Yates Cancer Research Bill [Failed]

[PBrunsel]

I view charity as its own reward, so out of that principle I will vote against the bill. Also, I don't approve of attaching the name of Yates to this piece of legislation, for I deem that as innapropriate and an attempt at using the name of a suffering forumite to "guilt" the bill through the Senate on an appeal to emotions.

[PBrunsel]

Aye on the amendment.

[PBrunsel]

I must oppose the President Pro Tempore's amendment. I feel the $50 million could be better spent on furthering research in adult stem cell research. Embryonic Stem Cell research has not been studied enough, and could easily be too dangerous to be tried on human beings.

Adult stem research is far superior and much safer than embryonic stem cell research. Many diseases, at least 65 to date, have been treated with adult stem cells (ASCs).  Many of these are either cancers or immune deficiencies, in which stem cell transplants are used to repair these defects.  Although using ASCs to create other kinds of cells is a much newer field, there have been some striking successes.

 Adult stem cells can be obtained from many sources, including bone marrow, blood, liver, nerves, fat, baby teeth, and umbilical cord blood. (The second largest umbilical cord blood bank in the world is at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital in St. Louis.)  A clear advantage of ASCs is that ASCs can be obtained from the patient; we all have our own stem cells. Finally, ASCs have not demonstrated the potential to form tumors. 

An example of the progress of ASC research is their use for the treatment of heart attacks and heart failure.  A recent article in the Annals of Internal Medicine reviews this approach in animal models and in humans.  Nine published trials of adult stem cells in humans for the treatment of heart disease have been successful, and what you and I both want is for people to be healthy.

There have been numerous experiments of ASCs in animal models of Parkinson’s disease.  While clinical use of ASCs in Parkinson’s disease is clearly in its infancy, one notable success has been reported.  In 2001 Levesque, a neurosurgeon at UCLA, treated a patient with his own nerve ASCs, with dramatic improvement.  Levesque has FDA approval to conduct a phase II trial.

Initiative proponents have aggressively promoted ESCs as a treatment for spinal cord injury, often citing a rat experiment.  ASCs have been used with similar results in mice and in rats. Meanwhile a Portuguese neurologist reports having treated 34 spinal cord injury patients with nasal stem cells with success.  Impressive experiments have also been conducted in animal models of diabetes.  In one remarkable case a German surgeon used bone marrow ASCs to grow a new jaw for a patient who had been disfigured by cancer surgery!

The above argument is why I feel we need to give more money to ASC than to ESC, it just makes sense.

[PBrunsel]

Aye

[PBrunsel]

Aye

[PBrunsel]

Abstain on the amendment.

Honestly, this bill seems to have lost its way and is now stuck in the Amendment Swamp.

[PBrunsel]

Aye

[PBrunsel]

Aye

[PBrunsel]

Nay