[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 14205]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rose a short while ago, spoke 
for 1 minute about a brave young lady. She was in my office just 
yesterday, along with another brave young lady. This is Susan Fajt, and 
she was accompanied by Laura Dominguez. Both had suffered spinal cord 
injuries. Both ladies were injured in a car wreck. Laura's injury was 
in the neck, and this young lady's injury was in what we call T-6. It 
is the thoracic spine which is sort of the upper part of the chest, 
middle of the chest area.
  I practiced medicine for 15 years before I was elected to the House. 
I still see patients once a month. I used to take care of a lot of 
spinal cord injuries, and in the past it has been very hard and very 
difficult because there really was not very much that you could do.
  What both of these ladies had done, this is a new treatment, a new 
intervention; and it is not approved to be done in the United States. 
The place where it is currently being done is in Portugal by a Dr. 
Carlos Lima. One of the doctors working with Carlos Lima is an American 
doctor from Alabama, and what they do is stem cell transplant. They 
harvest the stem cells from the nose, what we call the olfactory 
mucosa, and place them in strips along the injured section of the 
spinal cord.
  This lady previously was confined to a wheelchair. She had no 
sensation from about the middle of her chest down, no muscle control in 
her lower body and in her legs. So she was confined to a wheelchair, 
unable to walk; and with this intervention, she is now able to walk 
with braces on her legs, and we can see the braces down there, and with 
the assistance of a walker. Still obviously very handicapped, but she 
is actually continuing to show improvement.
  She and I talked at some length. She feels the same way that I do, 
that embryonic stem cell research should not be illegal, and it is not 
illegal in the United States.
  We hear around this town that we need to lift the restrictions on 
embryonic stem cell research. There are no restrictions. The real 
debate in this town is because we destroy an embryo in the process of 
doing embryonic stem cell research, a lot of people feel that that is 
morally and ethically wrong and that it should not be funded by 
taxpayer dollars; and this is really what the debate is about in 
Washington. It is really about funding the destruction of more embryos 
because in reality the NIH today is funding some embryonic stem cell 
research. They are just not funding the further destruction of more 
embryos.
  What we will also hear over and over and over again is that embryonic 
stem cells have all the potential and the adult stem cells do not, and 
I have risen on this floor multiple times over the past 4 years 
pointing out to my colleagues that in the medical literature today we 
can read research articles reporting that diseases like multiple 
sclerosis and lupus and rheumatoid arthritis and even Parkinson's 
disease are being cured or significantly improved with adult stem 
cells. You cannot show me one article that embryonic stem cells have 
ever been used for anything like that. Indeed, you cannot even show me 
a good animal model where embryonic stem cells are successful in 
treating an animal with a disease.
  There is one study in rats showing that they may have some 
application in this arena here, but the embryonic stem cells are 
genetically unstable. They form tumors called teratomas.
  The real reason why so many people are excited about embryonic stem 
cell is because you cannot patent this procedure. You do this 
procedure, you cannot get rich; but if you can develop an embryonic 
stem cell that can do that, you can become perhaps one of the richest 
people in the world.
  I just rise to point out to my colleagues that adult stem cells are 
being used for incredible things, and Susan and Laura were both 
tremendously helped by adult stem cells. Nobody on the other side of 
this argument can get up on the floor of the House today with a picture 
like this using embryonic stem cells, and Susan and Laura both felt the 
same way, Laura did not have her braces with her so I could not get a 
shot of her standing up, that they do not want to make embryonic stem 
cells illegal, but they feel the same way that I do. They are insulted 
when people say adult stem cells have no potential.

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