[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 12861-12864]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           STEM CELL RESEARCH

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, here we sit in the Senate, quorum call 
after quorum call. Not much is happening. We just had our meeting of 
Democratic leaders for lunch, and we are wondering what is going on 
here. Here we sit. Nothing is happening.
  Over a year ago, the House of Representatives voted on and passed 
H.R. 810, the Stem Cell Research Act, and sent it over to the Senate. 
It is pending at the desk. That was over a year ago.
  We have asked repeatedly--repeatedly--for the majority leader to 
bring up this bill so that we can debate it--I am sure under a time 
agreement--and pass it and send it to the President. The bill is 
supported by a majority of Senators on a bipartisan basis. It enjoys 
large majorities in every public opinion poll, which is hardly 
surprising because stem cell research holds tremendous promise for 
curing illnesses and saving lives.
  One obstacle stands in the way of moving ahead aggressively in stem 
cell research. The Senate has squandered over a year waiting for the 
majority leader to make good on his pledge to bring H.R. 810 to the 
floor for a vote. So here we sit.
  Why aren't we bringing up H.R. 810? Families with children with 
juvenile diabetes, families with members who are stricken by 
Alzheimer's, people with spinal cord injuries either from birth or from 
an accident or other illnesses, and people with other neurological 
disorders and diseases--these are the ones scientists tell us can be 
helped the most and the fastest through the application of stem cell 
therapy, which would be the result of stem cell research.

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  We just had a Health Week here, too. We had a Health Week about a 
month ago, and we didn't bring up H.R. 810 then. Everybody talked a lot 
about everything, but we didn't do anything.
  The fact is, I said H.R. 810 has support on both sides. I just 
mention that Senators Specter, Hatch, and Smith in particular have 
urged the majority leader to bring up the bill. As a matter of fact, 
last year, Senator Frist himself gave a speech on the floor and 
endorsed H.R. 810. But again the majority leader has refused to bring 
it up for a vote.
  We have written him letters. I have taken the floor numerous times, 
especially in lulls such as this when nothing is happening. It looks as 
if we will go all through today and tomorrow and, of course, then we 
won't be here on Friday. No wonder the American people have such a low 
opinion of this place. No wonder. They don't think we are doing 
anything, and they are right, we are not doing anything. Especially we 
are not attending to the urgent business of the American people.
  People are suffering from incurable illnesses. People are hoping we 
will move ahead aggressively in embryonic stem cell research and in all 
areas of stem cell research, but we still sit here and dawdle, take our 
time, and don't do anything.
  I don't mean to make it a partisan issue because it has never been a 
partisan issue. As I said, we have a number of Republicans supporting 
this bill in this body, and it was passed in the House with both 
Republican and Democratic support. I will say this: If the Democrats 
were in charge of this Senate, we would have had H.R. 810 up by now and 
would have passed it and would have sent it to the President.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, will the Senator from Iowa yield for a 
question?
  Mr. HARKIN. Yes.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Is the Senator from Iowa aware of the fact that we 
have come up with a terrific product, that science has discovered a 
vaccine which will prevent cervical cancer?
  Mr. HARKIN. That is right.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, taking this vaccine can reduce 
cervical cancer deaths by 70 percent--70 percent. In America, we lose 
about 4,000 women a year to cervical cancer. Across the world, the 
numbers are over 230,000 annually. Is the Senator from Iowa aware that 
there are detractors? The Senator is certainly aware, as he discusses 
stem cell research and conditions that are so painful for families, 
such as juvenile diabetes and other autoimmune diseases, that not 
enough money is going into these programs. But in this case, the chance 
to stop cervical cancer from killing women has detractors out there who 
say: If we do that, we will encourage promiscuity. Did you ever hear 
anything so silly in your life? It is the same as saying: If you give 
seatbelts to people, they are going to drive more recklessly. It just 
doesn't make sense.
  So if the Senator is aware of these things, they will, I am sure, add 
interest and fervor to his appeal to get on with finding out what is 
killing people.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I would respond by saying that if anybody 
knows about saving lives and providing good health to people in 
America, it is the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Lautenberg.
  I was privileged to be here when the Senator got his amendment 
through to ban smoking on airlines. I remember the day you got on an 
airplane and it was packed with smoke. Then they had a divider, and in 
one place you could smoke and in another place you couldn't, and still 
the air would be filled with smoke. It was the Senator from New 
Jersey--God bless him--who got that amendment through. I will never 
forget, right after that amendment passed, I used to fly back and forth 
to Iowa, and flight stewardess after flight stewardess would come back 
to me and say: Do you know Senator Lautenberg? And I would say: Sure, I 
do. And they would say: Well, please tell him thanks. We have been 
breathing that smoke for years, and now we don't have to. So I thank 
the Senator for the countless lives he has saved and the working 
conditions he has made better for all of the people, and all of the 
passengers who fly on airplanes have the Senator to thank for that.
  So when the Senator from New Jersey talks about the vaccine for 
cervical cancer, he is right on the mark, and he keeps up his long 
tradition of his focus on health care for all Americans. It is a shame 
that we have a vaccine which could be given to women, young women--as 
you know, I think it is three shots, if I am not mistaken, and I think 
it is good for life.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. For a lifetime.
  Mr. HARKIN. So you could take it as a young girl. And what are we 
doing right now? Nothing. We should be moving ahead aggressively in 
this country and in other countries where cervical cancer is a killer. 
As the Senator knows, it is a killer. Yet we are not doing anything. We 
sit here doing nothing. It is in that spirit which I thank the Senator 
for bringing that up. I yield to him.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, the Senator may be aware that I 
recently sent a letter to the Centers for Disease Control saying: ``Get 
on with it. Get the vaccine out there. And don't let opponents stand in 
the way. You are responsible. The product has passed all the tests. It 
is considered safe and effective.'' So I sent this letter, and another 
one to the Food and Drug Administration. I don't know whether the 
Senator is aware of these letters, but I am sure that, knowing his 
disposition about these things, that he would want to join in this 
effort and say: `` CDC, don't you dare hold back on this information. 
Don't you dare.'' Right?
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I say to my friend, sign me up.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. We will do that. I would like to thank the Senator 
for the compliment on the smoking prohibition in airplanes. It has 
finally penetrated, after almost 20 years now, into homes, into 
restaurants, into places where smoking just isn't an acceptable habit 
anymore. Today's papers have stories about how dangerous secondhand 
smoke is; you don't have to smoke the cigarette yourself, you just need 
to be near someone who is. I am sure the Senator is aware of the fact 
that breathing other people's smoke can be as dangerous to your health 
as if you engaged in smoking yourself.
  What a coincidence it is that as we have been talking about the no 
smoking in airplanes, our colleague from the State of Illinois, Senator 
Durbin, has joined us on the floor. At the time, he was the House 
author of the ban and I was the Senate author, so the two of us 
together were able to put that legislation into effect.
  Returning to the vaccine, is the Senator aware of the fact that there 
are detractors out there who, even if you get the good product, will 
stand in the way of it being made readily available to people who need 
it?
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I appreciate that. The fact is, yes, I 
think it is sick. There is some illness people have when they say we 
shouldn't be giving cervical cancer vaccinations to women because they 
may become more promiscuous. What kind of sick thought is that? What 
kind of sick thought is that? But we hear it. It is out there. It is 
the same as those who are trying to stop embryonic stem cell research: 
Oh, no, we can't destroy these embryos. Well, we had a hearing 
yesterday morning on this issue. The Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. 
Santorum, has a bill in, and he testified before Senator Specter and me 
and Senator Durbin from Illinois, who was also there for that hearing. 
I think what came out of that hearing is we have over 400,000 embryos 
left over from in vitro fertilization which are now frozen which are 
going to be discarded because obviously the parents who had in vitro 
fertilization--once they have had their children and they don't want to 
have any more, the in vitro fertilization organization calls up and 
says: Do you want to keep these? And they say: Well, no, we don't want 
to have any more children. And so they throw them away. They do this 
every day. They destroy these every day.
  What we are saying is, why not take these things with about 16 cells 
in them and take the cells out and use them to derive embryonic stem 
cells,

