Capitol spotlight shifts to adult stem cell bill
By Staff
March 21, 2006
JEFFERSON CITY – Sen. Matt Bartle, R-Lee’s Summit, is sponsoring a positive bill on healthy stem cell research – adult, as opposed to embryonic – in the Missouri General Assembly this year.
Bartle is handling Senate Bill 774, which Kerry Messer, lobbyist for the Christian Life Commission (CLC) of the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) calls “very significant legislation in light of the ethical issues surrounding human cloning and embryonic stem cell research.”
Bartle’s bill would provide funding for umbilical cord blood banks, which are one of the richest places to get adult stem cells. Adult stem cell research has proven to be successful in treating more than 65 illnesses. Embryonic stem cell research has provided no treatments.
“One of the big accusations that is thrown around in debates about embryonic stem cell research, or human cloning, is that we are opposed to research and helping people,” Messer said. “But what is often left out of these debates is the fact that there are two types of stem cells.”