# 158 Monday, May 29, 2006 -  AN AMAZING PLACE IN TIME
Remember the old saying, "May Heaven grant us this great gift, to see
ourselves as others see us?"
I would not want that gift.
Naturally, I belong to several stem cell research support groups. This is
definitely a mixed blessing for them.
On the one hand, I am always enthusiastic, always ready to fight for the
cause.
On the other hand.
Sometimes I can just feel the others thinking, "Will he shut up already?"
The other day I was at a meeting, and it was coming to a successful close.
 I had talked a teensy bit more than was necessary.  Figuratively speaking,
(this was on the phone) I raised my hand for public comment a whole bunch of
times.
All I had to do now was just sit quiet, say goodbye, hang up the phone.
That would have been best.
But something had been tugging at the sleeves of my mind for quite some
time. And (remember this is in the goodbye section of the meeting) I tried
to put it into words.
It did not work. It came out gushy and smarmy, definitely one of those times
I was glad I did not have the gift, "to see ourselves as others see us."
I was trying to say, how glad I am to live right now, at this amazing place
in time.
This is a crisis point in human history. If we act wrongly, the Dark Ages
will be upon us again.
But if we are strong, and work together in this great effort, a new day will
begin.
Imagine, knowing what we do now, that you were flung back in time to the
Dark Ages, when disease wiped out millions of lives, and the wagons went by
in the morning, and the drivers shouted, "Bring out your dead. Bring out
your dead..
And every one of those bodies dragged to the wagons was somebody beloved.
What if you could save them.?
What if you could take television back in time, and have it in every
neighborhood, and you could spread the message:
"It is the rats, folks, that are spreading the Black Plague. Tiny fleas in
the ears of the rats. If we clean up the place, we will deny hiding places
for the rats. The disease will not spread, and our loved ones will not die."
That is not too dissimilar from where we are today.
We are being gradually inundated by disease. One hundred million Americans
with incurable illness? That is one out of three, not to mention all have
families.
Avian flu is hovering out there, waiting, like a dark-winged demon.
But before us now is a way to fight: a shining sword we could pick up, as a
state, as a nation, as a world.
For the first time in history, humankind has the chance to fight together
against "all the ills the flesh is heir to," as Shakespeare put it.
What if we could make it possible for everyone to live a normal healthy life
span, instead of dying young and in misery?
To me, the perfect life is like the poem of the "the wonderful one-hoss
shay, lived one hundred years and a day"-this humble conveyance carried
people back and forth-lovers, children, husbands, wives-for one hundred
years without needing repair-and then broke apart, poof, gone.
Would anyone be against such an ideal existence, where a person grows up
healthy and strong, and dies at an advanced age?
Of course.
The same forces of entrenched ignorance that have opposed every medical
advance in history are against us now.
In the Dark Ages, dissection was a mortal offense that  could not only get
you executed, but also excommunicated- killing you twice, both before you
were dead, and afterwards too--  talk about double jeopardy!
But here we are, in America, with a chance to take a great leap forward.
Pride compels me to say that California will be key: our state's great
contribution of three billion dollars will plant the seeds of change.
On June 10, Bernie Siegel will bring another stem cell extravaganza
together.
If you don't know Bernie, he is an amazing man with curly silver hair and
the personality of a professional wrestling promoter-and he is on our side.
Imagine how valuable that is!
Bernie can take the most complicated ideas, reduce them to simple clarity,
and make it exciting.
This is the man who spearheaded the great battle in the United Nations,
preventing an international ban on Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer. There were
many who fought in that mutlti-year struggle, people like Matt Jordan, who
worked beyond exhaustion managing a FAX machine onslaught; and the Coalition
for the Advancement of Medical Research put all its formidable strength to
the cause-but Bernie was unquestionably the spearhead, organizing
conferences in the United Nations to bring scientists and lawmakers
together.
In the end, what might have been a full-fledged ban on SCNT was reduced to a
toothless paper proclamation, with no practical effect whatsoever.
His meetings? Well, you don't want to miss one.  Last year, for example, one
of the speakers was Wu Suk Hwang. I know, I know, the man is in deep trouble
now, and he brought it on himself. (I predict, though, that he will find a
way to make things right: bring back his own record, making up for his
mistakes with research to benefit all.) But one year ago, he had not fallen
from his spot at the top of the stem cell world, and Bernie brought him over
to speak.
That's Bernie.
His next meeting is June 9,10, and 11-at Stanford.
On June 10th, as part of the three-day extravaganza, there will be a dinner.
Everybody who is anybody in stem cell research advocacy will be there. Just
one example: In the state of Wisconsin, where embryonic stem cell research
was essentially begun by Dr. James Thomson, there was and is a movement to
criminalize SCNT. Last year, a Republican-controlled legislature passed a
bill very similar to the Brownback law. That law was stopped by the courage
of one man-Governor Jim Doyle, who vetoed it. .
Governor Jim Doyle will be the keynote speaker.
If you possibly can, please join us. Check it out on Bernie's website,
www.genpol.org/ .
It will be an amazing place in time.
By Don Reed, www.stemcellbattles.com

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