381 Thursday, November 1, 2007 - MICHAEL J. FOX AND THE NEW JERSEY STEM CELL
RESEARCH BOND ACT

Before I begin today's column, I have to squelch a rumor. The rumor is that.
MICHAEL J. FOX will be doing a radio commercial in support for the New
Jersey Stem Cell Research Bond Act. Obviously, this would be the best
possible news.
But it is not a rumor-it is the TRUTH!
The star of BACK TO THE FUTURE has once more stepped up to the bat for all
of us. Go to www.NJforhope.org, and listen to our own Michael J. Fox
speaking truth to power. (And while you are there, considering clicking on
the "contribute" bar. Hang on a minute, I am going to do the same--
Okay, I am back. I just listened to Michael J. Fox speaking, and was so
moved that I also clicked on the "contribute" button at the top-and I
contributed (drum roll, please) $100, because I want Michael's message to go
out-he is donating his time for free, but the airtime to play that ad must
be paid for.
Meanwhile, back to the present..
Long ago, when I was young and dinosaurs stalked the earth, I competed in
the glorious sport of Olympic weightlifting.
We had a saying: "Do you want a good lift, or a good try?"
Meaning, after we came back from our 90 seconds on the lifting platform, did
we want friends to say, "Good lift," a compliment on success, or "Good try",
a ommiseration on failure.
Did that bar, that shining chunk of chrome vanadium steel, hang suspended
nine feet in the air, breaking gravity's grip long enough for the referee to
say, "Down!"?  or did it crash back to the platform uncontrolled, so the
audience went "awww!" and the lifter's face fell like the bar?
That is where we are right now, with the New Jersey Stem Cell Research Bond
Act.
Today is November 01, 2007. The vote is this coming Tuesday, November 6th
November 6th, is just hours away, when it will be decision time.
No, I am wrong.
Decision time is now.
Because it is what we do now in the next few hours, these last skinny days,
that will determine success or failure for New Jersey's $half-billion stem
cell research program.
Unfortunately, the odds are against us.
If I was a gambling man, I would say we are going to LOSE by a handful of
votes.
The press was full of the big news of the day, which is that our side
received a big check, a $150,000 donation from Governor Corzine, the first
big gift received.
And Michael J. Fox, our champion, coming through for us again!
It's wonderful. But it is not enough.
It is my understanding that the other side has half a million dollars cash
on hand right now, and more on the way. They have already produced two TV
ads and some radio ads, which I believe are running right now.
Also, their side has Sunday just ahead, and you can bet every Catholic and
other conservative church will be lecturing or lectured to about the alleged
evils of stem cell research. This is happening across the nation. My wife
Gloria brought back a church bulletin (my family is Catholic, though I am
not) and the bulletin said, in a quarter page editorial, right at the top:
"Respect life from Conception. The Catholic Church's stance on various types
of stem cell research. Embryonic stem cells: Never morally acceptable
because a human being must be killed to extract the cells."
Now, you and I know that is false. Without the mother's nurturing womb,
there can be no pregnancy, and no child. No mom, no baby-those are plain
facts. Embryonic stem cell research is cells, cells, nothing but cells.
But that propaganda is being spread in churches everywhere, told again and
again and again-and there are a whole bunch of Catholic and conservative
churches.
One New Jersey Religious Right person was quoted in the paper that he had
already passed out ten thousand lawn signs, and he had a print order in for
ten thousand more-and that was just one parish.
And our side? Lately, we have been arguing amongst ourselves.
 Folks, imagine the weightlifter again. He (it could be a she, there are of
course women lifters, but just for the example) he is getting ready for the
lift.
He's chalking his hands, focusing his energies.  It is very quiet in the
lifting hall.
The athlete returns the chalk block to its bin, brushes excess white dust
from his hands--
And steps onto the low wooden platform.  The bar is waiting, the train-wheel
Olympic plates secured by metal collars.
This is more weight than he has ever attempted.  He stands still a moment,
thinking about it, inhales once, twice-and steps to the bar.
He crouches, secures his grip, takes a final breath, closes his eyes-
And his wife yells out from the audience, "Honey, I hate your mother!"
Now, maybe the wife is right. Maybe the mom is a problem in the
relationship-maybe she drinks and drives and shoots machine guns at traffic
lights--  but to argue just before the lift is made is counter productive.
For us in the stem cell community, a hotly debated topic is the adult versus
embryonic stem cell controversy: which kind of research is more likely to
bring success?
The argument came up because the New Jersey bill does not specify which kind
it most supports. California's bill states a preference for research
unlikely to be funded at the federal level, i.e. embryonic and SCNT. It
would have been great if the NJ bill had done the same, but it did not;
leaving the matter to the scientists and the oversight boards.
The worry is that New Jersey may over-fund adult stem cell research, as the
federal government is doing. (It has been stingy with both sides, nothing
near the billions and billions needed, but what little it has given mostly
went to adult stem cell research.)
Personally, I am on the embryonic and SCNT side all the way. If I had a
hundred dollars to divide up between adult and embryonic stem cell research,
I would give the adult stem cell side maybe fifty cents.
But others (including scientists I deeply respect) disagree completely,
believing adult stem cells will eventually be able to do anything embryonic
stem cells can do. They point to progress with skin cells, umbilical cord
blood, amniotic fluid, and say, here is where cures will come.
It is an important argument, one we absolutely must have-but not now.
Let us win the money first, and afterwards argue how to divide four hundred
fifty million dollars.
Or, we can have a spirited discussion on how to spend nothing.
Assuming we are all agreed nobody wants to lose half a billion in research
funding, what must be done to pass the bill?
What can we do in the next few hours-that is all we have, just hours now,
five skinny days till November 6th--to influence the vote?
First, ask your Uncle Louie and your Aunt Murgatroyd to go to
www.NJforhope.org, and donate a couple bucks. Tell them if a retired
schoolteacher can chip in a couple hundred bucks, which his wife would
massacre him for, if she knew-can they match that amount? If they or you can
give more, or you know someone who can, the time is now.
And for those of us who have stood in the doctor's office, and heard the
dread prognosis, that you or a loved one have an incurable condition-heard
the terrible words, "there is nothing that can be done"-well, remember what
your friends said to you afterward?
Probably they said something like:
"If there is ever anything I can do to help, let me know."
Well, here is something anyone can do, to bring the day of cure closer for
all of us.
This is it, folks. The time is now.
 Every dollar we contribute spreads the message of Michael J. Fox, arguably
our endeavor's very best speaker, across the airwaves, to counter the
propaganda being spread against us by the anti-research forces.
So, if you have not contributed yet, please do so, right this minute, before
the events of the day sweep you away.
If you contributed before, please do so again.
Second, call everyone you know in New Jersey.  Tell them the predicted voter
turnout will be very low-estimated at only 28%-- that's scary.
Ultra-conservatives always vote, because they know they know they are in the
minority. Most people have too much good sense to vote with the
anti-research crowd-and so they know if they are going to win, they must
turn out all their voters-and they do.
We must do the same. Democracy depends on people voluntarily ignoring the
laziness or busy-ness or whatever excuses-finding a way to get to the
polls-and BRINGING THEIR FRIENDS TO THE VOTING BOOTHS!
I am a little excited, sorry. But I don't want to lose half a billion
dollars of research funding by five or six votes.

www.NJforhope.org

 P.S. Today would have been my mother Christine Snyder Reed's birthday. She
died prematurely, just 52 years old, from cancer.
The fight we are in now, is quite literally a life-and-death battle.
Do what you can.
Don Reed
www.stemcellbattles.com




Rayilyn Brown
Board Member AZNPF
Arizona Chapter National Parkinson's Foundation
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