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Contact: Maggie Goldberg
973-445-1921 mobile
April 11, 2002
Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research
Responds to President Bush:
Ban on 'All Forms' of Cloning Would Deny Hope to
Millions with Deadly Diseases
Washington, DC: The Coalition
for the Advancement of Medical Research (CAMR) - an alliance of
nationally-recognized patient organizations, universities,
scientific societies, and foundations - responded today to President
Bush's statement calling for a ban on "all forms of human cloning."
"We agree strongly with the President that human reproductive
cloning should be prohibited," said Michael Manganiello, President
of CAMR. "But it is unfortunate President Bush continues to link
reproductive cloning with therapeutic cloning. Somatic cell nuclear
transfer (SCNT) as scientists call it, or therapeutic cloning,
produces stem cells, not children. Nobel laureates, the National
Academy of Sciences, and virtually every scientist in the field say
the two are fundamentally different."
"I wish the president had heard the 100 million Americans who
could be helped by SCNT, this promising technology to create cells
for new treatments. Men, women and children with spinal cord injury,
ALS, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Rett syndrome, cancer, AIDS, diabetes
and many more conditions for which there is now no cure could be
saved by SCNT," said Joan Samuelson, President of the Parkinson's
Action Network. "The Brownback bill denies hope to people fighting
for their lives."
"There are profound differences between SCNT and the reproductive
cloning that we all oppose," added Elizabeth Johns Howard, mother of
Allison, who live with Rett Syndrome. "SCNT uses unfertilized eggs.
No sperm is involved. No embryos are ever implanted into a woman's
womb. Instead, SCNT researchers work with unfertilized egg cells
stored in a petri dish to produce stem cells to treat
life-threatening medical conditions."
Somatic cell nuclear transfer could allow a patient's own genetic
material to be used to develop stem cell therapies specifically
tailored to that individual's medical condition, thus not triggering
an immune rejection response. In other words, using SCNT could
repair patients with their own cells.
Given the scientific potential in this area, CAMR strongly
opposes any legislative or regulatory action that would ban research
related to SCNT. This includes criminalizing the research or the
researchers, and prohibiting the importation of therapies derived
from SCNT in other countries. 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.