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| # 346 Friday, June 28, 2007 - SCANDALS AND SURPRISES, ODDS AND ENDS? |
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# 346 Friday, June 28, 2007 - SCANDALS AND SURPRISES, ODDS AND ENDS? SCANDAL: I don?t have all the facts yet, (and would appreciate comments from Missourians!) but it seems Missouri just experienced a loss?or theft!-- which deserves national attention. I received an email from a friend that Richard and Virginia Stowers have decided to not go forward with their two billion dollar medical research institute in Missouri.
Consider what this means. Missouri went through an enormous effort to make sure that any stem cell treatment that Washington allowed would also be legal in the Show Me state. Amendment 2 added that stipulation into their state Constitution. The Religious Right chose to oppose this?even after the people voted. Working through the Catholic Church in Missouri, the opponents of research decided to overturn the vote with an initiative to outlaw the Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT, sometimes called therapeutic cloning) which had just been allowed.
Apparently, if my understanding is correct, the Stowers figured it was more important that the research go forward?in another state?than that it happen in Missouri. After a great and hard-won victory, the people of Missouri will be denied the research which might save lives and ease suffering. I regard this as an unconscionable violation of the Constitutionally-mandated separation of Church and State.
The Religious Right, with the collusion of the conservative arm of the Republican Party, denied Missouri a medical research facility. Please folks, let me know what you know on this. Forward me articles, comments, anything. The national press may overlook this; we must not. Odds and Ends: SUSPENSE: The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine Presidential Search Committee seems to be close to announcing a recommendation on the new President?.Monday I sat outside one of the meeting rooms (held at multiple sites across the state) hoping today would be the day, but no, not yet? SURPRISE: the Big State Project is draining my energies, but sooooo worth it? so much is going on, nobody is able to keep track of it?including me, of course, which is why I am trying to do it. Briefly, I am trying to find out what stem cell legislation is pending in which states?seems to be about 39 states have stem cell laws cooking up?but many seen to be unnoticed. For instance, I talked to one state college dean yesterday and asked him how bill X was doing? He said he never heard of it. I said, it is a bill to authorize your college to do a full-scale stem cell research program. He looked it up, said, ooops, there it is, it is real, it looks good?no, there it just died after going through four committee hearings! It might have changed the whole state?it failed by a slender margin, just a couple of key committee votes--and nobody in the support community seemed to know about it. Senate Bill 30, the ?Hope? Act, is being used as a way to poison state efforts. Georgia just got denied the right to fund embryonic or SCNT research because their new law specifically mentions Senate Bill 30?that law will come back again and again?already Florida had a major battle on it, which is not over yet?Georgia lost. However, Georgia has some tough-minded folks, like Senator David Adelman, and he has some plans to fight?stay tuned. QUESTION: What stem cell subject(s) would you most like to see a letter to the editor written about? I am doing a 50-letter writing project, trying to bring together sample letters on all aspects of the stem cell battle?what are your thoughts? Drop me a line at: stemcellbattles@... APPRECIATION: Thanks to all the nice people who sent me information on the Massachusetts-asked question: are there any state-funded embryonic stem cell banks? The answer is no. There is the national stem cell bank (embryonic, the presidentially-approved lines) at Wisconsin, and that?s about it. Canada has one as well.
Onward and upward! Don Reed
www,stemcellbattles.com
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"Stephen Meyer" <meyer74@...>
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