With a showdown looming in the U.S. Senate over stem cell research, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle and seven other Governors sent a letter to the U.S. Senate urging members to support H.R. 810, critical bipartisan legislation that would lift President Bush’s ban on federal funding for research on new stem cell lines. Governors from Oregon, Iowa, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, Michigan, and Delaware joined Governor Doyle in calling for passage of this legislation.
“These families and countless like them hope that science may one day unlock the cures to diseases long thought incurable,” Governor Doyle said. “We cannot turn our backs on these families. I’m urging the Senate to allow funding for new research, and pass this important legislation.”
On August 9, 2001, President Bush announced he would ban all federal funding for research done on stem cell lines derived after that date. Last year the House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill that would permit the Secretary of Health and Human Services to fund research on new stem cell lines. In June of 2005, the bill was put on the U.S. Senate calendar, and is scheduled to be taken up on Tuesday. President Bush has already threatened to make this bill the first veto of his presidency.
“Stem cell research holds the potential to cure some of humanity’s oldest and deadliest diseases – from Parkinson’s to Alzheimer’s to multiple sclerosis and cancer. President Bush’s restrictions have delayed that research for far too long. The Senate has a vital opportunity this week to do the right thing so the science can go forward. That opportunity must not be squandered,” the Governors wrote.
H.R. 810 lifts current barriers on stem cell research, which are stifling the development of treatments and cures for a wide range of debilitating diseases and conditions. The legislation greatly expands scientists’ access to new, healthy, uncontaminated stem cell lines that are off-limits to federally funded research under the current restrictions. In addition, this legislation would impose new ethical guidelines, stricter than those currently in place.
H.R. 810 has overwhelming, bipartisan support in Congress, and is supported by major medical and scientific associations, research universities and institutions, and patient advocacy groups.
A copy of the letter is available at http://www.wisgov.state.wi.us/docview.asp?docid=9057
