The Official Truth Squad
THE OFFICIAL TRUTH SQUAD -- (House of Representatives - January 10, 2007)
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Ms. FOXX. Thank you, Congressman Price, for yielding. And, again, thank you for keeping our Truth Squad together and making sure that we are here on a regular basis presenting the facts to people. That is what I think we have to do on this very, very important issue of stem cell research.
The people who are pushing for embryonic stem cell research and the media, I think, have very much misled the American public on this. They have not done a good job of educating people on this issue.
I had a chance last year to speak on this issue for quite a long time on the floor and got a lot of positive feedback from people saying this is the first time I ever had anybody really explain the difference in embryonic stem cell research and stem cell research. So I want to talk a little bit about that tonight, because I think that is one of the critical issues, and then I want to talk about the facts again. It really is important that we understand what the facts are as they relate to the difference between adult stem cell research and embryonic stem cell research, and I am going to probably repeat this several times because I think it is so important.
I have something that is not as good as the charts, but stem cell research treatments, adult stem cell research treatments, if you can see this, it says: ``Adult, 72; embryonic, 0.' That is the score. There have been 72 efficacious treatments that have come out of the research on adult stem cells, zero out of embryonic stem cells. In fact, all the research that has been done using embryonic stem cells have produced tumors and rejection, and no embryonic stem cell research has been allowed to be done on humans because of the very bad results that have come out of the research using embryonic stem cells.
Now, the other thing that people have been misled on is whether there is any embryonic stem cell research going on. There is embryonic stem cell research going on, but many people, including myself, object to the use of Federal funding when it involves the destruction of human life.
In 2006, NIH spent $38 million on embryonic stem cell research. You will never hear that coming out of the voices of the people who are pushing for embryonic stem cell research. They want the American people to believe that nothing is being done and that people who have debilitating diseases are being denied the opportunity for quick cures.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Approximately $200 million is being spent on human nonembryonic stem cell research: adult stem cells, cord blood, et cetera.
I am proud to be able to say that Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Dr. Tony Atala and his team of researchers have been able to show strong results in their work with amniotic fluid stem cells. That has come out this week and I have talked about it on the floor and we are going to continue to talk about it. I spoke to Dr. Atala just before I came over here tonight, and he wanted me to remind people of the real problems with embryonic stem cells and the fact that every time they have been used they create tumors, and they are rejected by the animals into which they are injected.
That does not happen when you are using a person's own cells or when you are using amniotic stem cells. That just is not happening with people.
So we need to make sure that people understand the difference because it is so easy for folks to talk about stem cell research, and they make folks like me look like we are mean and hateful people because we don't want to do this research that kills human life because they are saying that it is worth it to improve the lives of people with diseases.
But pro-life people support stem cell research. There is only one exception, we don't want that research to kill other human life. We don't think that is appropriate. Never in the history of this country have we allowed research to do that. We very strongly control research to make sure that human beings are not damaged by the research that is done.
In a former life I was a social scientist, and so I understand about the ethical way to do research. We have never done that in any other area, and yet it seems so easy for people to talk about doing embryonic stem cell research and destroying the embryos.
The national media and others have really ignored the scientific realities, and they fail to report that embryonic stem cell research is the less promising course of action that, in fact, ends life.
This negligence allows people who are suffering from diseases to develop false hope about possible breakthroughs by embryonic stem cell research. Again, just the opposite is true. Nothing positive has come out of embryonic stem cell research. Nothing. Zero.
But out of adult stem cell research, cord blood research, amniotic fluid research, we have, again, 72 good treatments that have come, and we will be expecting more of those. Every day we have breakthroughs in that area, and we will continue to have breakthroughs. But if we get distracted by taking money away from this very promising research and put it into this unethical research that destroys human life and holds very little promise, then that is where the real crime is, I think, that we are trying to take the money away from what is producing good results and put it into something that is not producing good results.
As I said before, no embryonic research has been done in humans because it is too dangerous. When it has been done in laboratory animals, there is no control over what happens. The stem cells develop in ways that can't be controlled. They create tumors. They are rejected, and it is all negative; and yet with the other, it is all positive.
I think when we have the vote on this issue this week, people have to keep this in mind. I hope that the citizens who in the past have not understood the difference in these issues, they have not understood the ethical issues or the scientific issues, will say to your Member of Congress, I now understand this better, and I want you to take the ethical route, the efficacious route, not the route that will create death to the embryos and not positive kinds of results.
I yield back to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Price) who is the official leader of our Truth Squad and helps us inform the American people at every one of these events.
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