Posted on 07/11/2005 6:54:19 PM PDT by kristinn
WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Arlen Specter, suffering from cancer, said Monday he plans to take public his anger over the government's restrictions on funding for studies on human embryonic stem cells.
"I think it's time that a little hell was raised about this subject," Specter, R-Pa., said in a telephone interview.
That time will arrive Tuesday, Specter said, when he gavels open the Senate's first hearing on his bill to lift President Bush's restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. It carries the greatest promise among such studies searching for cures to Alzheimer's disease and other ailments.
Set to testify Tuesday are four scientists whose research - to date neither published nor performed on human cells - could receive federal funding instead as alternatives to using human embryonic stem cells.
Bush and conservatives who believe studies on human embryos are immoral are considering bills to pay for such research in part to peel votes from Specter's bill.
That makes the Pennsylvania Republican, bald and gravelly voiced from cancer treatments, angry.
"Yeah, well, I am, as a matter of fact," Specter said. "Try a few chemotherapy treatments and see how you feel" watching the debate over medical funding.
Whatever the scientists have to say at the Labor, Health and Human Services subcommittee hearing, Specter wants his bill signed into law and federal money flowing to studies on human embryonic stem cells.
"The potential for stem cells has been held in abeyance much too long," he said.
Specter has plans beyond the hearing. He said he will lift his self-imposed ban on discussing personal matters on the Senate floor and frame the debate in intimate terms - including a "long list of my medicines and my ailments."
"And I'd like to see a million-person march on the Mall," Specter said. "That's an idea that has run through my chemotherapy-occupied cerebrum."
Bush halted federal funding for embryonic stem cell research on lines not already developed by Aug. 9, 2001, saying that taxpayers should not be forced to fund research that many find immoral. Other senators agree and are considering offering as many as five alternatives to Specter's bill, preferring to finance science that meets their ethical standards even if it is in its infancy.
"We certainly appreciate the strong emotions on all sides of this very sensitive debate, and that's precisely why the president believes that we should think carefully and long and hard about these decisions," said White House spokesman Trent Duffy.
"I don't want to see us destroy additional human lives with taxpayer dollars," said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who may offer one of the alternatives debated on the Senate floor.
Leon Kass, chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics, declined Specter's invitation to testify on the panel's report in May on four theoretical alternatives to human embryonic stem cell research, citing scheduling conflicts.
"I know the guy from the White House did not want to testify, which is his business," Specter said. "But we're going to go right about our business."
That starts with the hearing Tuesday and a press conference Wednesday featuring actor Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinson's disease, and actress Dana Reeve, whose late husband, "Superman" star Christopher Reeve, suffered a devastating spinal cord injury.
Among those scheduled to testify Tuesday is James Battey, chairman of the National Institutes of Health Stem Cell Task Force, who will discuss four alternative research procedures on stem cells. Robert Lanza, vice president of medical and scientific research for Advanced Cell Technology, will discuss his research into deriving stem cells from a single animal cell without destroying the embryo.
Someone should forward him the Columbia study done here. Someone died because the growth of the cells couldn't be contained *causes tumors*. Shoot...come to think of it, maybe he did try it already.
Should be named the Deathocrats.
Cancer is a serious concern, however I didn't know until now that Cancer breeds more cancer that is a target of the populous in a free society.
I am so glad the president went to bat for this old bat.
Anyone have any doubts that Bush will not and can not appoint any one who is not a pro abort to the SCOTUS?
Face it, we have been sold out. Again.
He's been so good to them. Frist and Bush love to play to the conservative base, but they aren't really conservative themselves. (Santorum has a tough fight and I can understand him needing Specter's support, but I fear his sellout was in vain.)
Anyway, they can blame it on Specter for not getting moderates (i.e., original constructionists) in the SCOTUS and having to go for lefties like Sandra Day O'Con.
He's been so good to them. Frist and Bush love to play to the conservative base, but they aren't really conservative themselves. (Santorum has a tough fight and I can understand him needing Specter's support, but I fear his sellout was in vain.)
Anyway, they can blame it on Specter for not getting moderates (i.e., original constructionists) in the SCOTUS and having to go for lefties like Sandra Day O'Con.
Moral Absolutes Ping.
There is so much evidence that stem cells from other places that do not cause destruction and death have more promise for healing.
Those who like destruction and death have their vision skewed. They are like someone who is haunted, and nothing they say or think is trustworthy. It is shameful that Specter (or as I like to spell it, Spectre) is still a "Republican" senator. Political back scratching got him where he is. Blecchh.
Freepmail me if you want on/off this pinglist.
Arlen Specter is a thug and a coward.
All kinds...that is what John Edwards told us during the campaign!
Specter, don't raise hell; go to hell and make yourself to home!
Specter will use his own illness to further the agenda of the left. He is a dirty trickster who never runs out of dirty tricks.
Senator Sphincter should realize that if stem cells are so promising then there should be no problem in getting private investors to foot the bill.
I wonder if Senator Toomey would have pushed for government payments.
To fracture the conservative base on even as important an issue as abortion and allow Hillary or a Jean Francois Kerry clone into office is not principled, it is foolishness. It would simply reverse the pro-choicer's equation. Instead of sacrificing millions of children in the name of adult fulfillment, we would be risking millions of adults in the name of saving children--but only in the name of it, because we would not save any when we allowed a pro-abort Dem to waltz into office in a time of war. Elections are not about getting the exact thing you want, they are about the allocation of power, and if we screw up power will be allocated to someone who is not just imperfect, but downright evil.
And I know I say this after every one of your anti-Bush rants, but would you please take a dang logic class? You can't say the that only way to make the nation pro-life is education and then blast the GOP for not making the nation pro-life through political maneuvering. Yeesh.
ProLife Ping!
If anyone wants on or off my ProLife Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.
The true irony is that we've treated both Hodkin's lymphoma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma with bone marrow transplants - including autologous and donor - for years. And there are trials using umbilical cord blood, in the works. The newest, most promising include the use of blood from two umbilical cords:
http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/feeds/hscout/2005/07/08/hscout526565.html
There's less chance of graft vs. host, and one of the lines eventually becomes dominant and takes over, completely replacing the host's bone marrow (and lymphocytes) and the second donor's cells. But, during the early phases of the grafting, both sets of cells act to give the host/patient an immune system and blood supply!
Shame on that old man. He should be ashamed.
Don't forget that there are non-embryonic stem cells. See my last post.
I'm all for stem cells - I just won't kill anyone for them!
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