edb1821
10-19-2004, 03:07 PM
This article appeared in today's Chicago Tribune
> giving an interesting view on the Kerry-Edwards
> position on stem cell research. Note that the author
> is, himself, confined to a wheelchair.
>
> It is impossible to keep up with what Kerry-Edwards
> are putting out to unsuspecting people. Now we learn
> that that if Kerry wins, those who are confined to
> wheelchairs will walk!
>
>
> Kerry's pandering stand
>
> If you believe in fairy tales, the Kerry campaign has
> come up with a doozy on stem-cell research
>
> Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post Writers Group.
> Charles Krauthammer is a syndicated columnist based in
> Washington
> Published October 18, 2004
>
> WASHINGTON -- After the second presidential debate, in
> which Sen. John Kerry used the word "plan" 24 times, I
> said on television that Kerry has a plan for
> everything except curing psoriasis. I should have
> known there is no parodying Kerry's pandering. It
> turned out days later that the Kerry campaign has a
> plan--nay, a promise--to cure paralysis. What is the
> plan? Vote for Kerry.
> I'm not making this up. I couldn't. This is John
> Edwards last week at a rally in Newton, Iowa: "If we
> do the work that we can do in this country, the work
> that we will do when John Kerry is president, people
> like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out
> of that wheelchair and walk again."
> In my 25 years in Washington, I have never seen a more
> loathsome display of demagoguery. Hope is good. False
> hope is bad. Deliberately raising for personal gain
> false hope in the catastrophically afflicted is
> despicable.
>
> Where does one begin to deconstruct this outrage?
>
> First, the inability of the human spinal cord to
> regenerate is one of the great mysteries of biology.
> The answer is not remotely around the corner. It could
> take a generation to unravel. To imply, as Edwards
> did, that it is imminent if only you elect the right
> politicians is scandalous.
>
> Second, if the cure for spinal-cord injury comes, we
> have no idea where it will come from. There are many
> lines of inquiry. Stem-cell research is just one of
> many possibilities, and a very speculative one at
> that. For 30 years I have heard promises of miracle
> cures for paralysis (including my own, suffered as a
> medical student). The last fad, fetal-tissue
> transplants, was thought to be a sure thing. Nothing
> came of it.
>
> As a doctor by training, I've known better than to
> believe the hype--and have tried in my own counseling
> of people with new spinal-cord injuries to place the
> possibility of cure in abeyance. I advise instead to
> concentrate on making a life (and a very good life it
> can be) with the hand one is dealt. The greatest enemy
> of this advice has been the snake-oil salesmen
> promising a miracle around the corner. I never
> expected a candidate for vice president to be one of
> them.
>
> Third, the implication that Christopher Reeve was
> prevented from getting out of his wheelchair by the
> Bush stem-cell policies is a travesty.
> Bush is the first president to approve federal funding
> for stem-cell research. There are 22 lines of stem
> cells now available. As Dr. Leon Kass, head of the
> President's Council on Bioethics, has written, there
> are 3,500 shipments of stem cells waiting for anybody
> who wants them.
>
> Edwards and Kerry constantly talk of a Bush "ban" on
> stem-cell research. This is false. There is no ban.
> You want to study stem cells? You get them from the
> companies that have the cells and apply to the
> National Institutes of Health for the federal funding.
>
> In his Aug. 7 radio address to the nation, John Kerry
> referred not once but four times to the "ban" on
> stem-cell research instituted by Bush. At the time,
> Christopher Reeve was alive, so not available for
> posthumous exploitation. But Ronald Reagan was
> available, having recently died of Alzheimer's.
>
> So what does Kerry do? He begins his radio address
> with the disgraceful claim that the stem-cell "ban" is
> standing in the way of an Alzheimer's cure.
>
> This is an outright lie. The President's Council on
> Bioethics, on which I sit, had one of the world's
> foremost experts on Alzheimer's, Dr. Dennis Selkoe
> from Harvard, give us a lecture on the newest and most
> promising approaches to solving the Alzheimer's
> mystery. Selkoe reported remarkable progress in
> biochemically clearing the "plaque" deposits in the
> brain that lead to Alzheimer's. He ended his
> presentation without the phrase "stem cells" crossing
> his lips.
>
> So much for the miracle cure. Ronald D.G. McKay, a
> stem-cell researcher at NIH, has acknowledged publicly
> that stem cells as an Alzheimer's cure are a fiction,
> but that "people need a fairy tale." Kerry and Edwards
> certainly do. They are shamelessly exploiting this
> fairy tale.
>
> Politicians have long promised a chicken in every pot.
> It is part of the game. It is one thing to promise
> ethanol subsidies here, dairy price controls there.
> But to exploit the desperate hopes of desperate people
> with the promise of Christ-like cures is beyond the
> pale.
>
> There is no apologizing for Edwards' remark. Because
> there is absolutely nothing the man will not say to
> get elected.
