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Contacts:
Jaillene Hunter (Weldon), 202 225-3671
Matt Lloyd (Pence), 202 225-3021 For
Immediate Release Treatments
today or hope for tomorrow? Congressmen
say adult stem cells offer both Senators,
celebrities make the wrong choice, ignore today’s treatments, risk lives “We will hear from
celebrities and Senators this week that this debate is between science and
ideology – that destroying human embryos for research is necessary to cure
a whole host of maladies from spinal cord injuries to Parkinson’s Disease.
But the facts suggest otherwise. To date, embryonic stem cell
research has not produced a single medical treatment, where ethical, adult
stem cell research has produced some 58 medical miracles.
This isn’t about science versus ideology, it is about what has been
proven to work and what has not,” said Congressman Pence. ”As a physician, I know
first-hand the promise actual treatments give patients over empty hopes of a
‘possible’ treatment. Currently all embryo stem cell research is
offering to people afflicted with diseases is an empty promise and it is
irresponsible to ignore the treatments that are taking place today when
Senators and celebrities talk about stem cell research,” Congressman
Weldon said. “We
support stem cell research. This
isn’t pro-science and anti-science, as some speaking today suggest.
We just want to know why we should divert resources away from
treatments that are saving lives today and spend it on research that might
never treat anyone for anything. These
celebrities and Senators are off-base. Their
claims, both about their science and about those who oppose them, are
misleading and offer false hope to hurting families,” said Congressman
Pitts. In theory, embryonic stem
cells could one day be used to treat diseases. In reality, they have
treated none and have made very little progress in research done on animals.
In contrast, stem cells
can be found without destroying human embryos. Stem cells are
currently being found in human tissue like: umbilical cord blood, fat,
teeth, hair follicles, spleen, nasal cavity, bone marrow, and many others.
These stem cells have been used to treat fifty-eight diseases
including Parkinson’s Disease and diabetes. Adult
stem cells treating diabetes Using
adult stem cells, Denise Faustman at Harvard has reversed diabetes in an
animal model. Her work, rejected
by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), has been approved by
the FDA for human clinical trials. Recent studies have shown that adult
islet cells can be donated from live donors for patients, opening up many
more possibilities for transplants. Using
this technique, a mother donated cells for her diabetic daughter,
alleviating the diabetic symptoms (Matsumota S et al.,“Insulin
independence after living-donor distal pancreatectomy and islet
allotransplantation,” The Lancet,365,1642- 1644,7 May 2005.) Patient’s own stem cells treat Parkinson’s Dennis Turner suffered
with Parkinson’s Disease for fourteen years.
After years of medication and watching his condition worsen, he
received a treatment using his own stem cells.
In 2004, he told a Senate committee that he has experienced a
significant improvement in his condition as a result of the treatment. Five Parkinson’s
patients in another study experienced a 61 percent increase in physical
coordination and decrease in symptoms as the result of the injection of a
protein (Gill SS et al. "Direct brain infusion of glial cell
line-derived neurotrophic factor in Parkinson disease." Nature
Medicine 9. May 2003. 589-595). Adult stem cells form other types of tissues Supporters of destroying
human embryos for stem cell research claim that this research is better than
adult stem cell research. However,
recent advancements show that adult stem cells exhibit many of the same
characteristics and properties as embryonic stem cells, including the
ability to adapt into different types of cells (pluripotent). Dr. Douglas Losordo at Additionally researchers
have found that:
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