Obama Lifts Bush's Strict Limits on Stem Cell Research (NY Times)
I'm sure you can imagine my interest and delight in learning that Obama overturned Bush's strict limits on stem cell research today. In 2001, Bush limited federal funding to a very small number of stem cell lines in existence at the time, more or less crippling stem cell research in this country in its promising infancy. Obama's Executive Order today reverses that 2001 Bush limitation and opens the door for federal funding into embryonic stem cell research to further explore the potential benefits that the science holds.
While I've always been supportive of stem cell research, when I learned that Gwendolyn, at 6-months-old, had a “common rare” genetic disease for which there is no treatment or cure and that her life expectancy will be more likely than not calculated in months, not years, my interest in stem cell research, its potential, and the limits that our government had placed on its advancement became infinitely more acute.
I fully support a measured, responsible approach to medicine and science and research in general; stem cell research included. I truly believe that through supporting forward thinking research and empowering not inhibiting these brilliant minds, viable cures and treatments for diseases and ailments that impact millions of people will be found. I'm not naive enough to believe that stem cell research is the silver bullet for all, but it could be for many, for some. And who knows what will or will not be learned through the process — I'd hate to not give researchers and the world a chance to find out.
I hold little hope that any of this will impact Gwendolyn's life. But, it is my mission to raise awareness about SMA and help, in some small way, advance SMA research so that future families impacted by SMA won't have to watch their children endure the horrible progression of this disease or count their children's lives in months. There are many promising, active fronts in SMA research. One of them, potentially stem cell research, holds the key to ending this disease once and for all. For that possibility alone, at least from where I sit, we must not continue to roadblock such promising research avenues.
I know that stem cell research is a lightning rod for ideological debate and I am tolerant of other points of view. I just hope for the sake of so many millions of people suffering from endless numbers of horrendous diseases and ailments, such as SMA, that we can work through these differences and find a responsible way to move forward; to unshackle the amazing research community in this country and allow it to do what it does best — what it has always done best. As the proud father of an amazingly precious 17-month-old baby girl who's life will be taken much too early by SMA, it's hard for me to understand how we can afford not to.
Obama's lifting of Bush's strict limits on stem cell research today is a small step in the right direction. Unfortunately, for millions of people around the world including my Gwendolyn and all of the SMA fighters, today we stand 8 years or 96 months behind where we should.