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Stemming the Tide
Rich Galen Monday August 01, 2005
The popular press was fully engaged, this weekend, in the Ren & Stimpy Dance of Joy over the news that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) had broken with President George W. Bush over the issue of stem cell research.
To listen to the news readers on cable, or to read the headlines in the weekend papers, you would have thought that (a) this was a new position for Frist and that, (b) President Bush has been opposed to stem cell research.
Guess what? Wrong-o.
On Fox yesterday morning, former Congressman Tom Downey was wringing his hands over the plight of those with diseases and conditions which might well be helped by breakthroughs in stem cell research.
I reminded Downey that his hero, Bill Clinton, had never asked for the first dime for stem cell research and that I didn't remember his proclaiming his solidarity with the world's Alzheimer's victims during that research blackout.
After I got home I got an e-mail from a viewer - quite possibly the only viewer - who took exception:
RE your comments about Bill Clinton not supporting stem cell research during your interview on Fox News today: Stem cells had not yet become a major factor in medicine during Clinton's reign. Your comment is like saying George Washington did not promote antibiotics!
To which I responded - in my usual placid manner:
That's crap. President Bush announced his decision [in] August, 2001 - six months after he took office. And, as you will remember, there were months of conjecture about what his decision would be. Are you suggesting that the whole issue of stem cell research was born, bloomed, and was decided upon in the few months between end of Clinton's "reign" [in January] and June?
To his great credit, my correspondent, Dr. Gordon Schaye, MD, actually did the research and sent a longish reply which is available on the Secret Decoder Ring page. The shorthand is this:
A bioethics council "concluded that the federal government should fund research on, and the derivation of, human embryonic stem cells, provided that only embryos leftover from fertility treatments were used."
This was in September 1999 - two years before President Bush's decision to fund stem cell research on existing stem cell lines.
Not only that, but the Congress passed a bill saying "no NIH funds can be used for any research involving the destruction of a human embryo." A prohibition which the father of stem cell research, Bill Clinton, signed into law.
Dr. Schaye ended his e-mail with: "Bush II did face the issue head-on."
My kind of guy. My kind of reader. My kind of doctor.
To Dr. Frist: I went to his Senate website and, sure enough, his statement on stem cell research was posted there (a link is also available on the SDR).
He refers to a floor statement on this issue which he made four years ago and specifically points us to point number five which read:
5. Provide Funding for Embryonic Stem Cell Research Only From Blastocysts That Would Otherwise Be Discarded
So this is hardly a new position for Frist. Not only that, but the first point in his proposal was:
Ban Embryo Creation for Research
In his statement last week, Frist pointed out that when President Bush announced his policy allowing for Federal funding of embryonic stem cell research,
"it was widely believed that 78 embryonic stem cell lines would be available for federal funding. That has proven not to be the case. Today only 22 lines are eligible. Moreover, those lines unexpectedly, after several generations, are starting to become less stable and less replicative than initially thought."
So, the daylight between the positions of President Bush and Senator Frist is much, much more narrow that the distance between the position of President Bush and that of President Clinton.
It would have been nice for the press corps to have done as much research as Dr. Schaye before they started their drumbeat of "Frist v. Bush."
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to Dr. Schaye's email and Dr. Frist's statement. The definition of a blastocyst, a Mullfoto, and a Catchy Caption of the Day.
--END --
Copyright © 2005 Richard A. Galen
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