Stem Cell or Hell

Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine

"I am one of those who think like Nobel, that humanity will draw more good than evil from new discoveries." Dr. Marie Curie

Embryonic stem cell research holds enormous hope for millions of Americans affected by Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, ALS, Diabetes, Cancer and Spinal Cord injuries.

If you're a Boomer, you have to wonder -- this is the year 2005, why aren't these abominable diseases and conditions wiped out? Already in our lifetimes we've seen cures for polio, measles, smallpox, syphilis -- and lifesaving treatments for AIDS, heart disease and many cancers.

Modern medicine has come a long way since leeches, but it seems many of our Religious Right Wing leaders are determined to stay in those dark ages.

How blind do they have to be to let blind faith stand in the way of critically necessary stem cell research? Yes, I know, politics and religion have always interfered with the progress of medical research, but Jeezus! People are needlessly suffering and dying as a result of such willful ignorance.

George Bush and his gang of Right Wingnuts, dedicated Christians who drop to their knees at the drop of a hat are putting themselves and their political and religious agendas before the health and welfare of their fellow human beings.

With unconscionable hubris, pious self-rightesouness and grotesque inability to feel a shred of empathy, our Evangelical leaders simply refuse to get it.

Senator Arlen Specter gets it. How can he not, he's got cancer. Nancy Reagan gets it. She lost her husband to Alzheimer's years before it finally killed him. Now even--and I'm frankly still leery about this one--Senator/DR. Bill Frist finally gets it. Better late than never.

It's galled me that Dr. Frist, a heart-lung transplant surgeon, listened to his fellow Radical Right Wing colleagues instead of his medical ones--and to his training and experience--for far too long. He may be listening to political advisors now, telling him to distance himself from the contagion of a lame duck Bush if he wants to run for President himself in 2008. We'll know soon enough. In the meantime, no matter his motives, stem cell research has gained a powerful ally.

And I would say to the President and his fellow anti-research pals, debate if you must the issue of when life begins. Then spend a day in a wheelchair, blowing into a straw to move yourself around.

Try to imagine your wife disintigrating into an 80-pound shell, hairless, hopeless, wracked with unrelenting pain.

Ask your mother to pretend she doesn't know who you are -- or who she is either. Then ask her how'd she'd feel if you had to change her diapers.

Picture if you can--and this is the Big One--that your child is dying.

Then ask yourself: What would you do to prevent, to fix, to stop any one of those horror scenarios?

Nobody is advocating killing babies here. The goal is to use embryonic stem cell research ethically and legitimately to SAVE human lives.


Stem Cell Research Foundation: The Promise of Stem Cells in Medical Research

NIH Stem Cell Information Home Page