For Immediate
Release:
March 5, 2002
Contact: Maggie Goldberg, 800-225-0292
Tricia
Brooks, 202-833-0355
Senators, Scientists, Join with Patient Advocates to Support
Promising Medical Research, Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (aka
"Therapeutic Cloning")
Christopher Reeve; Senators Kennedy, Specter, and Feinstein;
Nobel Prize Winner; Activists; and Parents Say SCNT Could Mean New
Treatments, Cures; Urge Senate OK
Washington, DC - Christopher Reeve, medical researchers,
and patient advocates, on behalf of the Coalition for the
Advancement of Medical Research (CAMR), joined today with Senators
Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Arlen Specter (R-PA), Dianne Feinstein
(D-CA), and others to urge the Senate to support an important
research pathway, somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), otherwise
known as "therapeutic cloning."
"SCNT gives hundreds of millions of people around the world who
are afflicted with a wide variety of diseases and disabilities
exactly the kind of chance that we need," said Reeve, Chairman of
the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, in remarks at a press
conference shortly before he testified at a hearing on SCNT by the
Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.
Senate leaders, patient advocates, and prominent scientists
support SCNT, because it could lead to new treatments and cures for
the more than 100 million Americans facing now-incurable illnesses
such as cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes, ALS, and spinal
cord injury. Although SCNT fundamentally is different from
reproductive cloning, drawing support from the National Academy of
Sciences and leading doctors and medical researchers around the
country, it would be banned under legislation that goes to the
Senate floor in a few weeks.
"For me, SCNT is about hope -- the hope that science may find a
way to help my two-year old daughter, who cannot walk, talk,
comprehend, or use her hands because she has the incurable genetic
disorder, Rett Syndrome," said Elizabeth Johns Howard, mother of
Allison, who spoke at the press conference.
Given the scientific potential in this area, CAMR strongly
opposes any legislative or regulatory action that would ban research
related to SCNT. However, CAMR does support efforts to prohibit
human reproductive cloning while protecting important areas of
medical research, including stem cell research.
The Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research (CAMR)
is comprised of nationally-recognized patient organizations,
universities, scientific societies, foundations, and individuals
with life-threatening illnesses and disorders advocating for the
advancement of breakthrough research and technologies in
regenerative medicine, including stem cell research and somatic cell
nuclear transfer-in order to cure disease and alleviate
suffering.