[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 87 (Thursday, June 29, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6731-S6735]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STEM CELL RESEARCH
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I stand to deliver some good news today
to the Senate and hopefully contribute to the debate we are going to
have probably in July on the overall issue of stem cells, embryonic
stem cells, human cloning, adult stem cells, and cord blood.
I wish to start by saying I think everybody is of good heart and good
mind in this body and that they want to try to do something to help
people in this country. While we have some differences of opinion on
embryonic stem cells and on human cloning, there is strong bipartisan
support in the adult stem cell and cord blood area.
The differences come down to the basic view of the youngest of human
life. This is a long debate. It has been going on for some time. We
have differences of opinion. I view human life as sacred at all of its
stages and all of its places. Period. It is unique, it is beautiful, it
is a child of the living God. It deserves our respect and protection
under law at the very earliest stages of life and at the very latest
stages in life. It is life in this country and a life in other
countries. It is life seeking to come to this country in whatever form
it may be. This life is unique and sacred.
We can try to divide it under law. We can say it is property at this
stage of life; it is not worth living at that stage of life. All of
those, I think, are false distinctions. Life is sacred, period, per se
because it is human and it is sacred, period, because it is human. That
is the point of view from which I come. That is the point of view from
which I think a lot of Americans come.
When people think about it, when they look at this issue they say:
How else would you divide a baby? It is pretty hard to do unless you
start where life begins and you end where life ends and you don't draw
distinctions in between.
Others are willing to draw that distinction in between and say a
human life is not sacred, per se, at certain early stages, or if it is
so decrepit at other stages of life. I think those are false
distinctions. I don't think they stand the test of science. I don't
think
[[Page S6732]]
they will stand the test of time. I don't think they will stand the
test of reason if one really thinks it through.
That is really where we get to the point of distinction on this
debate, on human embryonic stem cells, on cloning humans for stem
cells. Scientifically, it may be doable. Ethically, is it moral? Is
this human life a person or a piece of property? In our jurisprudence
system, they are one of the two: They are either a person or a piece of
property. Everything in this room--the Presiding Officer is a person;
what he has on is property. People in this room are people, everything
else is property.
What is the youngest of human life? Is it person or property? We have
had this debate before in this country. We have looked at it; we have
drawn distinctions. At points in time, even in our Constitution, we
have said a person was only three-fifths of a person, and yet we knew
at that time: How can you be three-fifths of a person? That didn't
stand the test of time and reason then, and it doesn't stand the test
in this country now.
Some will say that the youngest of human life is property and at some
point in development it becomes a person. Yet in our jurisprudence
system, we don't recognize the transition that you can go from property
to personhood and, if so, where on Earth would you draw that line? When
would it happen?
The biology is quite clear on this point. If you start out a person,
you end up a person. If you start out a human being, you don't become a
plant. If you start out a human being, you don't become a desk. If you
start out a human, you end up a human. The biology on this is clear. If
you are a human embryo and you are given nurture, you end up, by
anybody's definition, a full-scale human being. You don't transition.
You don't start out as a piece of property or an egg that is going to
become an eagle and end up a person. It is one person.
At one point in time, we have all started out as an embryo. Whether
you are Sam Brownback, the Presiding Officer, or anybody in this room,
we all started out being a human embryo. We didn't start another way.
If you destroy us at the earliest stage, you never end up with us at
this stage. That is a basic fundamental of the argument.
It is an old, old, old debate for human societies. We have had this
debate. Typically, in fighting around the world, people try to
dehumanize the other side.
I remember watching a film on Rwanda, ``Hotel Rwanda,'' about the
Rwandan genocide. I was just in Rwanda last year and in the Holocaust
Museum. The one side persecuting the other side, killing nearly 800,000
in 3 weeks, in the very typical fashion of human beings demonizing the
other side and calling them less than human, they were subhuman--they
were roaches is what they actually referred to them as.
One can look at old war propaganda and typically one side tries to
demonize the other side, calling them something less than human, they
are subhuman. That is a very old human debate about whether this is
really a person.
