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President
Reagan And The Stem Cell Wars Embryonic
Stem Cell Advocates Mislead Public. Bush
Shouldn't Buy It.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 14, 2004
The
Following Statement Can Be Attributed To Nevada LIFE
President Don Nelson
President
Ronald Reagan was one of the right to life
movement’s best friends.
He was a committed champion of the unborn and
disabled infants.
His words on abortion were equally as powerful
as his words about the evils of communism.
President Reagan was and is a pro-life icon.
Advocates
of embryonic stem cell research have used his ten year
battle with Alzheimer’s disease and his recent death
to pressure President Bush to open the federal
treasury to fund embryonic stem cell research.
They have misled the public in several ways in
order to do so.
First,
researchers have known for some time that embryonic
stem cell research is very unlikely to be helpful.
They’ve done little if anything to stop the
myth. During
the week of mourning for the President, the Washington
Post reported Ronald D.G. McKay, a stem cell
researcher at the National Institute of Neurological
Disorders and Stroke as saying, "to start with,
people need a fairy tale…
Maybe that's unfair, but they need a story line
that's relatively simple to understand."
This reeks of condescension.
It says that the public is too simple minded to
be told the truth about the prospects of cures and the
ethics of their research.
It is unethical to prey on the public for tax
dollars by creating illusions and false hope.
Second,
supporters of embryonic stem cell research mislead the
public to believe that opponents of embryonic stem
cell research are against all stem cell research and
are anti-science.
The truth is that opponents of embryonic stem
cell research support almost all stem cell research
and they are the most passionate supporters of the
vast majority of stem cell research that is be
conducted. What
we oppose, and President Reagan would have opposed, is
embryonic stem cell research, stem cell research which
creates human embryos to be harvested for their stem
cells. We
do not oppose stem cell research that does not
destroy a new self-integrating, self-directing human
being. The
media should be suspicious when scientists are not
forthcoming that this is how embryonic stem cells are
obtained.
Third,
advocates of embryonic stem cell research have
downplayed or dismissed successes of other stem cell
research. The
results and applications of adult stem are easy to
discover and report.
Last week bio-ethicist and consumer advocate
Wesley Smith reported in National Review Online what
is well known:
“Early human trials
have commenced for conditions such as heart damage,
multiple sclerosis, corneal injury, spinal injury, and
Parkinson's disease, among others, generally with very
encouraging results… in Lisbon, Portugal, Dr. Carlos
Lima has helped restore some muscle and bladder
control in paralyzed human patients using their own
olfactory tissues… mice at the end stage of juvenile
diabetes were cured using human spleen cells, a
feat that no embryonic-stem-cell experiment has come
close to matching. And it was just announced that
bone-marrow stem cells have successfully regenerated
liver tissue. The list goes on and on.”
Fourth, researchers have failed to communicate
the problems with embryonic stem cell research.
Among them are tissue rejection, tumors
resulting in animal studies, the exorbitant cost of
procuring these stem cells, and the ability to obtain
them. The costs of obtaining embryonic stem cells and
the ability to do so to treat the one hundred million
people who need regenerative treatment make it highly
unlikely that these applications will ever be
available to the masses at local health clinics.
If anything, it will be a benefit to the few,
with the taxpayer having footed the bill for the
research. A
benefit of adult stem cell research is that it uses
the patient’s own stem cells.
These cells are found through out the human
body, even in human fat.
President Reagan would not have supported embryonic
stem cell research.
Being a man of tremendous vision we believe he
would embrace the promises of other stem cell research
which is achieving promising results.
President Bush is likewise a man of vision.
He should continue to oppose morally
objectionable embryonic stem cell research and embrace
other stem cell research which hold more promise.
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