dickey says this should extend to
> stem cell research.
>
> Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa
> Cosponsor with Specter of the pro-stem cell research bill,
> Harkin is one of the Senate's leading champions of the disabled
> and has fought for increased funding for breast cancer research.
>
> Source: CQ Weekly
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------------------------------------
> CQ WEEKLY - SCIENCE
> Feb. 19, 2000
> Senate Argues Promise and Peril Of Human Stem Cell Research
> By Adriel Bettelheim, CQ Staff
>
> Biomedical science appears to be on a collision course with
> abortion politics as Congress prepares to begin debate on whether
> to endorse federal funding of research on human embryonic stem
> cells.
>
> These "master cells" are capable of evolving into nearly
> every kind of tissue in the body and could hold the key to curing
> conditions such as Parkinson's disease and healing spinal cord
> injuries. But anti-abortion critics contend that stem cell
> research falls under the 1995 congressional ban on embryo
> research. (1995 CQ Almanac, p. 11-58)
>
> The issue threatened to hold up passage of a Labor, Health and
> Human Services (HHS) and Education appropriations bill last September
> until Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Appropriations
> Labor-HHS Subcommittee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa.,agreed to drop
> language endorsing the research
> and take it up as a separate bill this year.(1999 CQ Weekly, p.
> 2294)
>
> Specter and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, have introduced legislation
> (S 2015) that would allow government-funded scientists both to conduct
> the
> research and to extract stem cells from embryos donated by fertility
> clinics that otherwise would have discarded them. Specter has scheduled
> a Feb. 22 hearing on stem cell research in the Appropriations
> subcommittee.
>
> The same day, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will close
> the public comment period on draft guidelines issued in December that
> endorse federally funded stem cell research but stop short of allowing
> NIH-supported researchers to extract them. A group of conservative
> lawmakers led by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., with support from such
> abortion opponents as the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, is
> pressuring NIH to withdraw the guidelines, saying they run counter to the
> 1995 ban and effectively encourage the destruction of human life.
>
> Anti-abortion groups take the position that stem cells are the
> equivalent of embryos and merit the same status as a human being. But in
> sorting through such philosophical questions as when life begins,
> lawmakers could find themselves in the awkward position of regulating a
> nascent but promising branch of the health sciences.
>
> "Stem cell research is one of the most critical issues affecting
> the future of the biomedical community" Ronald M. Green, chairman of the
> Ethics Institute at Dartmouth College, said in an interview Feb. 15.
> "It's forcing us to rethink our ethical, moral and religious
> considerations. It cuts very deep to the bone and is triggering a major
> health lobbying effort."
>
> Among those watching the debate closely are drug companies,
> which believe they can use stem cells to create new anti-aging products
> and cures for a variety of degenerative diseases. The most prominent
> player is Geron Corp., a Menlo Park, Calif., biotechnology company that
> has funded groundbreaking stem cell research at the University of
> Wisconsin and Johns Hopkins University.
>
> Scientists and advocacy groups for victims of various diseases
> are strongly lobbying in favor of federally funded research, saying the
> cells could be the source of healthy replacement tissue for sufferers of
> heart disease and a host of
> other afflictions. Advocates say the cells also offer the best
> glimpse yet into the earliest stages of human development, which could
> yield a new understanding of birth defects and improve the way drugs are
> designed. Those in favor of federal funding for research include Sen.
> Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., an abortion foe whose daughter suffers from
> juvenile diabetes, and 67 U.S. Nobel Prize winners.
>
> "The vast majority of Americans strongly support the
> advancement of biomedical research through the application of
> their tax dollars," said Daniel Perry, executive director of the
> Alliance for Aging Research. "Surveys consistently show Americans
> want to see greater efforts against serious and life-threatening
> diseases."
>
> But opponents of stem cell research say the scientists are
> essentially proposing to destroy life to advance their research.
> The opponents, who believe that life begins at conception, argue
> that stem cells, while biologically primitive, are distinct
> entities that deserve the same moral status as a person. The
> critics say scientists tend to emphasize the biological aspects
> of their research while downplaying the way stem cells are
> extracted from embryos. And they fear advances in cloning
> technology soon will lead researchers to create embryos solely
> for the purpose of extracting stem cells.
>
> "The embryonic stem cell research being proposed by NIH is
> illegal, immoral and unnecessary," Brownback said at a Feb. 7
> news conference. "There are legitimate areas of research which
> are showing more promise than embryonic stem cell research and
> which do not create moral and ethical difficulties."
>
> Lawmakers joining Brownback in the effort to block funding
> for stem cell research include 19 mostly conservative Republican
> senators, among them Lott and Assistant Majority Leader Don
> Nickles of Oklahoma, and several lawmakers who traditionally have
> not been vocal opponents of embryo research, such as Pete V.