The truth is, the debate never stands up under any examination. Of
course, the Hutus and Tutsis are humans. Of course, in our earliest
Constitution, a slave was treated as three-fifths of a person; they are
a full person. They are entitled to personhood. They are entitled to
legal status in this Nation.
Of course, any time in the history of mankind when we have deemed
somebody less than a full person, we have always lived to regret it,
and we always said later on: Wasn't that a horrific episode in human
history where somebody was treated less than a human?
Now we are back at that old debate. People are of different minds.
They are not of ill will toward anybody. Many are seeking cures to very
difficult diseases, to very difficult problems and human maladies and
saying: If we can only go here, if we can only research on human
embryos that are just frozen; they are not going to come out of the
Cryovac; they are going to stay frozen; if we can only do that, if we
can just take an egg and fuse it with a cell from my body and create a
clone just for a little period of time, we are going to be able to
solve all these human maladies; we are going to solve cancer, and we
are going to fix Parkinson's disease, and we are going to solve spinal
cord injuries.
Then, it comes back, back, back to the same old debate: What is the
human embryo that is frozen? Is this a human embryo created by the
cloning process? Is it a person or piece of property?
People of good will differ on that division. It is an old debate, and
I think the only place to stand is that this is a person and deserves
our respect.
That debate is renewed in this bioethics issue. We have been going at
it about 6 years now. In August of 2001, the President articulated a
strategy of funding both embryonic stem cell research and adult and
cord blood research, funding both of them. We have since that time
funded embryonic stem cell research to the tune of half a billion
dollars, $500 million. So this isn't something people can say we
haven't done. We have. Those are Federal funds. No private or State
money is included in that money. This is just Federal money, half a
billion dollars.
When we started this debate 6 years ago, I stated that for us to
research on young human beings is illegal under our law, immoral under
our rationale, under our legal system and, really, the law we know in
our hearts and unnecessary because we have another way. We can go
through adult stem cell work, we can go through cord blood work, and we
can come at conclusions that will be successful in treating these human
maladies.
The illegal and immoral remain today. We do not allow people to
research on the youngest of human beings. It is immoral how you treat
the youngest of human beings because if you destroy me at that stage of
embryo, I never get to become a full-scale human and realize the
potential I have or other people have.
Today, I want to emphasize the unnecessary part of this debate. When
we started this debate in 2000, they said there was a lot of promise
with adult cord blood, but we don't know if you are right. We actually
think we are going to be able to come up with conclusions and solutions
using embryonic stem cells or cloning, but you can't come up with them
using adult stem cells. There is not enough malleability. They are not
what they call in the terminology, pluripotent. In other words, if it
is a nerve adult stem cell, it can't make bone. It can't make fat
tissue.
It turns out there is a lot more pluripotency or plasticity to these
adult stem cells than originally thought, to the point where we have 70
peer-reviewed publications, treating 70--we just celebrated this 2
weeks ago--70 different human maladies with adult stem cells or cord
blood.
My good news today is on the illegal, immoral, and unnecessary, we
now have a lot of information on the unnecessary side of this debate so
that we can go forward full scale in saying we are going to
successfully treat these human maladies, and we have 70 treatment
areas. Some of these are nothing short of miraculous.
I have a very busy chart here, but that is because this is very busy
subject. This is a chart indicating 70 current human--these are not
animals--human clinical applications using adult stem cells today.
These are the various areas: anemias, autoimmune diseases, bladder
diseases. We now have people growing bladders from their own stem
cells, taking them out of the body--I believe this is a Florida
researcher--putting them on a skeleton and then growing artificial
bladders so that people, instead of having pouches on their side, can
now have their own bladder grown. This is really taking place.
Cancers, cardiovascular: I want to talk about a group having their
hearts regenerated by their own stem cells, but will save that for
another day.
Immune deficiencies, liver diseases, neural degenerative diseases,
including spinal cord injuries--I will talk about a specific example
today: a young lady walking again with the use of braces.