[[Page 12863]]

which can become any of the cells in our body--nerve cells, muscle 
cells, tissue cells--and use them to advance the research so that we 
can cure those illnesses from which so many people suffer?
  Mr. DURBIN. Would the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. HARKIN. I will. Let me just say that a friend of mine recently 
passed away from ALS--Lou Gehrig's disease. If anyone has seen anyone 
get Lou Gehrig's disease and die of it, it is the worst. It is the 
worst. It is a death sentence as soon as you are told you have it, as 
soon as you are diagnosed with it. No one lives, and usually death 
occurs within a year to 2 years. As your muscles deteriorate and your 
lungs give out and you are no longer able to walk, to write, to speak, 
the mind continues on. You are aware of every second until the day, the 
minute you die. ALS--one of the most horrible diseases which afflicts 
mankind, humankind, and the scientists tell us one of the diseases 
which is in the target zone for embryonic stem cell research. Think 
about that. Yet we are told it is better to throw these away, take 
these in vitro fertilization leftover cells, throw them down the drain, 
but don't use them for life-giving research. I say to my friend from 
New Jersey, it is the same as those who want to stop women from getting 
vaccinations for cervical cancer because they think that, somehow, 
women will be more sexually promiscuous because of it. I don't 
understand that way of thinking.
  I yield to my friend from Illinois who was at the hearing yesterday 
for any comments he would like to make.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I would ask the Senators who are engaging 
in this colloquy, through the Chair--it is also curious to note that 
while we are taking this moral position against certain vaccinations 
against cervical cancer, if I am not mistaken, we are also financing 
Viagra products for some men through some of our same programs. A 
little hard to follow that logic.
  But I would ask the Senator from Iowa or the Senator from New Jersey 
to make it clear on the embryonic stem cell situation: Were it not for 
President Bush's Executive order limiting Federal research with 
embryonic stem cells, we would be dramatically expanding research into 
diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, Lou Gehrig's disease, spinal cord 
regeneration, and a multitude of areas where we clearly need 
breakthroughs in research?
  Mr. HARKIN. Yes.
  Mr. DURBIN. Is it not also a fact that the bill which passed the 
House of Representatives which has been sitting on the calendar in the 
Senate, our calendar of business, for 1 full year while people are 
suffering from these problems, is it not also true that in this bill, 
we are very clear: no human cloning. That is not a part of this, 
correct?
  Mr. HARKIN. Right.
  Mr. DURBIN. It includes ethical guidelines which will not allow the 
commercialization of these stem cells: you can't sell them, and you 
cannot direct them. You cannot say: The leftover embryonic stem cells 
from my wife and myself are going to go to my Uncle Charlie. You can't 
do that. So we have established strict ethical guidelines of 
commercialization, direction of the cells, no human cloning. Yet the 
bill has sat on the calendar for a year, despite the fact that the 
Republican majority leader of the Senate has promised us for a year he 
would call up the bill. For a year, people with these diseases have 
been waiting patiently.
  Perhaps I can put my finger on the problem. I ask the Senator from 
Iowa, would we have a better chance calling the embryonic stem cell 
issue to the floor if we made it a constitutional amendment? It appears 
those are very popular. We just did two of those in the last few weeks.
  If we could make this a constitutional amendment, would we have a 
better chance with the Republican majority?
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, if I may interject one point: is the 
Senator also aware, as the question of the Senator from Illinois is 
reviewed, that if we weren't busy giving tax breaks to the very 
wealthiest among us, to people who don't need the tax breaks and often 
don't even want them, we would have the funding necessary to do 
research on all kinds of things? The National Cancer Institute doesn't 
get the kind of money it deserves in terms of the positive effect it 
could have on our lives and on the financial condition in this country. 
The National Institutes of Health don't get the kind of funding they 
need. We see someone like Warren Buffett stand up and say that he is 
going to give nearly $40 billion away. That shows you what happens if 
you work hard in this country. It just shows you. But the 
administration and the other side want to give Warren Buffett more 
money. They want to give him more than he has, when he's busy giving it 
away. They want to give more to Bill Gates, who also is one of our more 
ennobling figures in this country. Is the Senator aware these are 
resources which could be used far better elsewhere?
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am aware, I say to my friend from New 
Jersey. In fact, under the President's budget this year, as we are now 
giving more and more tax breaks to the wealthy, there is a cut in 
funding for the National Cancer Institute. For the first time in my 
career, since I have been here, we are actually cutting funding under 
the President's budget for the National Cancer Institute. Now, we here 
are going to try to put that money back in sometime this year, but I am 
just saying that the President's budget, what he sent to us, cuts money 
from the National Cancer Institute.
  I say to my friend from Illinois, he is right on target. On August 9, 
2001, President Bush got on television, national television--I remember 
watching him--and it was shortly after 9 p.m., and he made this 
executive finding that stem cells derived by our Federal researchers 
prior to 9 p.m. on August 9, 2001, were OK. We could use those for 
research. That was OK. That was ethical, moral, legitimate. But any 
stem cells derived after 9 p.m. on August 9 of 2001 were not ethical; 
they were immoral, not legitimate, and could not be funded by the 
Federal Government.
  I thought about that. I thought, why did he pick 9 p.m.? Why didn't 
he pick 9:15? Why wasn't it 10 p.m.? Or 8:52? Why 9? It was just 
plucked out of thin air. It seems to me if it was wrong before, it was 
wrong after. Or if it was correct and good before, it was correct and 
good after 9 p.m. It was totally arbitrary.
  I say to my friend from Illinois, the other thing we found out is, 
out of these so-called 75 lines which supposedly we had--which we 
thought at the time we had enough--it is now down to 21 cell lines. And 
here is the kicker: Every single one of those cell lines that were 
derived have been contaminated with mouse cells. They have been grown 
on mouse feeder cells, so not one of them will probably ever be useful 
for human therapy. Not a one of them.
  The Senator from Illinois is absolutely correct. If it had not been 
for President Bush's announcement on August 9, 2001, right after 9 
p.m.--if it had not been for that, we would have had 5 more years, that 
have now gone by, of good science, good research under the ethical 
kinds of guidelines, as the Senator from Illinois just outlined. And we 
would be much further down the road toward saying to those families 
with diabetes, kids with juvenile diabetes, people who have ALS, 
Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's--we would be closer to saying hope is 
there because we are doing the research and we are going to find the 
cures. It will not happen unless and until we get over that 
Presidential proclamation of August 9, 2001.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, first, I want to say to our friend 
from Iowa how much we appreciate his diligence in promoting better 
health in this country, and more opportunities for all Americans. I 
think, for instance, of his work on the Americans with Disabilities 
Act. Because of that bill, people who have a disability and weren't 
able to get around as easily as some others, now have access to so many

[[Page 12864]]

more places. We are so grateful to the Senator from Iowa for his work 
on that landmark legislation.

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