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THE BUSH DOCTRINE OF NO MATCHING GRANTS CAN BE CHANGED BY PASSING THE STEM CELL RESEARCH ENHANCEMENT ACT: 277 Monday, January 8, 2007 - THE STEM CELL RESEARCH ENHANCEMENT ACT: How the Federal Government Could Double California's Contribution (also New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, etc.) The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act (to be debated Thursday in the House of Representatives) will multiply the beneficial effect of California's new Stem Cells for Research and Cures program. How? Matching grants. Keep those two words firmly in the frontal lobes-matching grants. This is so important. Let me show you how it works. As you know, in California a small law called the Roman Reed Spinal Cord Injury Research Act provides state funds, about $1.5 million a year, in research grants to try and cure paralysis. One million a year, that's not much. But those small grants, when they lead to successful experiments, attract matching grants-larger amounts of money from the National Institute of Health (NIH), the Feds. Example: The RR Act funded Dr. Reggie Edgerton's robot-assisted locomotor physiology experiment. This is basically step-training for paralyzed legs. You might have seen a paralyzed person suspended over a treadmill, and several people moving his legs for him, setting them in place on the slowly-moving mat. This is a very promising therapy, good for health benefits like blood circulation-and maybe for re-teaching the damaged body to move. When cure comes, there will be a huge need for such assisted exercise-but it takes too many people-unless maybe we had a machine to move the person's legs. That was what the experiment was about, working with rats, to try and develop this machine to help move the paralyzed legs. The Roman Reed Act paid one hundred and twenty thousand dollars for this experiment-and when it showed promise, the federal government gave matching grants of almost four and a half million dollars, and the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation provided an additional $819,000. Let me say that again: The Roman Reed Act provided: $120,000 Matching grants: NIH: $4, 499,898 Christopher Reeve: $819,000 $120,000 grant became $5, 438,898. One hundred thousand became five million. Altogether, the RR Act has funded about $9 million dollars worth of research, not much. Matching grants brought in another $31 million. Because the federal government (N.I.H.) was allowed to participate, California's $9 million investment multiplied-into $40 million. Now, think about California's glorious new stem cell research program. Think about $3 billion dollars-should that money be allowed to benefit from matching grants? Under the Bush doctrine, the National Institutes of Health are forbidden to provide funding-not new money, not matching grants-for any new embryonic stem cell line research. That must change. If we pass the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, not only California's three billion will be eligible for matching grants, but New York's funding, and New Jersey's, and Connecticut's, and every state with the foresight to fund research for cure. And so we need to spend a couple hours on the phone. For instance, here are the phone numbers of all the new members of Congress. They need to hear from us. Give them a call. And pass this message on. The following information is taken from an email from my friend Rayilyn Lee. Ray has Parkinson's, but will not let the disease stop her from fighting. She says, passing along a well-written summary from researchamerica.org: "House to Vote on Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act January 11 Contact Congress Immediately The House of Representatives is expected to vote on the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act (H.R. 3/S.5) on January 11. It is critical for you to contact your Representative now and urge him or her to vote YES on H.R. 3, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. Take action! Reps. Diana DeGette (CO) and Mike Castle (DE) and Sens. Tom Harkin (IA) and Arlen Specter (PA) are reintroducing the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act with the bill numbers of H.R. 3 in the House and S. 5 in the Senate. The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005 (H.R. 810) passed with strong bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate, but President Bush used his first and only veto when the bill reached his desk in July 2006. The House was 51 votes short when they tried to override the veto. Our goal is to secure veto-proof votes in the House and Senate. Please contact your Representative and Senators now. The best way to reach new members of Congress is by phone, and a list of