Ocular, wounds and injuries, and metabolic disorders: Those are the
general categories that I want to put forward to show the unnecessary
side of embryonic stem cells. This is a good news topic with which we
can move forward. I have been challenged by some of my colleagues about
the scientists who oppose embryonic stem cell research. I have
submitted a list of 57 scientists and doctors for the Record
[[Page S6733]]
in a previous speech who oppose destructive human embryonic stem cell
research--oppose it. Embryonic stem cell research is not the right way
to go, as a moral issue, for a number of reasons, but there are also a
number of reasons why it is unnecessary for us to move forward in this
particular category.
There is also the problem--and we saw this on the use of tissues from
aborted fetuses, the fetal tissue debate, and, unfortunately, when you
use these young stem cells, embryonic stem cells, they tend to form
tumors. Embryonic stem cells are very fast-growing, and they form
tumors instead of the type of tissue we want. They too frequently are
uncontrollable, and they will form tumors. That continues to be the
problem in that particular area.
I want to point out this chart to my colleagues regarding this issue.
It is not necessary. It is unnecessary for us to do embryonic or
cloning research. On the moral issue, it is illegal. But it is also
unnecessary because we are getting human treatments to the very things
my colleagues said that we needed to do embryonic stem cell research
for and that they say we needed to do human cloning to get all of these
cures. I am saying it is not necessary. We don't have to go that route,
because we are getting the treatments using this ethical route.
So we have this big ethical debate and quagmire, and we have a
legitimate route with adult stem cells where we are getting successful
treatments for people. Why would we engage in and go the unethical
route when we have this big debate and divide? Why would we not just go
very aggressively where we are getting human clinical trials with adult
stem cells, especially when we are not getting any in the embryonic
area? Why wouldn't you fully engage that and say, Well, OK, then we
don't have to engage the moral debate. We don't have to say somebody is
subhuman and to get to a point in our research. We can say we have a
legitimate route to go.
Now I want to talk about the good news highlights here. I want to put
up some real patient stories for my colleagues. We had a press
conference last week where we had five individuals independently
treated with adult stem cells or with their cord blood. This is
umbilical cord blood from mother-child that has been saved and
preserved and people are being treated successfully in these areas.
I want to put up a picture of Ryan Schneider from Batavia, IL. This
is a miraculous story. A beautiful Christmas picture you can see here.
It is a picture of him last Christmas, taken just 10 weeks after Ryan's
stem cell treatment. There is already a noticeable improvement that he
has. This is a young man who has an incredible story. I met him last
week and his parents, and I want to say God bless him to him and his
parents who really fought through a tough problem of cerebral palsy
with him.
His medical problems began at birth. His parents, Mary and Steve,
noticed that he was having difficulty with feedings. He was falling
behind in his motor skills. His mother is a very sensible woman. She
heard the usual arguments of, ``Well, every kid is different, let's
wait and see.'' But based on her experience, including raising Ryan's
older sister, Katie, his mother knew that something wasn't right.
By the age of 2 he only had two words and he was not gaining weight
at all. She writes:
Pointing, whining, and screaming were his only method of
communication. I had him evaluated through the early
intervention program and he started speech therapy. So she
starts working.
Nine months later he had only gained 1 pound, and after he
started speech therapy he spoke only 40 words with no
sentence structure, and only close family understood the
words.
His upper body strength was weakening. His hands were in
fists most of the time. It hurt him to straighten out his
hands and arms. It is the little things that only a parent
would notice that set the bells off ringing. I presented
these concerns to Ryan's pediatrician who referred us to a
neurologist.
Having five children, I can just see this developing, and I can see a
mother looking at this child and knowing something is not quite right
here.
On July 21, 2005, we got the diagnosis of cerebral palsy.
My husband and I felt like we had been punched in the
stomach. Who wouldn't, as a parent. Ryan Schneider was
diagnosed with cerebral palsy, a disease that affects close
to half a million Americans.
Mayoclinic.com describes cerebral palsy as:
a general term describing a general group of disorders
which affects the child's ability to coordinate body and
movement. These disorders are caused by damage to a child's
brain early in the course of development. Damage can occur
during fetal development, during the birth process, or during
the first few months after birth.
The group of disorders range from mild to severe. Physical
signs of cerebral palsy includes weakness and floppiness of
muscles, flaccidity, and rigidity. In some cases neurological
disorders such as mental retardation or seizures also occur
in children with cerebral palsy.
This doesn't sound like something you would want to confront in your
family. Mayoclinic.com also cites that it is not curable--is not
curable.
Well, the Schneider family has a story to tell today. Thanks to their
persistence and the work of Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg at Duke University,
young Ryan has a new outlook on life. Thanks to the amazing work of
cord blood adult stem cells. Ryan's mother, on the birth of Ryan, saved
the cord blood. That is something I would urge anybody who is watching
or thinking about it, to save the cord blood. This is a valuable asset.
Ms. Schneider continues about what she did:
The light went on the morning following Ryan's diagnosis. I
sat up in bed, looked at my husband and said, the doctor said
brain injury. We saved his cord blood. I wonder if they are
using it to treat cerebral palsy.
This is the day after. The mother sits up in bed: We saved it. What
can we do?
After days of net researching and many phone calls to
leading researchers in stem cell therapy, I found very little
hope or information and a lot of, ``No, I won't do the
transfusion.'' No one would give my son his own cord blood.
You can get donated blood products from strangers in time for
surgery or trauma. This is absurd. I called Dr. Harris at the
cord blood bank where Ryan's stem cells were banked. He
suggested I get in touch with Dr. Kurtzberg at Duke
University.
I have had Dr. Kurtzberg in to testify--an amazing lady, great
stories, and she works with these impossible cases. Remember, cerebral
palsy was incurable. Was--was incurable.
She agreed to do the transfusion, and the transfusion took
place on October 11, 2005. Given this opportunity, I set up a
protocol system of my own. Pre- and post-infusion evaluations
and progress monitoring is being done by Easter Seals. I
requested extensive metabolic and chromosomal blood work to
be done to rule out any other possibilities with his
pediatrician.
So this is a mother working with this doctor saying, OK, we are going
to really measure it and see if this is what is happening. Ryan's
mother continues:
My thought was if this works for Ryan, it could change his
life and the lives of many other children in the future.
Although my efforts were applauded, this should not be the
job of a parent, but of the medical community and the Federal
Government to allocate research dollars. Until this is a
proven treatment, insurance companies typically will deny
benefits, leaving a huge financial burden on the family and
precious few places to receive hope.
Six months post-infusion, the progress Ryan has made is
more than remarkable; it is phenomenal. He is no longer in
need of any physical or observational therapy, as his
dexterity in his hands and arms has returned. His feeding
issues are gone--were gone within 30 days. He is now at a
normal rate of growth. He speaks clearly for a 3 year old,
and he does so in sentences. His vocabulary is on target and
age appropriate, and he is totally engaged in his
surroundings. His pediatrician, neurologist, behavioral
psychologist, Easter Seals OT, physical therapist and the
feeding clinic are in agreement that these changes have
occurred post cord blood transfusion. They can offer us no
other explanation, yet we must all err on the side of
caution, preventing false hope until proper research is
completed.
So you basically see a mother looking for any researcher in the
country who will do this. When I talked to the mother last week, she
said Dr. Kurtzberg said to her, Yes, I will do the transfusion. The
worst thing that can happen here is nothing. This is his own cord
blood. The worst thing that can happen is nothing. But without it, he
is going the wrong way. Let's try it.
The OB-GYN that delivered Ryan and collected his cord blood
asked me, ``What in the world made you think of that? It is
wonderful and very exciting news.'' I got that kind of
reaction from the other doctors in Ryan's case and thought,
``How could I not think of it?'' When your child is in
trouble, you use all available resources to fix the situation
to the best of your ability.
