Alternative Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies Enhancement Act
ALTERNATIVE PLURIPOTENT STEM CELL THERAPIES ENHANCEMENT ACT -- (House of Representatives - July 18, 2006)
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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding and for her great work on this issue.
The real debate here today in Congress is about whether or not the President is going to veto the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act.
What the Republicans have done is to bring out so many red herrings that we might as well put an aquarium out here in the well of the House. It is to distract. It is to divert.
The central issue is whether or not this body this week is going to vote for a victory for science, a victory for progress, a victory for millions of Americans who are struggling to survive in the face of a devastating disease. This bill, as it passes the House and has already passed the Senate and we vote on it later on this week, is a magnificent milestone in our journey to realizing the life-giving potential of stem cells. Twenty-one million Americans have diabetes; 4.5 million Americans have Alzheimer's; 1.5 million Americans suffer from Parkinson's disease; and more than 1 million people in our country have muscular dystrophy. You can go down the list: spinal cord, heart disease. You can go through all of those diseases. Just take one, Alzheimer's. By the time all of the baby boomers have retired, 15 million Americans will have had Alzheimer's, 15 million baby boomers.
Embryonic stem cell research is one of the most promising paths to the treatment and cure of all of these devastating diseases.
Nevertheless, President Bush is now threatening to use his very first veto to prevent scientists from using Federal funds to search for these cures. He is threatening to use his very first veto to dash the hopes of patients and their families.
Research is medicine's field of dreams from which we harvest the findings that give new knowledge to the causes, the treatment and prevention of disease and the development of cures. Hope is what this debate is all about. Hope is the most powerful four-letter word in the English language, and I have no doubt that, in the end, hope is going to win.
But if we don't, if President Bush is successful, we will be snuffing out that flickering candle for medical cures that has just been lit. We will be condemning the afflicted to another generation of darkness. We will be ending the hope for a child with muscular dystrophy, who can't understand why his body is getting weaker while his friends are getting stronger, a veteran with spinal cord injury, a spouse who watches her husband lose his memory.
Let us not let President Bush veto hope. Let us not let President Bush veto hope. We must not let President Bush veto hope.
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