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Tuesday, November 8, 2005 - SENATOR SAM BROWNBACK: THE CRUELEST MAN ALIVE? Today, California goes to the polls to vote on Proposition 73, which contains language which may threaten our California stem cell research program. While we wait for that result, let us take a look backwards and forwards at the same time, to a previous battle, and one that lies ahead-both led by the same man. SENATOR SAM BROWNBACK: THE CRUELEST MAN ALIVE? Imagine you are a lifeguard, and you are standing on a dock above the ocean. A little child falls into the ocean, and begins to drown before your eyes. But on the dock beside you is a rope! You reach and grab the coils, and drawback to throw-and a voice hisses into your ear. "If you try to rescue that child, using that particular method, you will be sent to jail for ten years, and fined one million dollars." Samuel Brownback, the Republican Senator from Kansas, would criminalize the research which offers hope to my paralyzed son, my sister with cancer, and literally hundreds of millions of suffering people around the world. Remember the guy who led the charge against Sunday School teacher Harriet Myers' bid for the Supreme Court, because she was not conservative enough? That's Brownback. He wants to be President in the worst way, and that is how he is going about it. Like 50's Senator Joe McCarthy, who built his whole career around a single "C" word-Communism-- Brownback has built a political career around the word cloning. Now if he stuck to reproductive cloning (multiple copies of babies, which no reputable scientist in the world supports) he would have the support of everyone. But he wants attention, and the way to do that is to be outrageous-and so he attacks Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) called therapeutic cloning, which is about copying cells. Joe McCarthy ruined careers and attracted cameras when he held up a list of 57 communists allegedly found in Congress or the state department or our bedrooms, I forget which. Nobody ever saw the actual list, (coincidentally the same number as a popular catsup brand, Heinz 57, and the number seemed to change according to McCarthy's mood)- Sam Brownback has a list of his own. Brownback loves to hold up a list of 58 diseases supposedly successfully treated by adult stem cells: meaning, since adult stem cells are so wonderful, we don't need anything else. Now the people who have the diseases have not yet found out they are cured-they think they still have the diseases-but Sam Brownback has his cause and his list, and suffering people don't seem very important to him. Brownback and his legislative twin in the House of Representatives, Dave Weldon, Republican of Florida, have tried three times to get their anti-research bill into law. If they win, any patient, parent, scientist or doctor who has anything to do with SCNT would go to jail for ten years, and be fined a minimum one million dollars. Ridiculous? Yes. But their Cloning Prohibition Act has already passed the House of Representatives twice (the first time without even a public hearing) and twice was held back in the Senate. Brownback has also tried a third time-- and that attempt is still ongoing. No one has done more to attack the hopes of chronically ill and disabled people everywhere. Samuel Brownback... he calls himself Senator Sam. He would be less dangerous if he were not so likeable. Brownback can charm people, and when he is talking it is easy to think, oh, he's not so bad. Like a dangerous clown, he is clever, and cunning, and knows how to make people laugh. He smiles, and he laughs. But he hopes to send people to jail for doing research for cure. He is my candidate for the cruelest, coldest, most uncaring man alive. --Don Reed Submit Questions or Comments ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn