It's the time for overriding the vetoes against Stem Cell research, every day more groups of patients who suffer diseases such as Parkinsons, Multiple Sclerosis, Cancer, Lukemia and SCI are requesting the approval for the use of Stem Cells for developing the very needed therapies that will cure paralysis and all the mentioned diseases.

The late Christopher Reeve, who believed that stem cell technology might treat his paralysis and worked hard for the issue is now being supported in this fight by Michael J. Fox... for us disabled people, they are also our voice and our hope.

Sandra Villanueva

Michael J. Fox urges Bush, new congress to pass stem cell legislation.

The Associated Press -The International Herald Tribune

November 11, 2006.

Actor Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinson's disease, urged President George W. Bush and the newly elected Democratic Congress to work together to pass legislation backing stem cell research.

Fox, 45, called on the Republican president to reconsider his policy of strict limits on federal government funding.

"President Bush has acknowledged that the people of America want change, and he has pledged to work with new Congressional leaders," Fox said in a statement released Friday. "He could take no stronger action than signing legislation that finally expands our nation's commitment to stem cell research."

Fox also thanked the incoming Democratic leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives, who won majorities in Tuesday's elections for indications they plan to pass laws to expand stem cell research.

"I would like to thank House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi and incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for stating that they intend to focus on stem cell research policy as one of their first priorities," he said.

Fox campaigned nationally for House and Senate candidates who support government-funded embryonic stem cell research, which holds a possible cure for Parkinson's, diabetes and other diseases.

One television ad for Missouri Democratic senate candidate Claire McCaskill, who supports stem cell research and went on to win the election, showed Fox rocking uncontrollably as a result of his disease.

Also on Tuesday, voters in Missouri cast ballots narrowly passed a ballot measure that ensures that embryonic stem cell research can be conducted in the state. Now research centers in the state are scrambling to recruit scientists with expertise in the field.

But Fox, who has set up a research foundation dedicated to finding a cure for Parkinson's, is urging action at the federal level. While U.S. law allows for embryonic stem cell research, the Bush administration has sharply restricted funding for research and has previously vetoed congressional legislation that would expand it.

Bush has said that he personally opposes any research that sacrifices embryonic life, even to save an existing person. In August 2001 the president limited federal funding to research on a few dozen stem cell lines that had been created up to that point.

The technique of using human embryos, known as therapeutic cloning or somatic cell nuclear transfer, involves replacing the nucleus of an unfertilized human egg with the nucleus from a skin or nerve cell. The altered egg then is stimulated to grow in a lab dish. Researchers remove the resulting stem cells, sacrificing the donor embryo in the process.

Many scientists insist research on embryos holds more promise than work on adult stem cells, which can develop into only a limited number of body cells and tissues. Embryonic stem cells have the potential of turning into any of the body's cell types.

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The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research