I know for sure, that the world is flat; the sun moves around the earth,
what you can't see will not hurt you, etc. It is the arrogance of folks that
Think that special training or belief sets them up to be the only prophets
of "truth".

Bernie Barber



-----Original Message-----
From: Parkinson's Information Exchange Network
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jo Ann Coen
Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 2004 12:45 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: ARTICLE: Washington Post concerns about false hope

Frank - I believe Kerry cut his own throat when he brought up VP's
daughter being a lesbian.  How thoughtless.  I am
heterosexual, and I don't care what people do in bed.  All I care about
is what they do in public and around me.   What an uproar from that one
statement.  Jo Ann

On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 06:16:32 -0400 FrankandTeri <[log in to unmask]>
writes:
> "Hope is good. False hope is bad. Deliberately,
> for personal gain, raising false hope in the catastrophically
> afflicted is despicable."
>
> Washington Post Article, by Charles Krauthammer
>
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34167-2004Oct14.html>
>
>  After the second presidential debate, in which John Kerry used the
> word "plan" 24 times, I said on television that Kerry has a plan for
> everything except curing psoriasis. I should have known there is no
> parodying Kerry's pandering. It turned out days later that the Kerry
> campaign has a plan -- nay, a promise -- to cure paralysis. What is
> the plan? Vote for Kerry.
>
> This is John Edwards on Monday at a rally in Newton, Iowa: "If we do
> the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do
> when
> John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to
> walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."
>
> In my 25 years in Washington, I have never seen a more loathsome
> display of demagoguery. Hope is good. False hope is bad.
> Deliberately,
> for personal gain, raising false hope in the catastrophically
> afflicted is despicable.
>
> Where does one begin to deconstruct this outrage?
>
> First, the inability of the human spinal cord to regenerate is one
> of
> the great mysteries of biology. The answer is not remotely around
> the
> corner. It could take a generation to unravel. To imply, as Edwards
> did, that it is imminent if only you elect the right politicians is
> scandalous.
>
> Second, if the cure for spinal cord injury comes, we have no idea
> where it will come from. There are many lines of inquiry. Stem cell
> research is just one of many possibilities, and a very speculative
> one
> at that. For 30 years I have heard promises of miracle cures for
> paralysis (including my own, suffered as a medical student). The
> last
> fad, fetal tissue transplants, was thought to be a sure thing.
> Nothing
> came of it.
>
> As a doctor by training, I've known better than to believe the hype
> --
> and have tried in my own counseling of people with new spinal cord
> injuries to place the possibility of cure in abeyance. I advise
> instead to concentrate on making a life (and a very good life it can
> be) with the hand one is dealt. The greatest enemies of this advice
> have been the snake-oil salesmen promising a miracle around the
> corner. I never expected a candidate for vice president to be one of
> them.
>
> Third, the implication that Christopher Reeve was prevented from
> getting out of his wheelchair by the Bush stem cell policies is a
> travesty.
>
> George Bush is the first president to approve federal funding for
> stem
> cell research. There are 22 lines of stem cells now available, up
> from
> one just two years ago. As Leon Kass, head of the President's
> Council
> on Bioethics, has written, there are 3,500 shipments of stem cells
> waiting for anybody who wants them.
>
> Edwards and Kerry constantly talk of a Bush "ban" on stem cell
> research. This is false. There is no ban. You want to study stem
> cells? You get them from the companies that have the cells and apply
> to the National Institutes of Health for the federal funding.
>
> In his Aug. 7 radio address to the nation, Kerry referred not once
> but
> four times to the "ban" on stem cell research instituted by Bush. At
> the time, Reeve was alive, so not available for posthumous
> exploitation. But Ronald Reagan was available, having recently died
> of
> Alzheimer's.
>
> So what does Kerry do? He begins his radio address with the
> disgraceful claim that the stem cell "ban" is standing in the way of
> an Alzheimer's cure.
>
> This is an outright lie. The President's Council on Bioethics, on
> which I sit, had one of the world's foremost experts on Alzheimer's,
> Dennis Selkoe from Harvard, give us a lecture on the newest and most
> promising approaches to solving the Alzheimer's mystery. Selkoe
> reported remarkable progress in using biochemicals to clear the
> "plaque" deposits in the brain that lead to Alzheimer's. He ended
> his
> presentation without the phrase "stem cells" having passed his lips.
>
> So much for the miracle cure. Ronald D.G. McKay, a stem cell
> researcher at NIH, has admitted publicly that stem cells as an
> Alzheimer's cure are a fiction, but that "people need a fairy tale."
> Kerry and Edwards certainly do. They are shamelessly exploiting this
> fairy tale, having no doubt been told by their pollsters that stem
> cells play well politically for them.
>
> Politicians have long promised a chicken in every pot. It is part of
> the game. It is one thing to promise ethanol subsidies here, dairy
> price controls there. But to exploit the desperate hopes of
> desperate
> people with the promise of Christ-like cures is beyond the pale.
>
> There is no apologizing for Edwards's remark. It is too revealing.
> There is absolutely nothing the man will not say to get elected.
>
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