All of Ryan's doctors are given updates and progress
reports as they come. I have come
[[Page S6734]]
in contact with Dr. Mindy Lipson-Aisen, the National Director
of the United Cerebral Palsy Foundation. She would like to
see a study begin with this treatment and has offered a grant
to make that happen. The Easter Seals Dupage have been very
accommodating with Ryan's needs. Based on conversation with
them, I am sure that additional funding would be available.
Clearly, more adult stem cell work in this area is something that we
need to do, with half a million CP patients in the country and more
coming all the time. Why not head this off?
We owe our thanks to the mice and men that helped us get
this far, but it is not about them, it is the children and
others that may benefit. The resource and treatment
accessibility needs to be changed. Funding research for
children in need who have access to their cord blood in
either a private or public bank will be a low-risk, high-
yield and ethical place to start. Ryan and others should not
be referred to as an anecdotal response as a society. We all
deserve better than that.
Part of my point in mentioning Ryan's story is that as we divert
resources from these areas that are working in adult cord blood
research and putting half a billion dollars in very speculative,
embryonic stem cell research that is still producing tumors, or even in
more speculative cloning research, kids like Ryan don't get the
treatment from a protocol that has been developed and is actually
working. So why do we take a half a billion dollars from Ryan to put it
over here in this speculative area that has moral questions as well,
and kids like Ryan don't get treatment or we don't develop a protocol
or we don't expand it across the country? What sense does that make
that we would do that? For the sake of research?
I am for research, but I am more for treating kids like Ryan and
getting more of them cured from CP and other diseases. Funding adult
stem cells which are working is more important than saying, OK, we are
going to prove that something doesn't work over here. We are going to
prove that this doesn't work with embryonic stem cells or we are going
to prove that this doesn't work with cloning when I could instead be
really treating a bunch of kids like Ryan. Why would we do that?
Ryan was on the cover of The Hill newspaper last week flexing his
muscles. His mother said his arms used to retract. Now he is on the
front cover of The Hill, he has his arms outstretched, and he is
showing his muscles like a good 3-year-old. His sister complains that
he bugs her all the time, which to a parent is usually a very healthy
sign that this is working. These are real people getting real
treatments and real cures.
I want to go now to an example that is another miraculous example of
a treatment area. I am only giving you two stories of the five that
were in last week, and these are only two areas in the 70 that are
getting treated with adult cord blood.
This is Jacki Rabon, a paraplegic, an amazing case and amazing young
lady. She lives in central Illinois. I have a picture of Jacki here.
This is a picture after her adult stem cell treatment. I want to give
you the background on her.
Jacki Rabon is an 18-year-old paraplegic. She was on Capitol Hill
last week with her mother and sister touting adult stem cell advances
in the area of spinal cord injuries. Three years ago, Jacki was a very
active 16-year-old who played volleyball in school, and was an
outstanding player. In fact, she had hopes of going to college on a
volleyball scholarship. All that changed.
She was riding in an SUV on a gravel road when it flipped multiple
times. She landed on her back on that country road. She spent the next
month in the hospital. Jacki writes:
That day changed my outlook. I was living a nightmare after
this tragedy. I really thought my life was over. I couldn't
imagine not playing volleyball anymore, jumping on my
trampoline with my young nephew, chasing after my niece, or
just taking a walk around my small community. Not only does
something like this change the victim, but it also seriously
disrupts and affects your family. I am a paraplegic with no
feeling below the belly button. I had to learn to become
independent again; to dress, bathe, transfer from place to
place, and take care of my personal hygiene and toiletry
issues. It was so difficult, and I struggled with these once
simple tasks. After I accomplished these, I was released and
allowed to come home. I was simply told, You will never walk
again. That was my prognosis.
A 16-year-old paraplegic, an accident, ``You will never walk again.''
Jacki continues:
I got back to school a few months later and that was
another adjustment. Everything looks and works differently
when you are sitting in a wheelchair. I had to deal with a
lot of depression and sadness, but I tried to continue with
my life the best that I could. I truly believe that my faith
got me through. If it wasn't for this amazing love of God, my
strong will and determination, I don't know if I could have
proceeded with what my life had become. But I have great
determination along with the comforting faith and I didn't
intend on giving up that easily. I wanted to give life
another opportunity with my new ``lifestyle.''
