I don't know about you but in this house we
feel like the Munchkins singing when Dorothy's house fell on the Wicked Witch of the East. It isn't because we are positive that stem cells will hold a cure for Parkinson's disease, although we are pretty sure that many conditions will find a resolution as a result of research in this area. It is because we feel that we have been pulled from the dark age cycle of provincial mentality. The USA can reenter an age of competitive research internationally.
President Obama issued an executive order to lift the Bush ban on Federal support for embryonic stem cell research. While scientists say stem cell research will lead to many medical breakthroughs, many religious groups oppose the research. The awful irony is that the readily available embryonic stem cells which were so protected were never going to be used. They became part of a confused, misguided, mean-spirited religious and political processional to the trash pile. And the life potential of so many people who will perish because a cure hasn't been found in time became just another ignored member...until now.
Obama promised to "vigorously support" new research. The Bush ban had prevented federal funding for any research on embryonic stem cells created after August 2001. Obama is showing that his administration is not going to allow the political and religious interference into scientific research that has frustrated sufferers of chronic diseases for the last 8 years. Neurological Diseases such as Parkinson's, Multiple Sclerosis (MS), ALS, Type 1 Diabetes, Duchenne and Becker Muscular Dystrophy (DMD and BMD) might have have been far closer to a cure without Bush's simplistic interference.
Now that the executive order is issued the National Institutes Of Health will need about a year to rewrite the regulations and guide lines, before federally funded ESC research can begin again.
Join us in reading the entire Executive Order
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Removing-Barriers-to-Responsible-Scientific-Research-Involving-Human-Stem-Cells/
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