Alternative Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies Enhancement Act

ALTERNATIVE PLURIPOTENT STEM CELL THERAPIES ENHANCEMENT ACT

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Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation does not advance potentially lifesaving stem cell research. Despite its nice sounding, albeit hard to pronounce, name, the bill simply tells the National Institutes of Health to continue doing what they are already doing. This bill really is here to serve as political cover so that opponents of H.R. 810, the Castle-DeGette bill, can claim that they did something. It is really both useless and superfluous.

Instead of spending our time debating bills that would not advance the science of stem cell research, we should be looking for real ways to promote this vital research. We should be empowering our scientists by opening up new resources and new opportunities for them to expand their research. We should be providing patients and families with real hope for the future, not passing empty bills.

Mr. Speaker, I am fortunate to represent the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where Dr. Jamie Thomson and his team were the first to derive and culture human embryonic stem cells in a laboratory. Embryonic stem cells open the possibility of dramatic new medical treatments, transplantation therapies and cures. But at 9 p.m. on August 9, 2001, the hope and promise of this embryonic stem cell research was greatly curtailed by the administration's restrictions on Federal research dollars for stem cells.

We need to end these irrational restrictions. We need to enact H.R. 810 into law. H.R. 810 is real progress, and it provides our scientists with the tools that they need to continue their life-saving research.

Please vote against the distraction before us right now.

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