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the Stem Cell Page time and ignorance are the enemies |
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Welcome |
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Thank you for visiting. The intent of this site is two-fold. First, to provide informational resources that can help you better understand stem cells; what they are, what they do and why they're important. Second, to motivate you to help ensure that all forms of stem cell research to seek treatments and cures are available and protected by law. There are links here to numerous articles, multimedia files, and related web sites where you can find more information. Just click to learn.
I'm often asked why I take such personal interest in stem cell research. My mother suffered from strokes and heart attack. My father has had two different cancers, two heart attacks and now has kidney disease. My sister had polio at the age of two, shortly before the introduction of the vaccine. My brother suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, is wheelchair bound and requires 24/7 care. As the only one of the original five members of our immediate family that has not had a life threatening illness, I am the anomaly.
For me there is no moral dilemma regarding the utilization of frozen clusters of cells in petri dishes, currently awaiting destruction in IVF clinics, toward the goal of ending suffering or saving lives of people living among us. The notions of those who profess that these frozen cells must be “protected” by becoming trash instead of triumph, biohazard material rather than potential medical miracles, must be rejected. Moreover, choosing to not attempt to save lives using cells slated for discard should never be characterized as “pro-life.” In this case, it is a verbalized incongruity, which distills to misdirection shrouded by a political label.
To anyone who may yet be undecided on this matter, consider this situation:
There is a building ablaze, engulfed in flames. Brave firefighters have combed through the structure, searching for people to save. They think they’ve safely evacuated everyone when someone shouts, “There’s a woman in a wheelchair on the third floor!” Without hesitation, a firefighter rushes back into the inferno to save the woman.
Now I’ll alter that scenario, but just slightly. Imagine that same building, the same blazing fire and those same firefighters... only this time someone shouts, “There’s a frozen blastocyst in a petri dish on the third floor!” I have yet to encounter anyone who reasonably expects a firefighter to set foot back in that burning building in this circumstance. The reason is clear: Once rhetoric is brushed aside, the lives of the woman in the wheelchair and the firefighter hold an indisputably higher status than the cells in the petri dish.
As politicians debate, the clock continues to tick. Meanwhile, undue legislative tampering delays stem cell research. Worse yet, the potential discoveries of stem cell treatments and cures are postponed, perhaps for decades, while millions of Americans continue to suffer and die. We should ask our politicians to consider the ethics of that scenario, for therein lies the real question before them.
This web site is dedicated to Mom, Dad, Julie and Tom. I love you all. While it’s too late for Mom, I hope that in some small way this web site may disseminate a little more information, dispel another myth and mobilize a few more people to engage in helping the millions who stand to benefit from the miracles modern science can conceive, invent, discover and deliver.
With much hope,
Jeff Eisen
Editor and Publisher
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