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WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- After attending President Bushs
signing into law of the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act of 2005 (H.R.
2520/S. 1317), Richard M. Doerflinger, Deputy Director of the USCCB
Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, issued the following statement:
"This is wonderful news for the many thousands of suffering patients who
can benefit from umbilical cord blood stem cell treatments. We are grateful
to Congress and the President for enacting this legislation without further
delay.
"The House of Representatives passed Rep. Chris Smiths legislation, to
support and coordinate a nationwide public bank of cord blood stem cells,
almost unanimously on May 24. Yet this urgently needed life-saving
legislation was blocked for months in the Senate, held hostage to debates over
far more controversial and speculative stem cell research requiring the
destruction of human embryos. In the last days of this session the deadlock
was finally ended, and Congress agreed on the kind of stem cell treatments
that can begin saving patients lives here and now.
"As Cardinal Keeler, chairman of the U.S. Bishops Committee for Pro-Life
Activities, said in his July 11 letter urging Senate approval of this bill:
Umbilical cord blood stem cells have successfully treated thousands of
patients with dozens of diseases. They also exhibit properties once associated
chiefly with embryonic stem cells: They grow rapidly in culture, producing
enough cells to be clinically useful in both children and adults; they can
treat patients who are not an exact genetic match, without being rejected as
foreign tissue; and they seem able to produce a wide array of different cell
types.
"As Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus, how appropriate that we can
also celebrate the medical miracles made possible by cord blood retrieved
immediately after live births. Congress and the President have given a
wonderful Christmas present to patients in need."
The full text of Cardinal Keelers July 11 letter is available at
http://www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/bioethic/stemcell/keelercord.pdf.
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