To the Editor:
Professor Green is quite right about the importance of the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act ("Professor Advises Senate on Stem Cells," July 21).
Although a narrow window of opportunity, allowing funding for only frozen embryos already slated for destruction, it is still a substantial step forward.
All of us know a person with an incurable illness or injury -- an estimated one hundred million Americans have such chronic conditions -- people like my son, paralyzed in a football accident, almost eleven years ago.
California passed a small law named after our son, the Roman Reed Spinal Cord Injury Research Act. Because of that funding, on March 1, 2002, at the University of California at Irvine, I got to hold in my hand a rat which had been paralyzed, but which now walked again, through the injection of human embryonic stem cells.
The Enhancement Act will allow more stem cell lines, and more progress toward the day when doctors will never again tell a patient: "there is no hope."
Senator Frist should allow an up or down vote on the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act.
