X-Message-Number: 21563 Date: Mon, 07 Apr 2003 12:25:40 -0700 From: James Swayze <> Subject: [Fwd: Healthcare] Note to Kevin Brown: I had to send this in this fashion because the mailer on the first attempt thought it exceeded the amount of previous message quoted material. Of course this never appeared on cryonet so something is lacking in the filter. "Congress.org" wrote: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Thank you for using Congress.org Mail System Message sent to the following recipients: President Bush Message text follows: James Swayze 11316 NE 189TH STREET BATTLE GROUND, WA 98604-7330 April 7, 2003 [recipient address was inserted here] [recipient name was inserted here], I am writing to urge you to support S. 303, the Human Cloning Ban and Stem Cell Research Protection Act of 2003. The bill was introduced in the Senate on February 5th, by Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Arlen Specter (R-PA), Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Tom Harkin (D-IA), and Zell Miller(D-GA). I strongly support the protection of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), also known as therapeutic cloning, which may prove to be a vital tool in allowing scientists to fully develop the promise of embryonic stem cell research. The bill would prohibit human reproductive cloning while preserving important areas of medical research. Stem cells derived from embryos have unique potential to improve the nearly 100 million lives of those Americans who suffer from devastating diseases and conditions, including juvenile diabetes, ALS, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, cancer and spinal cord injury. SCNT allows a patient's own genetic material to be used to develop advanced stem cell therapies. These therapies - including transplants and transfusions - would be tailored to match each patient's specific medical condition and dramatically reduce the possibility of causing the patient's immune system to attack and reject the therapy. The nation's leading scientists, including two prestigious committees of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association of the Advancement of Science, agree that SCNT technology should be permitted. Given the enormous scientific potential in this area, I ask you to show your support by co-sponsoring this important legislation, and to defeat any legislative or regulatory action that would ban research related to SCNT. I also urge you to oppose any legislation that would include a moratorium on SCNT research. A moratorium would only mean that important medical breakthroughs are put on hold indefinitely. People suffering from disease are told they will just have to wait for their cures. Many of these patients do not have time to wait and a research delay could be a death sentence. The men, women, and children who are suffering from life-threatening diseases are engaged in a race against time. It is our responsibility to make sure that they benefit as quickly as possible from the very best that science and technology has to offer. I wish to add a personal note. I am a quadriplegic. This means my hands are paralyzed along with 80% of my body but yet I manage to paint and type by stuffing brushes or typing sticks into my tightly fisted useless fingers. I have been so since 1979. I have survived assaults to my life and my body that have killed many. I once lost 11 units of blood dispersed over two surgeries a week apart performed on my hips to remove a conglomeration of errant bone growth that has further disabled me beyond my spinal injury. I went into shock from the blood loss occurring so rapidly that the refrigerated replacement blood had not enough time to warm properly. As to the bone disease I have the dubious distinction of having the worst case know, called Heterotrophic Ossification. It has fused my hips and once fused my right knee and pushed my right femur out of its hip socket and rotated my leg 90 degrees. This odd positioning hampers mobility and raises the risk of pressure sores by placing not well padded flesh in harms way from pressure of even simply lying one my bed. The knee was operated on to free it but has left a problem of recurrent bleeding that has not stopped in 2-1/2 years and is now under scrutiny for possible amputation above the knee. This coming possible amputation will be double amputation because you see I am also diabetic. I contracted the disease when my immune system succumbed to too many repeated assault from bladder infections. I am alive and safe for a time from the bladder infection problems only because I myself invented the alternative use of a coronary stint to hold open my urethra and allow voiding without the need of an internal catheter that had for 20 years promoted one infection after another. I suffered so many such infections that my right kidney succumbed to a bacterial and yeast combined infection and had to be removed. I suffer constant chronic pain. That would seem simple except that spinal cord injured persons suffer a special kind of extremely insidious pain called Autonomic Dysreflexia. This is caused when pain signals cannot be monitored and controlled by the brain due to the circuit being cut at the spinal cord. A hormonal response incurs that raises one's adrenaline levels dangerously and in kind also one's blood pressure. Mine has reached once as high as 300/150 for a cause as simple as constipation. It routinely reaches ranges near 240/112 and can change in mere seconds. I am because of this in constant danger of a cerebral vascular accident. I must suffer the insult of needing constant pain medication and in fact also have a subdermal pump that trickles a drug called baclofen into my spine. The interruption of this drug to my spine is fatal. Therefore I have a Sword of Damocles over my head should anything such as a simple failed battery occur to interrupt the flow of this drug. However, without the drug to control it I could not even sit still to write this letter for the constant every 3 seconds violent spasmodic muscle contractures my damaged nervous system inflicts upon me. Yet, Mr. President, I persevere. I have survived much and I still even after all these 24 years have hope for a cure to my many ills. You have the power to help keep my hope alive. Please support legislation that allows the widest freedom for scientific research. Please do not listen to the ignorant voices of luddism spurred by lack of proper scientific knowledge and superstition. Please don't kill my hope. Please don't kill me. I look forward to your support. James Swayze 11316 NE 189th Street Battle Ground, WA 98604 email: Sincerely, James Swayze _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Ok, you all know I cringe at having to support banning human cloning in order to support SCNT but that is where the fight is at for now, that is how it is being presented. Hopefully, someday more rational heads will prevail and overturn all bans to scientific research. Just wanted to share this with you all and urge you to get a letter off to your local rep. I'm not stopping there. As you can see this went to GWB himself. I also sent one to Cheney and the First Lady. I also intend to write every Senator and and House Reresentative whether for my local state or not. I started with the Senate Ethics committee today. This fight goes beyond local representation. It affects the whole world not just one's own state or even just the US. James -- Cryonics Institute of Michigan Member! The Immortalist Society Member! The Society for Venturism Member! MY WEBSITE: http://www.geocities.com/~davidpascal/swayze/ Signature Memetic Virus--The worst enemy of those who now or will need medical care is the politician and proselytizing religious bigot who proscribes what doctors are allowed to prescribe and research, with the consent of their patients. Those who understand this are strongly encouraged to modify this to fit their personality, and add this to their signature file, and organize to recover our freedom from Big Brother. For those who wait until they are sick, it will be too late. Those who suffer from diseases which might have been cured by fetal tissue research or schedule 1 drugs banned by Big Brother, have the right to hold accountable those who sat on their hands or worse, deferred their responsibility for personal and humanity's survival to useless gods and pontificating religious quacks, while they remained ill and dying. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21563