I would like to pause in the telling of Jacki's story for just a
moment. I have asked my colleagues to imagine what goes through the
mind of a 16-year-old in this predicament. Beyond the physical pain,
try to imagine the mental anguish. You have your life in front of you--
endless opportunities in America--and it is taken up in a snap, in an
accident--gone. You wake up one morning; all is normal. You get up and
you brush your teeth, put on your clothes; you go for a jog and
continue on with the day. The next morning you wake up and you cannot
move, cannot brush your teeth, cannot put on your clothes or go for a
jog. Your entire life has changed.
You desperately long for a cure. You would follow almost anyone or
believe almost any story if it seemed credible, if it might produce a
cure, if the person had the right credentials and respect.
Unfortunately, some people are putting forward stories and saying we
are going to cure this with embryonic stem cells or human cloning, but
these areas are not working. You hear, ``If only we have more Federal
research money it will work.'' But I want to point out here, in Jacki's
particular case, that she had a place to go and an area to try. I want
to point out this work was done by a Portuguese doctor, Dr. Lima, and
talk to you about Jacki finding Dr. Lima in Portugal and what happened.
Jacki continued, after going through this despair and depression. She
writes this.
My world changed again in the fall of 2004. My pastor was
watching a PBS show when the special called ``The Miracle
Cell'' was aired. It was about a procedure called ``Olfactory
Mucosa Transplantation'', being done in Portugal by Dr.
Carlos Lima. It involved removing tissue from a patient's
olfactory sinus area and transplanting it into the spinal
cord at the initial injury site. My pastor called the house
and urged us to turn on the show. We did and were glued to
the story. I listened to amazing recovery of returned
sensation and even the ability to walk again with continued
rehab from others after having this surgery. I remember
thinking, ``There's my chance!'' I knew I wanted to pursue
this possibility for me.
My mom and I started researching this procedure on the
Internet and collected as much information as we could. We
discovered a Spinal Cord Injury Institute getting ready to
open in Detroit, Michigan that summer. This institute was
closely associated with Dr. Lima. We called to see if we
could get an appointment to go and meet Dr. Steve Hinderer
and asked about the procedure in depth and inquire about my
chances of getting it done.
I did go to Detroit and was told that I could well be a
good candidate. I was given the guidelines and criteria for
having this done. After many months of additional testing, x-
rays, etc. I was accepted.
This was very exhilarating for me. I had read about the
success stories of the individuals that have gone before me.
Their various success stories gave me so much hope!!
I had so much support from my family, friends, church,
community and surrounding areas to raise the $50,000.00,
needed to have this surgery. Without this overwhelming
support I could not have gone forward with this incredible
opportunity.
I went to Portugal in October 2005. I had the procedure
done on October 29th. My experience in Portugal was not all
pleasant. My mom and I had to deal with the language barrier
and the unfamiliar culture. I returned to the states on
November 5th. I rested at home for a few weeks, then went to
Detroit to the Institute for aggressive rehab. Rehab was very
tiring and indeed very aggressive. It was an exhausting
experience but a very rewarding one. It was there that I took
my first steps on the parallel bars. I was up!!!
My progress since undergoing this surgery has been
amazing!! I have a lot of hip movement, some tingling and
heaviness in my legs. I have continued with my rehab regimen
at home. I have leg braces that were fitted to me. I can walk
on parallel bars and have begun walking with a walker. I am
up on my feet again!!!! That's the most satisfying feeling.
Unless you have been confined in a wheelchair for an extended
amount of time, you can't really know how rewarding it is to
be standing again.
