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RTK.NET Mail 176873 Jul 26 00:14:14 1996 I am still confidant we will win in both the House and Senate _if_ it comes up for a vote. I don't think that Smith's bill would pass, because many legislators would not vote for legislation that brings back the fetal tissue ban, particularly one on a single disease. There is a piece of diabetes research legislation being pushed for as well. If we set a precedent of getting behind a version of the Udall bill banning fetal tissue research, we would not only do great damage to other disease groups for whom fetal tissue holds great promise, we would certainly lose support or at least severely damage relations with legislators who are supporting both bills. I've met twice with an Arkansas Rep. who is hesitant to cosponsor bills that aren't in his committee because often what comes out is different than what he agreed to, and his name is still on it. This is what we'd be doing to many of our cosponsors if we got behind a fetal tissue ban on Parkinson's research. In particular, Hatfield and Waxman, the bill's principle cosponsors , worked hard to end the ban, and supporting the Smith bill would be stabbing them in the back. We would also lose the support of the American Medical Association and the major scientific organizations and individual scientists who have been supporting us. Another significant point about Smith's bill is that it replaces "direct Parkinson's disease research" with "Parkinson's and related programs" (I don't have the exact wording, but you get the idea). In that case, Parkinson's could theoretically receive no additional direct research money if the bill passed. But the real threat of the fetal tissue issue is not that fetal tissue research could be banned but that the threat of this debate will keep the bill off the floor. In the Senate, it could be brought up in conjunction with the NIH Revitalization Act that the Udall bill is attached to. The House is not expecting to deal with NIH reauthorization legislation this congress, and I've heard it suggested that it's the threat of a fetal tissue debate that's keeping it off the floor. *sigh*...I seem to remember a time when we believed that if we proved the bill could pass by getting more than half of the Senators and Congresspersons signed on, then our job would be nearly complete. Sherri Cave [log in to unmask]