Vote!

Stem Cell Research

I am doing something I've never done before. I'm asking you to vote based this November based upon your Senators and Representatives Votes for or against House Resolution 810 (Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005). As you may be aware, President Bush recently vetoed the bill that had easily Passed in both the house and the Senate. The Bill passed the House 238-194 and the Senate 63-37.

This is a serious issue.
"Lung cancer is expected to kill 162,000 Americans in 2006. Nearly 19,000 people will be diagnosed with brain tumors and nearly 13,000 will die from them, while ovarian cancer will kill more than 15,000 women this year."http://virtualtrials.com/news3.cfm?item=3651 That's a city the size of Des Moines dying every year, folks from just those three kinds of cancer. I think government statistics put the total from all cancer deaths at about 250,000 annually, but I don't have a link handy for that.

I recommend that you educate yourself on the stem cell issue by reading the following article recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/12/1189?query=TOC

Here is the text of the bill:

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_bills&docid=f:h810enr.txt.pdf


Everyone from the ultra-liberal Diane Feinstein to arch-conservative Trent Lott voted for the bill. Unfortunately, President Bush vetoed the bill basically citing three things:

1. Human Embryos are sacred and shoudn't be used for research.
2. That adult stem cells offer as much promise as embryonic stem cells.
3. That embronic stem cells have not shown much, if any promise.

To which the answers are:

1. The fertility clinics are currently throwing the unused embyros in the garbage. That proves life is sacred??!!
2 and 3. Read the New England Journal Article for a refutation of these arguments.

Here are the links for how each member of Congress voted:

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00206

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll204.xml

In Iowa, we do not have a Senate race this year (although for future reference Harkin voted for H.R. 810 and Grassley voted against it). Otherwise, in Iowa, its a straight party line vote with the Democrats in favor of H.R. 810 and Republicans against it. This includes the seat vacated by Jim Nussle (who voted against H.R. 810) with Democrat Bruce Braley in favor of H.R. 810 and Republican Mike Whalen stating that the veto of H.R. 810 was proper and that he doesn't believe in government funding of reasearch. Caveat: You should check on how your own representatives and senators voted on H.R. 810. As stated above, several Republicans did vote for H.R. 810 so if you're not in Iowa, you need to check for yourself on how he or she voted.

In all likelihood, anything that develops from this research will be too late to save me, but with 250,000 this deaths a year, this issue will affect everyone at some point in their life. While I've never been a one issue voter in the past, I believe that this issue is important enough to change my self imposed "vote for the best candidate" policy. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Tom