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| April 30th, 2002 |
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| HATCH MAKES THE
CASE FOR REGENERATIVE MEDICINE |
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Washington -- Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) today
announced his support of legislation promoting regenerative
medicine. His press conference statement follows:
In
the weeks ahead, the United States Senate will debate an issue
that is of extreme importance to millions of Americans
suffering from disease. The challenge before Congress is
twofold. We must craft a law to make sure that human beings
are not cloned. At the same time, we must not stand in the way
of scientific advances that hold the promise of treatments and
cures for literally millions of Americans.
At the
outset, I just want to read one letter I received from my
constituents – the parents of Cody Anderson in West Jordan,
Utah. This sums it up far better than I can:
Dear
Senator Hatch,
We would first like to thank you for
carefully studying stem cell research and coming out in favor
of it last year. We appreciate your taking the correct moral
stand on this very important issue. We now need you to
again lead the way on another important issue, the cloning
of human cells for research to cure the diseases such as
diabetes. Let us just share a little of our story of why this
is so important to our family.
I would first like to
start by telling you how I became familiar with diabetes. My
father was diabetic from the age of seven years old and by the
time I was four years old he had lost his sight. He never saw
my youngest brother. As we grew up we always knew that our
father was different but we learned to live with the disease.
We slowly watched more complications take shape because of the
disease. He eventually lost function of his kidneys and was on
kidney dialysis for 10 years. He eventually lost his left leg
below the knee, had two toes amputated from the right foot
because of poor circulation, had a colostomy, had his left eye
removed to relieve pain and pressure and in total had 28
surgeries just to keep him alive, all because of the
devastating effects of the diabetes. Finally on April 29,
1991, his heart
just stopped and he died at the age of 47.
The cause of death: diabetes.
I am now married and
have three children of my own and my worst fears came true on
June 9, 2000, when my youngest son Cody was diagnosed with
diabetes at the age of 2. The same disease that I watched
slowly take my father away from me at such a young age. Cody
has to have his blood sugars tested at least 6-10 times daily.
He is on an insulin pump and has to have his site changed 3 to
4 times a week. We have to know every bite of food that he
eats and how many carbohydrates each bite has so we can figure
the correct amount of insulin to give him. Every day is
different depending on his activities for the day. A growth
spurt can throw everything off for days at a time. Something
as simple as the common cold can have devastating effects on
his blood sugars. The stomach flu is also something extremely
difficult
to deal with as well.
Not only does
diabetes affect Cody’s life but it affects the lives of our
entire family. My husband and I have to work opposite
schedules just because we don’t have anyone close by that can
watch Cody. Anytime Cody goes to a friend’s house for
playgroup we need to be where they can reach us at all
times because they don’t understand the simple basics of
taking care of a diabetic child.
With your leadership
on this issue, we can help people understand that cloning
human tissue for research has nothing to do with making carbon
"copies of people" or creating life. It is about saving human
lives and easing the pain and suffering of children like Cody.
Sincerely,
The Anderson Family
As a
father of six, and a grandfather of 20, when I read that
letter, it really tugged at my heartstrings. It pointed out so
clearly the challenge before us: to help families like the
Andersons, without sanctioning human cloning, which is
anathema to us all.
And so, I am pleased today to join
with my colleagues to announce agreement on legislation which
we hope will do just that: prevent human beings from being
cloned, but promote – with appropriate safeguards – the new
science of regenerative medicine.
This is not a
position that I reached easily. Indeed, my decision came after
countless hours of study, reflection and prayer. I consulted
as broadly as I could on this issue, talking with Americans
from all walks of life, scientific experts from across the
country, religious leaders and ethicists. I did all I could to
make sure I understood as completely as possible all the
issues at stake.
I met with proponents of this
research, such as Dr. Irv Weissman, who is with us today, and
with opponents, such as Dr. Leon Kass, the Chairman of the
President’s Bioethics Commission. And I have great respect for
the sincerity and decency of those who disagree with me.
After considerable time, thought and prayer, I
believed I knew enough to make an informed decision on this
issue. My study took me back to the books of the Old Testament
and forward to the latest issues of the New England Journal of
Medicine.
Once I identified and weighed what I
considered to be the relevant factors, the decision itself was
not a close call.
The first part of the legislation
was easy. There is near-universal agreement that attempts to
clone a baby should be stopped at all costs. This would
directly interfere with God’s sacred plan for human
reproduction by a man and woman within the bounds of marriage.
Accordingly, our bill will criminalize any attempt to clone a
human being.
The second part was the more difficult.
In addition to banning human cloning, our bill
advances the field of regenerative medicine by explicitly
authorizing – with appropriate safeguards – somatic cell
nuclear transfer or nuclear transplantation.
