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I am particularly interested in the last question number 4. I believe you need to choose your battles. We all have the same desire and that is to find a cure. All to often we choose to make disagreements into political statements that serve some other purpose. We lose focus. The idea of teamwork, even when you disagree with your team members, is to find what you can agree on and put your efforts into that. Putting efforts into political issues dilutes the limited political as well as financial capital there is to fight this disease. Embryonic stem cell research will remain an issue long after Bush is gone be it his first or second term. It will be here after a Democratic president is gone if he wins. Using your own stem cells is another issue. By launching and education campaign and working around sensitive "human cloning" issues this has to be the single best hope at this time. Perhaps people will find a way to work together instead of viewing a disagreement as a chance to "get" those we disagree with. When advocacy takes on the cloak of a political party and makes the other party a target it ceases to be advocacy and becomes a manipulative arm of a political machine. Advocacy must be inclusive of all, exclusive of political parties (either one) and focused on an achievable goal. They must avoid aligning with political parties and their penchant to use and abuse interest groups. Frank cg. Teri 52/47/40 15024 ----- Original Message ----- From: "tomberdine" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Friday, May 07, 2004 7:59 PM Subject: any thoughts on stem cell questions? > HYPERLINK > "http://www.stemcellnetwork.ca/partners/jdrf/news/articles.php?id=27"http:// > www.stemcellnetwork.ca/partners/jdrf/news/articles.php?id=27 > > > With the Parkinson's community hard on the advocacy trail to allow federal > money to be used for stem cell research for therapeutic cloning it occurred > to me that there are several questions that need to be asked. > > 1. With a 8 to 25 percent misdiagnosis rate of the disease, meaning that > between 120,000 to 375,000 of us (based on the guess of 1.5million diagnosed > in the US)currently diagnosed with Parkinson's disease do not have the > dopamine cell loss producing our parkinsonism symptoms, will stem cells that > can become dopamine cells help in these cases? > > 2. How expensive would stem cell therapy be and would insurance companies > cover it? > > 3. If/When stem cell treatment for Parkinson's becomes available will it be > necessary to use the PET SCAN prior to treatment to ensure that the > parkinsonism is dopamine cell death? I ask this because Deborah Setzer had > been flown to Cedars Sinai to be evaluated as a candidate in Dr Lévesque's > stem cell clinical trials (using ones own stem cells to repair the dopamine > cell death). However when she got there he ordered a PET SCAN and found that > her parkinsonism was not dopamine cell death (true PD) and thus stem cell > therapy would not help her. > > 4. Stem Cell therapy using ones own stem cells for other ailments is > currently already being successfully used. Dr Levesque of Cedars Sinai has > done work in this area with reported great results with a Parkinson's > patient (Dennis Turner). Any idea on how Mr Turner is doing since the > implants 2 years ago? Last report I saw was he was 80% recovered. Also what > is the status of those trials and why is more attention not placed on this > process vice the controversial embryonic stem cell? > > > --- > Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). > Version: 6.0.670 / Virus Database: 432 - Release Date: 4/27/2004 > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] > In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn