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Dear Greg and Ray, Greg, your chronology of the fight against and defeat of the Brownbeck/Welldon Bill which would have criminalized SCNT research and jailed both scientists conducting it and patients seeking cures through it is an inspiration to me! You illustrate so well that, through organization and determination, we CAN have a voice and we DO have a part in the decisions that determine our fate. Many of us do not have a history of the efforts spent and accomplishments achieved by those who've come before us. Thank you for the reminder that it is through the work of patients and patient advocacy groups that we have been able to sustain and promote this most profound and promising avenue of research. Letters, phone calls and email to our representatives do count. Funding and participation in advocacy groups that give voice and attention to our cause are effective. Willingness to speak against the "Use your brain-go to jail" intimidators can win out. We need federal funding for embryonic stem cell research (Bill H.R. 810). We need more focused and cost effective management of the NIH dollars that are now being spent on Parkinson's research (Bill H.R.3550 introduced by representative Lane Evans of Illinois). We need voices in each and every state to advocate for the advancement of ESC and SCNT research and to vote down legislation that would criminalize it. We need calls, letters and emails to pharmaceutical companies like AMGEN to protest their greed for profits over the humane treatment of the people who participated in their GDNF trial. We should not support these companies in either the purchase of their stock nor participation in their trials. We should let them know that their lack of ethics and moral responsibility in this issue will not be forgotten as they have forgotten the people who participated in this trial. We have good days, we have bad days but we can do it. Thank you Greg for your inspiration and thank you Ray (who just bought two new T-shirts!) and is gutsy enough to tell it like it is! Dee ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn