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Dear Editor: Representative Stump's HB 2221 assures the defeat of therapeutic cloning by tieing it to unpopular reproductive cloning, which is banned by most state, federal, and legislation around the world. Therapeutic cloning or nuclear transfer involves an unfertilized egg, (a germ cell) no sperm needed, and one's own DNA (somatic cells). This research is designed to learn how cells, not people behave. Knowing the causes of diseases is necessary to develop better treatments and cures for spinal cord injuries, ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), MS, diabetes, and Parkinson's. Most Nobel Laurettes think using one's own DNA would eliminate the rejection problems that accompany organ transplants. We won't know what works until the research is done on adult,(cells which given the right circumstances could become a human being) embryonic (these cells come from the extra embryos routinely discarded in vitro fertilization clinics which is all about asexual reproduction), Nuclear Transfer, and synthetic stem cells recently produced at the University of San Francisco, CA. Unlike Rep. Stump I don't find reproductive cloning either scary or surreal as we already have clones (identical twins), it is unnecessary and should not be used to stymie research that could help millions of living, suffering people. If we leave this research to others around the world we will not only suffer a brain drain, but will lose control over the process. President Bush's Solomonic decision has yielded no stem cell lines - they are all contaminated, so we are already behind South Korea. Rayilyn Brown 18507 N. Windfall Drive Surprise, AZ 85374 623-584-5869 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn