# 409 Friday, January 18, 2007 - HILLARY, THE EXECUTIVE ORDER, AND A COUPLE
OF ENORMOUS QUESTIONS

"Hillary Clinton would overturn Bush's Executive Order on Stem Cell
Research.Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday she would sign an
executive order rescinding President George W. Bush's restrictions on
government funding for embryonic stem cell research."-Associated Press,
Washington, October 04, 2007

Senator Hillary Clinton's pledge Is an opportunity to show political unity
among the candidates.

Should we ask the other candidates to commit to do the same?

Seems to me every Democratic leader is on the same page (with the possible
exception of Dennis Kucinich, who at one time opposed embryonic stem cell
research, if memory serves) and this could be an opportunity to show unity.

Of the Republicans, McCain and Giuliani appear willing to support us on
this.

Is it important? Does committing to an executive directive make a
difference?

It could save us the hassle and time of fighting to pass the Stem Cell
Research Enhancement Act through Congress and the Senate again. While we are
virtually certain to win passage of the Castle/DeGette bill (already passed
twice, but vetoed by President Bush) still there are no guarantees-- and I
hate to think of going through all those months of empty arguing again, in a
field already burdened with obstructionism and delay.

Delays are deadly. People are dying-families are suffering-and we should no
more countenance delay than we would hesitate to toss a rope to a drowning
child. Some people are noble enough to work toward a cure for others, later
on, generations down the line. Not me. I am too selfish for that-I want
cures now. Too many good people are suffering. I refuse to say, oh well, it's
okay if my son endures the hell of paralysis for another twenty years (after
which I am gone from the picture, never getting the chance to maybe see him
walk again?) while we go on suffering delay after needless delay.

Once we get the legislative ball and chains removed, then we must fight for
the funding.
It is not enough to say, alright, the idiotic restrictions are off at last.
We must also put some money where our mouth is. We need to fund embryonic
SCNT, and the new skin cell reprogramming) as enthusiastically as Mr. Bush
pushes adult stem cell research.

You heard where the military awarded a grant for $227 million for just one
adult stem cell project? A quarter of a billion dollars.And that is how it
should be. That is the level of funding we need to be doing for all sorts of
individual stem cell grants right now.

Unfortunately, the entire federal budget for embryonic stem cell research
last year was only $37 million, about one ninth what that single adult stem
cell program got.

We need to make a major financial reorientation, backing research for cure
significantly, along the lines of the Defense Department.

Three reasons:

First, the physical suffering is immense.

We are close to the modern day equivalent of the Black Plague, which wracked
Europe in the Dark Ages. It is not so visibly obvious as when the cart
rolled through the town every day, and the driver would ring a bell and say,
"Bring out your dead", piling the bodies at the edge of town and burning
them in a heap so the wolves come down from the hills and eat the cooked
flesh. We are not there yet, but similar horrors are not far off.

One hundred million Americans have an incurable disease or disability. One
in three.

Secondly, health care costs are an enormous drain on the economy-two
trillion dollars last year, roughly the same as all federal income taxes,
put together.

Third, something positive: a new source of jobs, to replace losses in other
fields.

Click on the following to read, "Blue-Collar Jobs Disappear, Taking Families'
Way of Life Along" by Erik Eckholm, January 16, 2008, New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/us/16ohio.html

It talks about good people, hard workers all their lives, who suddenly can't
make ends meet. Instead of making $20-30 an hour, and living solid
productive lives, they are suddenly reduced to fast-food minimum wages, and
survival is a struggle. More and more adults are moving back in with their
aging parents because they can't afford a place to live on their own. They
are selling off beloved possessions, just to keep food on the table.

Detroit, Michigan, presently bleeding jobs from an ailing auto industry, can
and should become the source of new jobs for that state; legislators and the
public need to work together to develop and support the new biomedical
industry.

In California, biomedicine is either number one, or number two (I have heard
it both ways, some have us tied with aerospace, others show biomedicine in
the lead) when it comes to providing well-paying jobs.

In every state, when Presidential candidates get up to speak, they should be
asked two questions:  will they join Senator Clinton in rescinding the Bush
stem cell restrictions, and do they support the new biomedical industry.

Time is short. Before every voter pulls the curtain of privacy, and stands
alone in the voting booth with power in their hands, he or she needs to know
where a candidate stands on the issue of stem cell research. So-let's ask!

Don Reed
www.stemcellbattles.com

Don C. Reed is co-chair of Californians for Cures, and writes for their web
blog, www.stemcellbattles.com. Reed was citizen-sponsor for California's
Roman Reed Spinal Cord Injury Research Act of 1999, named after his
paralyzed son; he worked as a grassroots advocate for California's Senator
Deborah Ortiz's three stem cell regulatory laws, served as an executive
board member for Proposition 71, the California Stem Cells for Research and
Cures Act, and is director of policy outreach for Americans for Cures. The
retired schoolteacher is the author of five books and thirty magazine
articles, and has received the National Press Award.

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