This brings me to the ongoing debate over adult stem cell
research. I did not think a lot
[[Page S6735]]
about this issue before the accident but now it has sparked a
great interest within me. First, I am very much against
embryonic stem cell research and advancement. I do not
support this aspect at all. The killing of human life is
appalling to me. But with adult stem cell and non-embryonic
stem cell research I have become an advocate. My personal
experience with adult stem cell transplantation should awaken
the United States to the unlimited possibilities. This
technique is simply ``your body healing itself''. Medical
research in the United States has always been respected and
admired for the advances toward cure for cancer, arthritis
treatments and medication, heart disease and other well-known
diseases and ailments. But when it comes to spinal cord
injuries, the U.S. is very much in the negative category. We
as taxpayers pay more money in the daily care of a spinal
cord injury victim than we do on a cure. Now why is that????
The medical society treats the injury at the onset, then
teaches the individual to live in a wheelchair and function
accordingly. Then they are sent home and told, ``You will
never walk again''. I experienced that first hand.
But I am walking again. I have goals of walking by the end
of the year with my braces and crutches. This was made
possible by the procedure in Portugal and aggressive rehab.
But I had to leave the comfort of my home and country and
travel to a foreign area to get this done. Now that is sad,
isn't it?
This tragedy that happened to me can happen to anyone. It
could be your wife, husband, son, daughter or friend. What
would you want for them? Simply a statement, ``You'll never
walk again'' or ``Never give up hope--there is a better
option for you.''
Wake up, United States!!!! We are missing out. Let's look
at the issue in a more personal level--I can walk again.
Sincerely,
Jacki Rabon,
Waverly, IL.
Jacki was up last week. She now has feeling in her hips. She is out
of the wheelchair. She can walk with braces. She needs more of these
treatments.
My point in saying this, why are we sending her to Portugal to do
this procedure when this should be done in the United States and
researched in the United States? She is probably going to need more of
these treatments to get the spinal cord to fully fuse. They take these
cells out of the base of the nose, grow them, put them right in the
spinal cord area where it has broken, and they start to knit the spinal
cord back together. But it is probably not going to be just one
treatment. It is probably going be multiple treatments.
She had to do fundraising to raise $50,000 to go overseas to do this.
It was not covered by an insurance company. Why wouldn't we develop
protocols here to get this done with adult stem cells instead of
diverting research money into speculative areas like embryonic stem
cells and human cloning? We should put funding into areas to help
people like Jacki.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a table on the
level of funding we have done on embryonic and nonembryonic areas.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
U.S. FEDERAL TAXPAYER FUNDING--TOTAL NIH STEM CELL RESEARCH--FY 2002-FY 2006
[Dollars in millions] \2\
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FY 2002 Actual FY 2003 Actual FY 2004 Actual FY 2005 Actual Combined total
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Non Non Non Non Non
Embryonic Embryonic Total Embryonic Embryonic Total Embryonic Embryonic Total Embryonic Embryonic Total Embryonic Embryonic Total
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Human Subtotal.................. 170.9 10.1 181.0 190.7 20.3 211.0 203.2 24.3 227.5 199.4 39.6 239.0 764.2 94.3 858.5
Nonhuman, Subtotal.............. 134.1 71.5 205.5 192.1 \1\113.5 305.6 235.7 \1\89.3 325.0 273.2 97.0 370.2 835.1 371.3 1,206.3
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NIH, Total................ 305.0 81.6 386.6 382.9 \1\133.8 516.6 439.0 \1\113.6 552.5 472.5 136.7 609.2 1,599.4 465.7 2,064.9
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Decrease from FY03 to FY04 is the result of a change in methodology used to collect nonuman embryonic funding figures. This methodology change also contributed to an increase in nonhuman
non-enmbryonic.
\2\ Numbers may not add due to rounding.
Mr. BROWNBACK. I thank the Chair for this time. I also note to my
colleagues we are going to have, I hope, a full-scale debate on this in
July, and I hope my colleagues would look at where the science is
taking us. The moral questions I think are clear. To others they are
not. This is illegal and immoral.
The bigger question in front of us now is, is embryonic fully
unnecessary? Why would we proceed on this route?
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Murkowski). The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, what is the order of business?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is in morning business.
Mr. DURBIN. And the minority side has?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority side has 30 minutes.
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