> Domenici, R-N.M. Also in the group is Republican presidential
> candidate John McCain of Arizona, who recently came under fire
> from Texas Gov. George W. Bush, campaigning in advance of the
> South Carolina GOP primary, for his support of fetal tissue
> research.
>
> Past Battles Recalled
>
> In some ways, the debate recalls past congressional battles
> over cloning and fetal tissue research that also challenged some
> lawmakers' fundamental beliefs about life. But stem cells may
> have even more profound meaning, say experts such as Dartmouth's
> Green, because they offer the highest-resolution view yet of the
> beginning of human development.
>
> Stem cells are microscopic clumps of dozens of cells that
> reside inside days-old embryos. When isolated in culture dishes,
> stem cells can differentiate into specific types such as heart
> muscle cells or brain cells. They can also divide indefinitely in
> the laboratory, providing a potentially never-ending supply of
> replacement parts and organs.
>
> However, because the field of stem cell research is not even
> two decades old, scientists still do not understand the mechanism
> through which these master cells evolve into certain body parts,
> or how they can be coaxed into becoming a particular type of
> cell. With federal funding, researchers believe, they can unlock
> these secrets and use stem cells for such purposes as creating
> healthy insulin-producing pancreas cells for sufferers of
> diabetes or new nerve cells for individuals with spinal cord
> injuries.
>
> The stem cell debate took on added urgency in 1998 after
> researchers at the University of Wisconsin and Johns Hopkins
> University, working separately, became the first scientists to
> isolate human stem cells. The Wisconsin team extracted stem cells
> from embryos donated by fertility clinics, while the Johns
> Hopkins scientists extracted stem cells from the gonads of
> aborted fetuses.
>
> Both teams of scientists, unsure whether their work was
> violating the congressional embryo research ban, avoided using
> public funding and relied on private money from Geron and other
> sources. Since then, the University of Wisconsin has created the
> nonprofit WiCell Research Institute, which will sell embryonic
> stem cells for research purposes.
>
> Further complicating the debate is the fact that there are
> different types of stem cells. Scientists say stem cells can be
> extracted from umbilical cord blood and from adult human beings.
> But those cells are not biologically equivalent to stem cells
> taken from embryos and do not appear as capable of evolving into
> many different cell types. Opponents of embryonic stem cell
> research say more federal money should be spent on studying how
> these "adult stem cells" can be harvested and used to cure
> disease.
>
> The 1995 congressional ban on embryo research was authored by
> Rep. Jay Dickey, R-Ark., and bars spending federal taxpayer money
> on biomedical research involving embryos outside the womb.
> However, the measure did not take into account the extraction of
> stem cells. Dickey has attached his measure to the annual
> appropriations bills that fund NIH. But attempts to modify it to
> specifically address stem cells were dropped last year as part of
> an effort by Republican congressional leaders to avoid
> controversial riders that might force political showdowns with
> the Clinton administration. Meanwhile, NIH has temporarily halted
> any stem cell research while it develops guidelines.
>
> Observers say lawmakers on both sides of the debate have
> several options. Those opposed to funding the research can try to
> muster support to change the wording of Dickey's ban so that it
> explicitly mentions stem cell research. Supporters can try to
> endorse stem cell research by passing a stand-alone measure like
> Specter's.
>
> If no consensus emerges, as many expect, lawmakers can elect
> to let the ban stand and defer to NIH on the issue of stem cell
> research. Such a move would likely pave the way for federal
> scientists to begin research, but only if they obtained stem
> cells from privately funded entities, research institutions or
> biotech companies. Opponents contend that such a policy would
> flout the 1995 ban and trigger legal challenges.
>
> With Republicans again eager to avoid controversial measures
> attached to spending bills, congressional sources expect heated
> debates to develop in the Senate and House over stand-alone stem
> cell bills.
>
> Spokesmen for Dickey and Brownback said last week that
> neither lawmaker has immediate plans to introduce a bill banning
> stem cell research. But both have reiterated that the destruction
> of embryos, which they view as a clear violation of the law, is
> an integral part of such research.
>
> Advocates of stem cell research, meanwhile, are trying to
> convince uncommitted lawmakers that barring federal funding for
> the work will not stop scientists from extracting stem cells.
> Instead, the advocates argue, it will allow companies like Geron
> to proceed unchecked and control the supply and use of stem
> cells. The advocates say it is far preferable to have NIH
> overseeing the work because it ensures that more scientists will
> apply for grants and get involved in the field.
>
> "We believe the [NIH] guidelines as proposed will enable this
> critical research to advance while simultaneously protecting the
> moral and ethical sensibilities of the American people," Paul
> Berg, the 1980 Nobel Laureate in chemistry, wrote on behalf of
> the American Society for Cell Biology, one of the groups
> supporting federally funded research.

--
Charlotte A. Mancuso
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