> giving an interesting view on the Kerry-Edwards
> position on stem cell research. Note that the author
> is, himself, confined to a wheelchair.
>
> It is impossible to keep up with what Kerry-Edwards
> are putting out to unsuspecting people. Now we learn
> that that if Kerry wins, those who are confined to
> wheelchairs will walk!
>
>
> Kerry's pandering stand
>
> If you believe in fairy tales, the Kerry campaign has
> come up with a doozy on stem-cell research
>
> Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post Writers Group.
> Charles Krauthammer is a syndicated columnist based in
> Washington
> Published October 18, 2004
>
> WASHINGTON -- After the second presidential debate, in
> which Sen. John Kerry used the word "plan" 24 times, I
> said on television that Kerry has a plan for
> everything except curing psoriasis. I should have
> known there is no parodying Kerry's pandering. It
> turned out days later that the Kerry campaign has a
> plan--nay, a promise--to cure paralysis. What is the
> plan? Vote for Kerry.
> I'm not making this up. I couldn't. This is John
> Edwards last week at a rally in Newton, Iowa: "If we
> do the work that we can do in this country, the work
> that we will do when John Kerry is president, people
> like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out
> of that wheelchair and walk again."
> In my 25 years in Washington, I have never seen a more
> loathsome display of demagoguery. Hope is good. False
> hope is bad. Deliberately raising for personal gain
> false hope in the catastrophically afflicted is
> despicable.
>
> Where does one begin to deconstruct this outrage?
>
> First, the inability of the human spinal cord to
> regenerate is one of the great mysteries of biology.
> The answer is not remotely around the corner. It could
> take a generation to unravel. To imply, as Edwards
> did, that it is imminent if only you elect the right
> politicians is scandalous.
>
> Second, if the cure for spinal-cord injury comes, we
> have no idea where it will come from. There are many
> lines of inquiry. Stem-cell research is just one of
> many possibilities, and a very speculative one at
> that. For 30 years I have heard promises of miracle
> cures for paralysis (including my own, suffered as a
> medical student). The last fad, fetal-tissue
> transplants, was thought to be a sure thing. Nothing
> came of it.
>
> As a doctor by training, I've known better than to
> believe the hype--and have tried in my own counseling
> of people with new spinal-cord injuries to place the
> possibility of cure in abeyance. I advise instead to
> concentrate on making a life (and a very good life it
> can be) with the hand one is dealt. The greatest enemy
> of this advice has been the snake-oil salesmen
> promising a miracle around the corner. I never
> expected a candidate for vice president to be one of
> them.
>
> Third, the implication that Christopher Reeve was
> prevented from getting out of his wheelchair by the
> Bush stem-cell policies is a travesty.
> Bush is the first president to approve federal funding
> for stem-cell research. There are 22 lines of stem
> cells now available. As Dr. Leon Kass, head of the
> President's Council on Bioethics, has written, there
> are 3,500 shipments of stem cells waiting for anybody
> who wants them.
>
> Edwards and Kerry constantly talk of a Bush "ban" on
> stem-cell research. This is false. There is no ban.
> You want to study stem cells? You get them from the
> companies that have the cells and apply to the
> National Institutes of Health for the federal funding.
>
> In his Aug. 7 radio address to the nation, John Kerry
> referred not once but four times to the "ban" on
> stem-cell research instituted by Bush. At the time,
> Christopher Reeve was alive, so not available for
> posthumous exploitation. But Ronald Reagan was
> available, having recently died of Alzheimer's.
>
> So what does Kerry do? He begins his radio address
> with the disgraceful claim that the stem-cell "ban" is
> standing in the way of an Alzheimer's cure.
>
> This is an outright lie. The President's Council on
> Bioethics, on which I sit, had one of the world's
> foremost experts on Alzheimer's, Dr. Dennis Selkoe
> from Harvard, give us a lecture on the newest and most
> promising approaches to solving the Alzheimer's
> mystery. Selkoe reported remarkable progress in
> biochemically clearing the "plaque" deposits in the
> brain that lead to Alzheimer's. He ended his
> presentation without the phrase "stem cells" crossing
> his lips.
>
> So much for the miracle cure. Ronald D.G. McKay, a
> stem-cell researcher at NIH, has acknowledged publicly
> that stem cells as an Alzheimer's cure are a fiction,
> but that "people need a fairy tale." Kerry and Edwards
> certainly do. They are shamelessly exploiting this
> fairy tale.
>
> Politicians have long promised a chicken in every pot.
> It is part of the game. It is one thing to promise
> ethanol subsidies here, dairy price controls there.
> But to exploit the desperate hopes of desperate people
> with the promise of Christ-like cures is beyond the
> pale.
>
> There is no apologizing for Edwards' remark. Because
> there is absolutely nothing the man will not say to
> get elected.