Dems Respond to Stem Cell Decision
Gretchen Carlson interviews Rep. Bradley Sherman, Democrat of California about reaction to President Bush’s stem cell research decision:
GRETCHEN: Congressman Sherman, I know that after the president gave his speech, you were on the phone, on a conference call with other democrats. Can you give us a sense of what the consensus was during that conversation?
REP. SHERMAN: Well, I think the consensus was that the President did a good job of explaining why this research is so important to so many American families. Then we were disappointed that he has put a straitjacket on that research. And we want to do everything we can to get people to talk to their individual members of Congress and to say that we need to take that straitjacket off the research because so many families have someone who is subject to heart disease, Parkinson’s, diabetes, or spinal cord injury, and we need the best research we can do.
GRETCHEN: When you talk about a straitjacket on the research, you’re talking about the fact that he’s only authorized federal funding for 60 cell lines. Tell me why you don’t believe that’s enough.
REP. SHERMAN: Well, first he says there are 60 cell lines. The reports we’re getting indicate that there may be only 20 or 30 at the most that are viable. And even if they’re viable now, in a year or two they may not be viable. Even with that, you get the kind of genetic diversity – When we test a drug, we tend to test it on thousands or people, and then we have subsets, so we can say, is this effective on men, is it effective on women, is it effective on people with this or that cultural or racial background? And when you talk about perhaps only a dozen or two dozen stem cell lines, one wonders whether there is going to be that diversity that would allow you to work on sickle cell anemia or other diseases that affect African-American families, or even whether you’d have the diversity to deal with diseases that effect all racial or ethnic groups. To do this right, we should be allowing science to go forward, especially if the only impediment is to make use of these frozen tissues that would otherwise be thrown away.
GRETCHEN: I guess from the Democratic point of view, the decision could have been a lot worse. Is this better than nothing?
REP. SHERMAN: It’s certainly better than nothing. And it will certainly allow some research to go forward. And you in the news media will be able to take a picture of the research that goes forward. You won’t be able to take a picture of the research that isn’t happening, or the people that aren’t benefiting from the research that didn’t occur.
GRETCHEN: Obviously, this won’t be the end of this issue, because as you know, it’s been going on for several years now, and it will continue to develop. It’s just the beginning as far as you’re concerned politically? What could happen i Congress, now, after the president has made his decision?
REP. SHERMAN: This is a relatively illogical position that the President has taken. He’s saying that if a stem cell line was created from a frozen embryo, last month, that that’s good, that’s usable. But if the exact same thing is done by the exact same people, in the exact same way, in the exact same laboratory next month, that that’s unusable, somehow immoral. I don’t think that that’s going to appeal to people long-term. What we need to do in Congress is to reverse the President’s decision by legislation. And if people listening to this broadcast and others will contact their members of Congress and say, “we need to allow this research to go forward. We need everyone who’s in a wheelchair now to have the best possible chance of being able to walk”. If my colleagues hear from their constituents, we’ll be successful.
GRETCHEN: Thank you very much, Congressman Sherman, joining us from California.