Kerry Vows to Lift Bush Limits on Stem-Cell Research
By JODI WILGOREN

Published: June 22, 2004


ENVER, June 21 - Backed by the unusual endorsement of
48 Nobel laureates, Senator John Kerry on Monday
accused the Bush administration of letting ideology
trump science, and promised to lift the limits on
federal financing of stem-cell research and to build
an economy "based on innovation, ingenuity and
imagination."

Mr. Kerry and his scientific supporters echoed a
38-page report issued in February by the Union of
Concerned Scientists, which accused the administration
of "manipulation, suppression and misrepresentation of
science" on issues like biotechnology, global warming
and nuclear power.

Mr. Kerry vowed to "listen to the advice of
scientists" and make their advisory reports open to
the public. The group of scientists had complained
that the White House heavily edited a report by the
Environmental Protection Agency to remove almost any
finding pointing to a human link to global warming.

Mr. Kerry also invoked the recent death of President
Ronald Reagan from Alzheimer's disease and echoed
Nancy Reagan's call for stem-cell research "to tear
down every wall today that keeps us from finding the
cures of tomorrow."

"We need a president who will again embrace the
tradition of looking toward the future and new
discoveries with hope based on scientific facts, not
fear," Mr. Kerry, the presumptive Democratic
presidential nominee, told thousands of people here at
Civic Center Park, many of whom waited for hours on a
rainy 50-degree day to see him.

"Presidents are supposed to think big and dream big
and help our nation to do so," he said, citing
Franklin D. Roosevelt's creation of the national
laboratories, John F. Kennedy's commitment to put a
man on the moon, and Bill Clinton's support for
mapping the human genome. "When America sees a problem
or a possibility of greatness, it is in our collective
character to set our sights on the horizon and not
stop working until we get there," Mr. Kerry said.

On Monday night, Mr. Kerry decided to upend his
schedule, canceling a fund-raiser and speech on
Tuesday in New Mexico to allow him to fly back to
Washington overnight for a possible vote on an
amendment to make health care financing for veterans
mandatory. Mr. Kerry has rarely interrupted his
campaign activities for Senate business, but veterans'
health care is a signature issue in his campaign.

Burton Richter, who received the Nobel in physics in
1976 for discovering a subatomic particle and who
helped Mr. Kerry's campaign collect his colleagues'
support over the last 10 days, told reporters that
"Nobel laureates tend not to use their names for
anything outside of science," adding, "I hope you take
that as a sign of how seriously all of us think the
errors of our present course are."

Mr. Kerry's speech, beginning a week focused on
science and technology, was his first public
appearance in Colorado, a Republican-leaning state
that the Democrats hope to win. He noted, as he has in
television advertisements, that he was born at an Army
hospital nearby. It also reflected his increasing
attention to stem-cell research, an issue for which
Democrats believe they have public support.

Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for Mr. Bush's re-election
campaign, did not respond to the criticism of the
president's policy prohibiting research on stem cells
harvested since his order in 2001. The issue has split
his party, with many Republicans signing on to
legislation to lift the limits, particularly since Mr.
Reagan's death. Mr. Schmidt answered the attack by
pointing out that 22 of the 48 Nobelists who signed
the pro-Kerry statement also signed a statement in
January 2003 opposing war in Iraq, and 16 had given
money to Democratic candidates.

In addition, 13 of the 48 were part of the group that
released the February report criticizing the
administration's approach to science.

"Only John Kerry would declare the country to be in
scientific decline on a day when the country's first
privately funded space trip is successfully
completed," Mr. Schmidt said in a statement, referring
to the rocket plane SpaceShipOne's journey 62 miles
from earth and back.

Mr. Schmidt said the administration had increased the
budget for research and development 44 percent since
2001, to $132 billion next year, and pointed to the
president's plans to develop hydrogen fuel cells,
promote clean coal technologies and modernize the
electricity grid.

The Union of Concerned Scientists charged that the
administration had often dismissed experts or selected
others for scientific advisory panels based on their
views on contentious subjects. The Bush administration
has called most of the accusations made in the
organization's report inaccurate and has said that the
E.P.A. draft on global warming was dropped because
more voluminous reports on climate change were in the
works.

But in a conference call, three of the scientists
supporting Mr. Kerry said that Mr. Bush had let
America lag behind Europe and Asia in terms of
patents, advanced degrees and publications in
scientific journals.

"Where are the new things of tomorrow going to come
from?" Dr. Richter asked. "This isn't about what's
going to happen next week, it's what's going to happen
next decade."

Harold Varmus, who won the Nobel Prize in medicine in
1989 for his discovery of the cellular origin of
retroviral oncogenes and headed the National
Institutes of Health under President Clinton, accused
the Bush administration of taking a "cavalier attitude
in the way it receives advice from the scientific
community." Mario J. Molina, a 1995 Nobel laureate for
his work in atmospheric chemistry, said he was
concerned that Mr. Bush "overplays politics to
scientific information."

Vernon Jordan to Assist Kerry

WASHINGTON, June 21 (AP) - Vernon E. Jordan Jr. will
be the lead negotiator for Senator Kerry on the
presidential debates, according to a statement from
the Kerry campaign on Monday.

Mr. Jordan, a lawyer, lobbyist and aide to Mr.
Clinton, will represent the campaign in negotiations
with the Bush-Cheney organization on the terms of this
fall's three presidential debates.

The first debate is scheduled for Sept. 30 at the
University of Miami in Coral Gables.


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