Let me be
clear. It was only after my colleagues agreed to include these
safeguards that I agreed to cosponsor the measure. It may be
that we need further clarification of these safeguards, and I
intend to work with my colleagues to make any necessary
changes as the bill moves forward. But, on balance, this is a
bill that I can support, and I will support given its enormous
importance.
We have with us today many distinguished
scientists who can explain nuclear transplantation far better
than I. The import of what they will say is that the process
of somatic cell transfer can be used as a potential source of
stem cells that are extremely useful in regenerative medicine
research.
One of the goals of regenerative medicine is
to learn how these undifferentiated stem cells develop into
the over 200 specialized cells and tissues that comprise the
human body. This knowledge could hold the key to understanding
much about human health and disease and may yield new
diagnostic tests and treatments to help all the Cody Andersons
of the world.
That is what this bill will do — promise
to help the 100 million Americans who are struggling with the
day-to-day challenges of currently incurable diseases. We are
talking about cancer, heart disease, diabetes, AIDS,
Alzheimer’s, ALS, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis and so many
other diseases. We are talking about our grandmothers and
grandfathers, our mothers and fathers, our children and our
grandchildren. We are talking about the people with whom we
work and worship, our friends in the neighborhood and our
colleagues at work. We are talking about each of us here in
the room today.
During this debate you will hear some
question whether we really need to conduct the type of
research our bill authorizes. Others will try to paint the
measure as pro-embryo destruction. Each of us must search our
own soul to come to grips with such fundamental questions as
when life begins.
We will ask our colleagues and the
public to listen carefully to what leading experts in science
believe. For example, a group of 40 American Nobel Prize
winners have written to Congress to ask us to support this
research. I will also make available today copies of a few of
the compelling letters I have received from Intel CEO Andy
Grove and the Director of the prestigious Huntsman Cancer
Institute, Stephen Prescott. We should listen to them and to
the clerical leaders and patient advocates who are with us
today.
I come to this issue with a strong pro-life,
pro-family record. But I also strongly believe that a critical
part of being pro-life is to support measures that help the
living.
Some, including many in the Right to Life
community, oppose this research on the grounds that the new
cell created in the laboratory becomes a new human life at the
moment it is electronically activated. That is a view I
respect, but with which I do not agree. At the core of my
support for regenerative medicine research is my belief that
human life requires and begins in a mother’s nurturing womb.
As I considered the ethical appropriateness of nuclear
transplantation in regenerative medicine research, two facts
stood out:
* The egg, with its nucleus removed, is
never fertilized with sperm;
* The resulting
unfertilized, electrically activated embryo will not be
implanted into a woman’s womb so there is no chance of a
birth. I should add that our bill would prevent implantation
into any type of artificial womb that may one day be
developed.
The absence of a fertilized egg coupled
with a legal prohibition against implantation leads me to
conclude that this research can be conducted, with appropriate
safeguards, in an ethically proper fashion.
Should we
continue other forms of stem cell research, such as adult stem
cell research? Absolutely. I hope that adult stem cell
research lives up to its promise. But should we cut off the
promising avenue that embryonic stem cell research holds out?
The answer to me is clear: no.
Americans deserve the
best treatments available. To ban human somatic cell nuclear
transfer research would be a tragic mistake. It could force
Americans to travel abroad to seek the latest treatments.
Prohibiting this research in our country could also drive many
of our young, talented scientists overseas. As we have done so
often in biomedical research, it is in the interest of our
nation to lead the way in this new field and to help set the
ethical and moral standards for the rest of the world.
Before I close, I want to recognize all the cosponsors
of this important legislation. Senator Specter and our
colleague, the Chairman of the Labor-HHS Appropriations
Subcommittee, Tom Harkin, have held 14 hearings that have
centered on the unprecedented promise of stem cell research. I
am also pleased to have worked with Senators Feinstein and
Kennedy in developing the legislation that is being introduced
today. Along with Senator Specter, they provided leadership in
this area by sponsoring earlier legislation that we build upon
today.
I am particularly pleased that Senator Zell
Miller joins us in this effort because he brings the
level-headed, pragmatic approach that we will need in this
debate. I also want to pay special recognition to Senators
Brownback and Landrieu; while my conclusion ultimately differs
with theirs, I respect their position and their work to bring
this crucial issue to the forefront of public debate. Let us
remember, we all have the same goal: we want to do what we
believe in our hearts is the right thing to do. We just
disagree.
Regenerative medicine is pro-life and
pro-family; it enhances, not diminishes, human life. If
encouraged to flourish, it can improve the lives of millions
of Americans and could lead to new scientific frontiers not
now in sight. I urge my colleagues in the Senate and the
American public to support this bill that opposes human
cloning but promotes regenerative medicine using nuclear
transplantation. Thank you.
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