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Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007

Floor Speech

Date: June 7, 2007
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Stem Cell Research


STEM CELL RESEARCH ENHANCEMENT ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - June 07, 2007)

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Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Let's understand some first principles. Human dignity is not reserved for adult human beings. The premise of human rights protections is that they are not contingent on arbitrary criteria such as size or location.

Ethical considerations must be weighed in light of the advances being made using adult stem cells, including those derived from cord blood. As has been mentioned, those advances are substantiated by peer review studies confirming improvement in many types of cancers, cerebral palsy, sickle cell anemia, paralyzing injuries, autoimmune diseases, metabolic disorders, neural degenerative diseases and heart damage.

This is consistent with the second principle of the Nuremberg Code, the directives for experimental human subject research, which are published at the Web site of NIH.

The principle reads simply, ``The experiment should be as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.''

Or as President Clinton's National Bioethics Advisory Commission said, ``In our judgment, the derivation of stem cells from embryos remaining following infertility treatments is justifiable only if no less morally problematic alternatives are available for advancing research.''

Well, we know they are. We talked about, before the House debating the bill earlier this year, the study published in Nature Biotechnology Journal, finding that amniotic fluids contain cells that can be cloned to produce stem cells to behave like embryonic stem cells.

We had today's article referring to the Nature Journal, publishing a study, showing that normal skin cells can be reprogrammed into an embryonic state in mice.

Instead of embracing this, we hear from the gentlewoman from Colorado, her words, shockingly, another scientific result reported yesterday. They seem to always come up whenever we're debating the bill. They are because that's what science is doing.

Vote this bill down.

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