REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER: Why We Need a Stem Cell-conscious President

Imagine you're Indiana Jones and you're sliding down a mountain on a raft 
because you fell out of an airplane and the good news is you're alive and 
the bad news is the mountain is a volcano which hasn't erupted for 
centuries, but guess what?
It is almost like a joke, sometimes, when life throws too much bad news at 
you, or your loved ones.
 Like my friend Ken, or my wife's cousin, or my sister: all in medical 
emergencies over the past few days.
 Ken and I grew up together, having adventures together too numerous to 
name. So, when he had the operation on his throat scheduled, naturally I 
wanted to be at the hospital.
 But he just laughed and said no, that was not needed, and it came across 
like he meant it, like I was questioning his manhood or something.
 After all, I figured, not everyone is as terrified of the hospital as I am. 
All my childhood memories of hospital incarceration come flooding back, 
whenever I enter those sanitized halls, all those needles and the blood jars 
and the-well, never mind.
  I let it go: forgot all about it.
 Until yesterday when I called him up to invite the family over for dinner 
because it was our turn to play host-and his voice sounded thin and weak and 
old, like I had never heard it before.
 "Well, the operation took seven hours," he said, "and the doctor says it 
will take about a year to recover, to get as close to normal as can be 
expected."
 This was with several pauses.
 A year-- to recover?
 That's all I know about Ken's status right now. He was too tired to talk 
about it. I don't even know his condition yet, what was the reason for the 
operation.
 Ken was only the first of the three medical emergencies inside the span of 
a week.
 My wife's cousin may get his leg amputated tomorrow, Wednesday the 23rd of 
July. Un-named here because I don't know how he'd feel about publicity, he 
has diabetes, and  yesterday they removed three toes. They said it went 
well, and they hope the leg won't have to come off.
 And my younger sister, Barbara?
 Her cancer may have returned. We don't know for sure. It could just (just!) 
be leukemia.
 If it is leukemia, than Barbie goes back again under chemo, and radiation, 
and the arsenic, taking her again close to death, for the chance of saving 
her.
 Imagine hoping it is leukemia, which killed my older sister Patty, but 
which is treatable.
 If, however, it is not leukemia, but cancer, and that has spread inside the 
bone marrow, that could be systemic through her body, and there may be 
nothing we can do.
 We already tried the adult stem cell treatment, when our brother David had 
most of the blood of his body removed. They put him on a machine, 6 hours 
one day, 5 hours the next, and it took the blood out, sifted for the adult 
stem cells and put the blood back-and David's adult stem cells were given to 
our sister, in injections.
 It was a treatment, not a cure.
 Because our brother's stem cells are foreign to her body, (although as 
close as could be gotten - mine were judged too different to be safe at all) 
she is on immunosuppressants for the rest of her life.
 Being on immunosuppressants means your system cannot fight off infections 
as it should, and a cold can kill you.
 And this is after high dose radiation, and massive chemotherapy, and 
arsenic treatment, and the other operations, which removed parts of her.
 I can't help but remember a date when things might have become different.
  August 9, 2001.
 The world has mostly forgotten the day when President Bush announced his 
position on embryonic stem cell research: that he would be handcuffing 
embryonic stem cell research, allowing it to go forward only under extreme 
limitations-no federal funding except for those few stem cell lines in 
existence that day.
 What if he had said something different, something like:
 America, too many people are suffering and dying through chronic disease 
and disability: that is why we must go forward with embryonic stem cell 
research with all our power-this is far more important than any walk on the 
moon or a trip to Mars, and we must similar level financing to it, because 
it affects every member of this nation, and every country on earth.
 What if America's power had been turned to the fight against chronic 
disease and disability, which kill hundreds of our loved ones every hour?
 We might not be having this conversation today.
 I know, I know, a month later came September 11, which has since become the 
excuse for avoiding every other social responsibility. We can't afford to 
provide properly for our elders, and the poor cannot be decently fed or 
housed, and prenatal babies are not given proper nutrition, and the schools 
are going downhill faster and faster, and we can't afford this and we can't 
afford that-- because we have to keep flooding our money into Iraq, which 
had nothing to do with 9/11-but don't think, don't consider, just be afraid, 
be scared so you won't think, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11.
