Hi Judith ,

IMHO if there were a way to make all congressman and politician to take notice of the
content of the e-mail below for considerations that should speed the find a cure for PD .

Cheers ,

judith richards wrote:

> http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/sc/story.html?s=v/nm/19990520/sc/health_stem_2.html
>
> May 20, 1999
>
> New Group Pushes For Controversial Cell Research
>
> By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
>
> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Patients with diseases ranging from Parkinson's
> to juvenile diabetes demanded Thursday that the government drop its
> squeamishness over stem cell research, which they say can offer
> treatments
> and even cures for their ailments.
>
> A patients' lobbying group released a poll suggesting that
> three-quarters of Americans favor such research, which uses cells from a
> variety of sources, including embryos left over from attempts to create
> test-tube babies.
>
> ``If they don't do this they are taking lives away from people and they
> are pretty much taking my life away, too,'' Michelle Puczynski, 15, of
> Toledo, Ohio, said in an interview.
>
> Puczynski has juvenile or type-I diabetes, an incurable disease that
> researchers think has great potential to be treated or even cured by
> stem cell research.
>
> The stem cells in question have the potential to grow into any kind of
> cell in the body and scientists hope to use them for tissue transplants,
> drug screening, basic research and perhaps some day to grow new organs.
>
> U.S. law forbids the use of public money to pay for research that
> involves damaging or manipulating live human embryos and anti-abortion
> groups oppose the research.
>
> Much of the work has been funded by private companies, although National
> Institutes of Health (NIH) director Harold Varmus believes there are
> legal ways around this, including using material harvested from embryos
> by
> private companies.
>
> The patients, the researchers and support groups say this is not good
> enough. They want to make sure the research focuses on treating human
> diseases such as the incurable and fatal Parkinson's or Huntington's
> diseases, which may
> be treated through brain tissue transplants.
>
> The new lobbying group, the Patient's Coalition for Urgent Research
> (CURE), released a survey of 1,000 adults that showed 74 percent of them
> supported human stem cell research -- even when the cells came from very
> early
> embryos left over from in vitro fertilization (IVF or test-tube)
> attempts.
>
> ``I think if Congress hears clearly the voices of Americans facing these
> diseases, more than 100 million of them, their constituents, they will
> do the right thing,'' Dan Perry, executive director of the Alliance for
> Aging Research, which supports the new group, told a news conference.
>
> The new group worries that debate over the ethics of stem cells research
> will hold up vital scientific progress.
>
> ``It's not that I don't have ethics,'' John Gearhart of Johns Hopkins
> University in Baltimore, whose stem cell work has been funded in part by
> biotechnology company Geron, said in an interview. ``I'm just explaining
> the facts.''
>
> Patients say they, too, have considered the arguments against stem cell
> research but reject them.
>
> ``I think it is a little bit squeamish,'' Puczynski said.
>
> Scientists hope to grow the type of pancreatic cells destroyed in type-I
> diabetes, freeing patients from the need to monitor their blood sugar
> and inject themselves with insulin several times a day to stay alive.
>
> Gearhart cautions that the research is at a very early stage, but says
> this is why government involvement is needed.
>
> ``We are not growing brains. We are not growing limbs,'' Gearhart told
> the news conference.
>
> ``This is daunting work. But it is the kind of area where we need
> substantial funding and we need the involvement of a variety of
> interests,'' he added.
>
> ``We don't want 100,000 investigators doing the same thing. We need some
> kind of oversight. The NIH does that.''
>
> And he said there is little time to delay. ``There is a degree of
> urgency to this. We need to go ahead.''
>
> Copyright © 1999 Reuters Limited.
> --
> Judith Richards, London, Ontario, Canada
> <[log in to unmask]>
>                          ^^^
>                          \ /
>                        \  |  /   Today’s Research
>                        \\ | //         ...Tomorrow’s Cure
>                         \ | /
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>                        ```````

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