Monday, June 07, 2004

Safire, Reagan, and stem cells

In today's NYR Op-Ed, Safire write in "Reagan's Next Victory:"
The outpouring of respect and affection for Ronald Reagan--the principled president and principal Alzheimer's victim--may help resolve the impasse blocking greater federal support of the use of embryonic stem cells in biomedical research.

...

But Washington neither starts nor stops the progress of science. A Harvard biologist, privately supported, developed 17 new lines of cells and is making them freely available. South Korean researchers went further, extracting stem cells responsibly from a cloned human embryo. And now the state of California will vote in November whether to go deeper into debt with a \$3 billion bond issue to advance this biomedical research.

I understand a little of the pain Nancy Reagan is going through, and I sympathize. But may I point out that the art and science of cooking are also still developing, but we still refuse to make room in the kitchen for cannibalism?

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