Editor,
Stem cell technologies are going to be in the forefront of medicine in the next three years.
State Sen. John Ryan's bill requires that research be done with embryos that are going to be thrown away anyway.
Further, there are ways of doing stem cell work without destroying embryos by a kind of genetic tweaking, which has been developed by Advanced Cell Technology of California and Massachusetts. Medical officer Robert Lanza was on the front page of hundreds of newspapers in the past few months in this regard.
It is not just research that the firm is doing. It has four major products in the pipeline in clinical trials right now - two that deal with regenerating damaged cardiac and retinal tissue.
Both the pope and Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, in the last two months, have spoken highly of this technology. This bill is a brilliant step in the right direction, and once New Mexico sheds the compunction of some to tie it to their religious concepts and flaunt the same in legislative debates, we might make real progress.
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New Mexico could become a center for real breakthroughs in stem cell technology and products. The bill will next move to House Consumer and Public Affairs, and then to the committee where your calls and letters will make a huge difference. The names of the members of the House Judiciary Committee are listed at the New Mexico Legislature Web site. Make sure to contact the members of the committee and let them know of your opinion if you are in their constituency.
Please let the committee members hear from you soon.
Stephen Fox
Daily Lobo reader