 But there was no 9/11 on August 9, 2001.
 On August 9th, 2001, the entire country was thinking about embryonic stem 
cell research, and whether America should fund it or not.
 And on that clear and peaceful day, with the attention of the nation fully 
focused, the President of the United States made a conscious decision-
 --to turn away from cure.
 He did it cleverly, in political terms that must be granted. Rather than 
banning the potentially life saving research altogether, he said he would 
allow federal funding of it-but only for those few stem cell lines already 
in existence.
 Only a handful of stem cell lines existed.
 This was like the first airplane flight of the Wright Brothers at Kitty 
Hawk, after their primitive biplane flew one hundred twenty feet-- and the 
government said, okay, we support airplane research-but only on airplanes 
existing today.
 Behind the scenes, things were even worse. Mr. Bush was in his words 
"enthusiastically supporting" the Weldon/Brownback bill to criminalize 
advanced forms of stem cell research.  For the first time in the history of 
our country, a law was proposed (and rammed through the 
Republican-controlled House of Representatives without even one public 
hearing) to imprison scientists for even studying Somatic Cell Nuclear 
Transfer (SCNT), an advanced form of stem cell research.
 Has the President learned anything from these colossal mistakes?
 I doubt it.
 Yesterday I read where his administration now wants to hurry up and 
reclassify birth control pills-- as abortion.
 Think I am joking?
 I wish I was.
 Here is part of an article in the Charlotte Observer: the first place I 
read about this staggering change being slipped through into law right now.
 Tuesday, Jul 22, 2008
Posted on Mon, Jul. 21, 2008
Bush's latest: Birth control pills are abortion
The Bush administration is proposing a rule that defines abortion so broadly 
that it even includes prescribing or dispensing birth control pills. ..
The wording .defines abortion to include a number of commonly used birth 
control methods, including pills, IUDs and emergency contraceptives. It says 
abortion is "any of various procedures - including the prescription, 
dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any 
procedure or any other action - that results in the termination of the life 
of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether 
before or after implantation." Several common birth control methods, 
including pills, can interfere with implantation in addition to ovulation.
Sens. Patty Murray of Washington and Hillary Clinton of New York, as well as 
Rep. Nita Lowey of New York, all Democrats, have urged HHS to reconsider the 
regulation, saying it goes too far.
We suspect President Bush's anti-abortion appointees at HHS hoped to sneak 
this ridiculous measure into place before they depart Washington in a few 
months.---Charlotte Oberver, July 21, 2008.
 Why does this matter?
 For we as stem cell research supporters, if birth control pills can be 
considered abortion, what does that do to embryonic stem cell research? This 
is one step closer to "personhood" for blastocysts, granting every union of 
sperm and egg legal standing in a court of law, which would not only remove 
every woman's right to choose, but would also threaten the In Vitro 
Fertility procedure with its left over blastocysts, presently the only 
source for new embryonic stem cell lines.
 It is like that old saying: those who do not learn from history are doomed 
to repeat it.
 We must remember in November.
 In John McCain, we have a Presidential candidate who will grudgingly allow 
a little bit of embryonic stem cell research to go forward-he signed the 
very mild Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act- but he is also a co-author of 
the Weldon/Brownback bill to criminalize SCNT. Folks, this is like trading 
one Bush brother for another!
 In Barack Obama, we have a candidate who truly supports stem cell 
research-- and can tell you why.
 And those candidates, Obama and McCain, are locked in a statistical tie in 
the polls right now: we are close to a repeat of 2000, and 2004.
 I don't know how you feel. But I for one am sick and tired of having a 
President who is an obstacle to our loved ones' hope of cure.
 For anyone who supports stem cell research, Obama is the only conceivable 
vote.
 Remember in November.

 P.S. Friday's column could be important. It is how voters with a disability 
can turn the tide in every state, including the swing states, and most 
especially the states in the south.
 I would appreciate any help you could give on passing it along. If you 
belong to any stem cell support groups, you might consider sharing it with 
them.
 That's this coming Friday, July 25th, 2008.
 Thanks-and Remember in November!
 Don C. Reed
Sponsor, Roman Reed Spinal Cord Injury Research Act
co-chair, Californians for Cures
Vice President, Public Policy, Americans for Cures

Rayilyn Brown
Director AZNPF
Arizona Chapter National Parkinson Foundation
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