their names and Washington, DC office phone numbers is below." Some of these folks are already on our side. They know the value of stem cell research and can be counted on to vote for the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. Even so, a call helps, because they need to know they can count on our support. Remember, the opposition will definitely be calling. Think about the Religious Right. Just one of their organizations, the Family Research Council, reportedly has 120 paid employees. To my understanding, our biggest group, CAMR, the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, has one-half of one paid employee-all the efforts of that magnificent group are voluntary. It's up to us. There is nobody else. If we don't do it, it won't get done. Just call any of these folks from your area. Just say: "Hi, my name is ___________. I am a constituent. I support the stem cell research enhancement act and I hope Representative_____ will do the same. Thank you, goodbye." That's all it takes. The secretary will say thank you, make a note of your message on her pad, and you just influenced the situation. And one thing more. Think for just a moment, about that certain someone you love, who may benefit from the research. And about people you may never have met, like my son Roman in his wheelchair, or my sister Barbara, at risk from cancer. Every phone call you make is a personal favor to people like them: my family, and yours, and people on the other side of the planet. Thank you. Below are the newbies, just-elected: Freshmen Members of Congress - Washington, DC Office Phone Numbers Harry Mitchell (Arizona - 5), (202) 225-2190 Gabrielle Giffords (Arizona - 8), (202) 225-2542 Gerald McNerney (California - 11), (202) 225-1947 Kevin McCarthy (California - 22), (202) 225-2915 Doug Lamborn (Colorado - 5), (202) 225-4422 Ed Perlmutter (Colorado - 7), (202) 225-2645 Joseph Courtney (Connecticut - 2), (202) 225-2076 Christopher Murphy (Connecticut - 5), (202) 225-4476 Gus Bilirakis (Florida - 9), (202) 225-5755 Kathy Castor (Florida - 11), (202) 225-3376 Vern Buchanan (Florida - 13), (202) 225-5015 Timothy Mahoney (Florida - 16), (202) 225-5792 Ron Klein (Florida - 22), (202) 225-3026 Hank Johnson (Georgia - 4), (202) 225-1605 Mazie Hirono (Hawaii - 2), (202) 225-4906 William Sali (Idaho - 1), (202) 225-6611 Peter Roskam (Illinois - 6), (202) 225-4561 Phil Hare (Illinois - 17), (202) 225-5905 Joe Donnelly (Indiana - 2), (202) 225-3915 Brad Ellsworth (Indiana - 8), (202) 225-4636 Baron Hill (Indiana - 9), (202) 225-5315 Bruce Braley (Iowa - 1), (202) 225-2911 Dave Loebsack (Iowa - 2), (202) 225-6576 Nancy Boyda (Kansas - 2), (202) 225-6601 John Yarmuth (Kentucky - 3), (202) 225-5401 Benjamin Cardin (Maryland - Senate), (202) 224-4524 John Sarbanes (Maryland - 3), (202) 225-4016 Tim Walberg (Michigan - 7), (202) 225-6276 Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota - Senate), (202) 224-3244 Tim Walz (Minnesota - 1), (202) 225-2472 Keith Ellison (Minnesota - 5), (202) 225-4755 Michele Bachmann (Minnesota - 6), (202) 225-2331 Claire McCaskill (Missouri - Senate), (202) 224-61543 Jon Tester (Montana - Senate), (202) 224-2644 Adrian Smith (Nebraska - 3), (202) 225-6435 Dean Heller (Nevada - 2), (202) 225-6155 Carol Shea-Porter (New Hampshire - 1), (202) 225-5456 Paul Hodes (New Hampshire - 2), (202) 225-5206 Albio Sires (New Jersey - 13), (202) 225-7919 Yvette Clarke (New York - 11), (202) 225-6231 John Hall (New York - 19), (202) 225-5441 Kirsten Gillibrand (New York - 20), (202) 225-5614 Michael Arcuri (New York - 24), (202) 225-3665 Heath Shuler (North Carolina - 11), (202) 225-6401 Sherrod Brown (Ohio - Senate), (202) 224-2315 Jim Jordan (Ohio - 4), (202) 225-2676 Charlie Wilson (Ohio - 6), (202) 225-5705 Betty Sutton (Ohio - 13), (202) 225-3401 Zack Space (Ohio - 18), (202) 225-6265 Mary Fallin (Oklahoma - 5), (202) 225-2132 Robert Casey (Pennsylvania - Senate), (202) 224-6324 He opposes ESCR (call, even if not from his area-we need to let him know how important this is) Jason Altmire (Pennsylvania - 4), (202) 225-2565 Joe Sestak (Pennsylvania - 7), (202) 225-2011 Patrick Murphy (Pennsylvania - 8), (202) 225-4276 Christopher Carney (Pennsylvania - 10), (202) 225-3731 Sheldon Whitehouse (Rhode Island - Senate), (202) 224-2921 Bob Corker (Tennessee - Senate), (202) 224-3344 David Davis (Tennessee - 1), (202) 225-6356 Stephen Cohen (Tennessee - 9), (202) 225-3265 Nicholas Lampson (Texas - 22), (202) 225-5951 Bernard Sanders (Vermont - Senate), (202) 224-5141 Peter Welch (Vermont - At large), (202) 225-4115 James Webb (Virginia - Senate), (202) 224-4024 Steve Kagen (Wisconsin - 8), (202) 225-5665 By Don C. Reed, Chair, Californians for Cures, www.stemcellbattles.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn