From Today’s Investor – Heaven forbid they celebrate the new stem cell breakthrough!
“John Edwards had a lot he wanted to say at the Democratic National Committee’s fall meeting on Nov. 30.
In a fiery speech, he ran down a litany of issues such as Iraq, health care and workers’ rights, going well over his allotted 10 minutes and stepping on the other presidential candidates’ time.
But as lengthy as his remarks were, there was one issue he never mentioned: stem cells.
He wasn’t alone. Barack Obama didn’t address the topic in his speech, either. Nor did any of the other candidates present. Stem cells also slipped the minds of DNC chairman Howard Dean and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
What’s more, nobody seemed to notice.
“Yeah, it didn’t come up,” shrugged Robert Asaro-Angelo, executive director of the New Jersey Democratic State Committee. The fact had not even occurred to him until someone else pointed it out.
The issue also went unmentioned during the NPR-hosted Democratic presidential debate on Dec. 4. Instead Iran, Iraq and immigration dominated the debate’s two hours.
A few weeks ago this would have been unthinkable. For years, Democrats have pushed the stem cell issue hard, making overturning the White House’s restrictions on federal funding a key part of their platform. Yet almost overnight the issue seems forgotten.
The reason is the publication last month of two scientific papers indicating that skin cells can be reprogrammed to act like embryonic cells, potentially eliminating the need for embryonic cells in the first place.
The results were splashed across major papers. “
Read the full story.
Author Profile
- Jennifer Lahl, MA, BSN, RN, is founder and president of The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network. Lahl couples her 25 years of experience as a pediatric critical care nurse, a hospital administrator, and a senior-level nursing manager with a deep passion to speak for those who have no voice. Lahl’s writings have appeared in various publications including Cambridge University Press, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News, and the American Journal of Bioethics. As a field expert, she is routinely interviewed on radio and television including ABC, CBS, PBS, and NPR. She is also called upon to speak alongside lawmakers and members of the scientific community, even being invited to speak to members of the European Parliament in Brussels to address issues of egg trafficking; she has three times addressed the United Nations during the Commission on the Status of Women on egg and womb trafficking.
