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Hello, I am disappointed that APDA and PDF were not among the 123 organizations signing the recent letter to President Bush, as they were among the 107 organizations who signed a letter in April 2000 to Senator Spector in support of Christopher Reeve's April 26 testimony to the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Appropriations Subcommittee on stem cell research. See http://www.aamc.org/advocacy/corres/research/stmcell3.htm I hope that APDA and PDF are still members of Patients' CURE, a coallition of patient organizations for stem cell research, which did sign. I hope that the briefing of Bush by scientific organizations takes place and is effective. I am encouraged by the statement posted by Perry Cohen that Senator Spector will remain chairman of his subcommittee and apparently continue his attempt to pass his stem cell research bill S.2015. In addition to contacting President George Bush, our Senators and Representatives to urge them to support stem cell research and the NIH Stem Cell Guidelines, we can also 1. Urge NPF to provide support. 2. Urge continued support by APDA and PDF. 3. Watch for any further action on Senator Spector's stem cell bill and be prepared to support it. 4. Educate ourselves on the issues. I suggest the following: http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/totn/20010131.totn.02.ram NPR's Talk of the Nation program" http://www.dartmouth.edu/artsci/ethics-inst/stemcell.html The Dartmouth college student science court http://www.ctns.org/Information/research/Stem_Cell/stem_cell.html The Stem Cell Debate: Ethical Questions by Lutheran Theologian Ted Peters. Stem Cell Therapy: The Ethical Issues. Nuffield Council on Bioethics. http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/bioethics/publication/stemcell/rep0 000000299.html Phil Tompkins Amherst, Massachusetts age 63/dx 1990