Hi.
Does anyone know how to reach this group: Web, e-mail etc.?  I would
like to know the names of those 70 representatives who are opposing it,
and how we can help this new group.  I feel strongly that we need to
mobilize and help fight for more freedom to continue vital research.
Thanks Judith for this important posting!

Ann, Palo Alto, CA
///////////////
judith richards wrote:
>
> Coalition to fight for stem cell research
>
> WASHINGTON, May 21, 1999 (Reuters Health) -- Thirty patient advocacy
> groups have formed a coalition in an effort to stop anti-abortion
> lawmakers from halting federal funding of stem cell research, it was
> announced here on Thursday.
>
> ``We want to make sure that as the debate goes forward, that we are here
> to articulate the needs of patients and their families,'' said Daniel
> Perry of the Alliance for Aging Research at a Capitol Hill news
> conference to announce the establishment of the Patients' Coalition for
> Urgent Research, or CURe.
>
> The goal of the coalition, whose members include groups ranging from the
> American Cancer Society to the Parkinson's Action Network to the
> Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, is to educate the public, the
> media, and legislators about human pluripotent stem cell research.
>
> Embryo-derived stem cells are immature cells that can give rise to just
> about any type of adult tissue, and are considered a promising avenue of
> research for a number of ailments.
>
> Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services in January
> ruled that research using such cells derived from discarded embryos did
> not violate Congress's ban on embryo research. At least 70 members of
> the House have vowed to seek to overturn that ruling when Congress takes
> up the department's annual funding bill late this spring or summer.
>
> ``The tissue to be used is tissue that is to be discarded anyway, tissue
> that is in the process of being thrown away,'' said Dr. Glen McGhee, a
> bioethicist from the University of Pennsylvania. ``Stem cell research is
> an appropriate kind of research and it is absolutely critical that it be
> federally funded'' in order to ensure that it is carried out ethically
> McGhee explained. ``Only through oversight can we resist irresponsible
> research,'' he said.
>
> After the press conference, Richard Doerflinger, a representative of the
> National Conference of Catholic Bishops commented that most stem cell
> research can already proceed with federal funding, including research
> that has isolated stem cells from adult bone marrow and fetal tissue. It
> is only the research in which the cells are derived from embryos that is
> at issue, Doerflinger said.
>
> Even if the cells are derived without federal funding, ``the language
> (of the existing ban) was always intended to deny funding for research
> projects in which destruction of a human embryo is a part. What we're
> trying to do is not have the federal government promote the destruction
> of human embryos,'' he added.
>
> But Dr. John Gearhart, a Johns Hopkins University researcher who has
> pioneered much of the stem cell work, said that all avenues for deriving
> the cells need to be pursued. ``It is much too early in this game to
> determine which derivation would be better,'' Gearhart said.
>
> Copyright © 1999 Reuters Limited.
> --
> Judith Richards, London, Ontario, Canada
> <[log in to unmask]>
>                          ^^^
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