[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 11979]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   REAGAN AND EMBRYO STEM CELL DEBATE

  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, last week, our Nation mourned the 
loss of a great leader, Ronald Reagan. He led our Nation through a 
turbulent period of time. When he came to office, we were struggling 
with significant problems; with unemployment and inflation, and we were 
facing a significant threat from our Cold War adversary, the Soviet 
Union. Ronald Reagan's policies, as we all know, helped lift us out of 
depression, tamed inflation, and ultimately led to the breakup of the 
Soviet Union, the collapse of the Berlin war, and freedom for millions 
of Eastern Europeans.
  By and large, the celebration of the life of Ronald Reagan, I 
thought, was outstanding, except for what I would describe as one sour 
note. Repeatedly, liberals in the press and advocates for embryonic 
stem cell research were bringing this issue up as it relates to Ronald 
Reagan's Alzheimer's disease, indeed, holding out the absurd hope that 
embryonic stem cells could somehow be used one day to treat Alzheimer's 
disease.
  Indeed, many people were implying by their comments and words that 
the policies pursued by George Bush limited access to embryonic stem 
cells out of a desire to avoid destroying human embryos. And that is 
really the essence of the controversial issue here, because to do human 
embryonic stem cell research you have to destroy a human embryo, a 
human life, in order to gather the cells. One newspaper, The Washington 
Post, even editorialized that if George Bush were to allow the 
destruction of human embryos, this would be a fitting tribute to the 
life of President Reagan. In that same newspaper, the very next day, 
was an article reporting how embryonic stem cells are unlikely ever to 
be useful in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.
  Indeed, one of the lead researchers in the United States, Dr. Ronald 
McKay, stem cell researcher at the National Institute of Neurological 
Disorders and Stroke, told Washington Post reporter Rick Weiss, 
``People need a fairy tale.'' And he went on to explain how 
``Alzheimer's disease is a whole-brain disease. It is not a cellular 
disease, and it is unlikely that embryonic stem cells would ever be 
useful for treating such a condition.''
  Now, what are the facts? What is the truth in this whole controversy? 
Because it is indeed a very confusing subject and it is very easy for 
poorly-informed reporters to mislead the public.
  Well, the truth is embryonic stem cells have never been used to treat 
any human being for any disease ever. You will hear people repeatedly 
say that they hold great promise, supposedly. But as a matter of fact, 
they have never been used to treat anything. Even in animal models, 
where you use mouse or rat embryonic stem cells, they do not even have 
a good animal model to treat an animal disease with embryonic stem 
cells. However, adult stem cells, which are the stem cells that we get 
from our body, as opposed to destroying a human embryo to get the stem 
cells, our body is full of stem cells. They are in our bone marrow, in 
our fat, they are even in our nose.
  Adult stem cells have been used in humans to treat Parkinson's 
Disease, to partially restore vision to someone who is legally blind, 
relieve systemic lupus, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, cure 
severe combined immunodeficiency disease, treat several types of 
cancers, such as leukemias, solid tumors, neuroblastomas, non-Hodgkins 
lymphoma, and renal cell carcinoma. Adult stem cells have been used to 
treat multiple sclerosis, treat children with the bubble boy syndrome, 
and treat heart failure in humans. Indeed, the FDA just recently 
approved a protocol to use adult stem cells in treating heart failure 
in humans.
  So what is all the hub-bub? Why are all these people running around 
saying they want the Federal Government to fund all this embryonic stem 
cell research when it has really never been shown that it will have a 
clinical application, meanwhile the adult stem cells are showing all 
this great promise? Why is all this going on?
  Well, the truth is that embryonic stem cell research is perfectly 
legal in the United States. There are no laws preventing it from being 
done. Every lab in America could do embryonic stem cell research. The 
issue here is who is going to pay for it, and the facts are that 
industry does not want to pay for it. They want the Federal Government 
to pay for it. The Federal government should not. It is unnecessary 
research and it is unethical.

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