Dear Editor:
In a report in the New York State Right to Life newsletter, an article states that California has shifted from embryonic to adult stem cell research.
In 2004 that state’s government passed the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative (Proposition 71). It gave $3 billion for research to find medical use for stem cells harvested from human embryos killed by the procedure.
The institute’s work over those five years bore no fruit. Now the institute is diverting funds from embryonic to adult stem cell research. Already dozens of treatments and some cures have been produced for illnesses from spinal cord injuries to Alzheimer’s and Type 1 diabetes.
The article also quotes Kathleen Gilbert, writer for LifeSiteNews.com:
“Although scientists and pro-life advocates have denounced the dead-end science of embryo research for years, the political and ethical furor surrounding embryonic research appears to have obscured the undeniable superiority of adult stem cells’ track record. Not only have adult stem cells already produced dozens of treatments, but embryonic stem cells have been proven prone to multiply out of control, causing tumors and are less easily cultivated into specific types of tissue than their adult counterparts.”
New York State should follow. If not a matter of mercy for unborn children, at least fiscal responsibility and concern for directing taxpayers’ money into something that actually works should force New York to discontinue spending on random stem cell research and save millions by not following through with the Empire State Stem Cell Board plan to pay women for eggs to be used for lethal research.
Please contact Sens. Schumer and Clinton and Rep. Hinchey with this information and urge them to stop wasting your hard-earned money on research that the evidence proves doesn’t work.
PAULETTEFREUNDORFER