Stem Cell Therapy
Stem cell therapy is no longer just a promise, it is a reality. Stem cells are currently being evaluated as therapeutic approaches for cancer, diabetes, heart disease, spinal cord injury and many other diseases in over 1,200 FDA-approved clinical trials and it is time for the public to know this. Many of these studies have reported exciting and encouraging data that indicate patients are benefiting from stem cell therapy. (See Stem Cell Basics) Equally encouraging is that the problem of immune rejection is avoided by using patients´ own stem cells. These experimental studies are under careful scrutiny, as in all clinical studies, to determine that each therapy is safe and that the benefits outweigh any risks.
These stem cell therapies also avoid the ethical and political controversy surrounding embryonic stem cell (ESC) research in which embryos are destroyed (See Stem Cell Debate). Adult stem cell therapy is already in Phase I, II, and III clinical research for over 70 indications with a few nearing the approval stage. Recent advances in which adult cells are used to create embryonic-like stem cells without using embryos (named iPS, induced pluripotent stem cells) offer an ethical alternative to ESC research. Playing down or under reporting the clinical progress being achieved with adult stem cells while making exaggerated and distorted claims about ESC cruelly deceives patients and the public.
Advancement of Stem Cell Therapy
Funding is always assured when there is real progress and therefore, real HOPE. For those of us who have loved ones afflicted by cancer, spinal cord injury, Alzheimer´s, or heart disease there is little consolation in the unproven hypothesis of potential cures when patients can learn about clinical trials, treatments, and yes, cures that are happening right now. We, therefore, want to support, monetarily or otherwise, that promise which is REAL HOPE, and that real hope currently lies in Adult Stem Cell Research.
Citizens for Science and Ethics was founded to
- Pass the Constitutional Amendment (Petition) that "no revenue of the state shall be spent on experimentation that involves the destruction of a live human embryo".
- Defeat the effort to pass a constitutional amendment requiring the state of Florida to spend $200 million on embryonic stem cell research which requires destruction of a human embryo.
- Educate the public and political leadership on the promising, ethical research in the area of adult, cord blood, and placental stem cell research, and
- Encourage public awareness and discussion of ethical biomedical research and its impact on society.
Your Help is Needed
We need Floridians to act immediately to stop the use of our tax dollars for funding of unethical and clinically unproven experiments that entail the destruction of human life, endanger women´s health, and potentially delay cures from proven stem cell therapy. The power to keep cures on the fast track is in your hands!
Thank you for your support of the ballot initiative and any financial support of CSE education and awareness programs (Donate Now). An informed public and legislators will ensure that our tax dollars promote ethical research, protect human life, and provide awareness of clinical advances with adult stem cell research.
"The stem cell holds the key to the human body´s self-healing power. The ability to successfully pursue and realize the promise of stem cell research using adult stem cells, and umbilical cord blood cells or develop embryonic-like cells from adult cells renders pointless the ethically-questionable practice of harvesting embryonic stem cells from viable embryos"
Claire Thuning-Roberson, Ph.D. Chair,
Citizens for Science and Ethics