| Brownback Highlights Successful Adult and Cord Blood Stem Cell Treatments |
Brownback Highlights Successful Adult and Cord Blood Stem
Cell Treatments
States News Service -17 July 2006
The following information was released by the Office of
Kansas Senator Sam Brownback:
U.S. Senator Sam Brownback today heard from people who
successfully received treatments based on adult and cord
blood stem cell research.
The patients joining me today show how adult and cord blood
stem cell research delivers real results, said Brownback.
Adult and cord blood stem cell research has yielded 72
peer-reviewed treatments for conditions ranging from spinal
injuries to leukemia. Embryonic stem cell research, which
has not delivered any peer-reviewed treatments or human
clinical trials, is immoral and unnecessary because of the
much greater promise and track record of adult and cord
blood stem cell research.
At a press conference today Brownback was joined by Cathy
Pell, whose daughter Abby was treated with her own cord
blood stem cells for brain damage suffered during birth;
Stephen Sprague, who was cured from leukemia by a cord blood
adult stem cell transplant after being told by doctors that
he would not survive; and Mary Schneider, whose
three-year-old son Ryan received a cord blood adult stem
cell treatment for cerebral palsy.
Brownback continued, The people who spoke today are living
proof that ethical adult and cord blood stem cell research
provides real results for real people. While researchers in
the private sector are free to destroy young human lives
through embryonic stem cell research, the government should
not be in the business of funding this ethically troubling
research with taxpayer dollars. As the Senate considers
several bioethics bills, I hope to see passage of the Fetus
Farming Prohibition Act, which would prohibit the gruesome
practice of initiating human pregnancies in either women or
animals for the purpose of obtaining human organs or tissues
for research.
Senator Brownback was also joined by three families with
children who were adopted as frozen embryos from in-vitro
fertilization clinics: Steve Johnson and his daughter Zara;
Marlene Strege and her daughter Hannah; and Maria Lancaster
and her daughter Elisha.
The Senate today begins debate on three stem cell bills:
S.3504, the Santorum-Brownback Fetus Farming Prohibition
Act; S.2754, the Santorum-Specter Alternative Pluripotent
Stem Cell Therapies Enhancement Act; and H.R.810, the Stem
Cell Research Enhancement Act, sponsored by Rep. Mike Castle
(R-DE). Votes on the three bills are expected on Tuesday.
Brownback is a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee
and Senate Judiciary Committee.
|
