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Thank God for people like Jim Maurer. On Fri, 21 May 1999 01:21:02 -0400 judith richards <[log in to unmask]> writes: >a variation of my previous post... > >http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/sc/story.html?s=v/nm/19990520/sc/he alth_stem_patients_1.html > >May 20, 1999 > >Patients Offer Selves As Living Cases For Research > >By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent > >WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jim Maurer is angry. He thinks a controversial >new kind of research involving human stem cells could cure him of his >Parkinson's disease, and he resents religious and moral arguments >against it. > >``I'd like to meet a few bishops who have Parkinson's in their >family,'' >he said. ``It certainly seems to sway people when they see what it >does >to us.'' > >Maurer is one of a group of patients offering themselves as living >arguments to change the U.S. law and allow research involving stem >cells >to go full speed ahead. > >They joined a new organization called the Patient's Coalition for >Urgent >Research (CURE), which includes groups ranging from the Juvenile >Diabetes Foundation to the Alliance for Aging Research, that is >lobbying >Congress to >change laws that make it hard to do such research. > >The stem cells in question have the potential to grow into any kind of >cell in the body. Scientists hope to use them for tissue transplants >-- >especially to replace the cells lost in diseases such as Parkinson's, >Alzheimer's, Huntington's and juvenile diabetes. > >But they are sometimes taken from embryos left over from fertility >treatments and U.S. law forbids the use of public money to pay for >research that involves damaging or manipulating live human embryos.