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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.