Interesting and illuminating AP article about where Hillary and Bernie were situated on stem cell research and biomedical research issues while they were both in Congress. Hillary was strongly for stem cell research, and supportive of cloning
Clinton, Sanders had opposing views on biomedical research
By KEN THOMAS
Associated Press
Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were on opposing sides of certain types of biomedical research while they served in Congress, differences that have gained notice by scientists and advocates on the forefront of stem cell research.
Clinton has pointed to her advocacy for groundbreaking medical research, from her push for more dollars as a New York senator for the National Institutes of Health to her long support for stem cell research that could eventually lead to regenerative medicine.
Sanders, a Vermont senator, has supported stem cell research in the Senate. But advocates within the scientific community cite his voting record in the early 2000s in the House when he repeatedly supported a ban on all forms of human cloning, including one called therapeutic cloning intended to create customized cells to treat disease.
Supported banning cloning stem cells? Why? What would make Bernie Sanders vote against, and even advocate BANNING all forms of human cloning?
"We were looking for signs that he is going to be a supporter of what science and technology can do and I think everyone in the country ought to be worried about that," said Dr. Harold Varmus, the Nobel Prize-winning former NIH director under President Bill Clinton.
"I am quite concerned about his stance on these issues," Varmus said. "This is a litmus test. It was 10 years ago — it's still a test that he failed in the view of many of us."
Bernie decided to go against the scientific community on that one, and it is apparently still a sore spot with some in the research community when it comes to trusting Bernie to do the right thing for scientific stem cell research.
While serving in the House, Sanders voted to ban therapeutic cloning in 2001, 2003 and 2005 as Congress grappled with the ethics of biotechnology and scientific advances. Patient advocacy groups note that Sanders co-sponsored bans in 2003 and 2005 that included criminal penalties for conducting the research and opposed alternatives that would have allowed the cloning of embryos solely for medical research.
Clinton, meanwhile, co-sponsored legislation in 2001 and 2002 in the Senate that would have expanded stem cell research and co-sponsored a bill in 2005 that would have banned human cloning while protecting the right of scientists to conduct stem cell research.
Sanders said following a vote in 2001 that he had "very serious concerns about the long-term goals of an increasingly powerful and profit-motivated biotechnology industry." In a later vote, he warned of the dangers of "owners of technology" who are "primarily interested in how much money they can make rather than the betterment of society."
Gunnels said that "therapeutic cloning is a good thing, but only with proper oversight and regulations. The reality is that the corporate biotechnology industry is motivated almost exclusively by their quest for short-term profits and higher stock prices. There must be proper oversight over this industry."
Bernie voted against any kind of therapeutic cloning of stem cells while he was a House member, from 2001 through 2005, while Hillary went the exact opposite way, supporting therapeutic cloning whenever it came up, co-sponsoring legislation that would allow such research.
Some advocates for stem cell research said that overlooked the potential benefits of finding possible cures to Alzheimer's, Lou Gehrig's and other fatal or disabling diseases.
"Sanders and (then Republican House Majority Leader Tom) DeLay — some unlikely group — were just unyielding and they were part of the religious right's attempt to shut down this whole critical new frontier of therapy for chronic disease," said Robert Klein, chairman of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
"It's fine to say you're for stem cell research but you vote against it and you vote against all therapeutic application, it doesn't mean anything to say you're for it," Klein said. "Fine, he votes for it years later when it's more popular and the pressure is off. We needed leadership then."
Embryonic stem cells are master cells that can turn into any tissue of the body and researchers hope one day to harness that power for what's today typically called "regenerative medicine." Initially, they were derived by using leftover embryos from in vitro fertilization clinics.
Therapeutic cloning is another method of deriving those cells.
Hillary had this to say in an interview with the New York Times:
Clinton Says She Would Shield Science From Politics
In a stinging critique of Bush administration science policy, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York said yesterday that if she were elected president she would require agency directors to show they were protecting science research from “political pressure” and that she would lift federal limits on stem cell research.
….
Others complain that the administration has made science policy decisions on grounds that are not scientific. In particular, critics cite the president’s decision, in August 2001, to limit federal financing for research involving human embryonic stem cells to cell lines already in use at the time.
The research is thought to have great potential in developing treatments for a range of diseases, but opponents of abortion rights object to it, because the cells are produced through the destruction of human embryos.
For example, she said, the use of embryonic stem cells to create tissue whose DNA is identical to that of an ailing person, a process called therapeutic cloning, “is within the ethical framework.”
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In the case of therapeutic research Bernie sided with the religious nuts in Congress who think that human cloning, even down to the DNA level, and even of stem cells that were ALREADY there, ALREADY had been developed, is immoral, “against God’s will”. But for different reasons. Apparently his objection stemmed from the belief that there was a profit motive behind such research. But, is “profit” really a good enough reason to stop and block such important and vital research,? Research, that if allowed, could have saved lives earlier, would have us on the path to developing certain cures much sooner?
Bernie seems to subscribe too often to “purity” concerns over the “greater good,” this is but one example. Blocking very important stem cell research only because the researchers might profit from it seems like a way to cut off your nose to spite your face. Perhaps there was another, better reason for this alliance with Tom DeLay and the religious right on this research aspect, because merely the notion that “profit” was involved in any shape in this research does not seem like a good enough reason to ban human cloning outright, especially if is used for stem cell research. Perhaps there was a better explanation given, if so I will certainly add it to this diary.
I think some of the distinctions between the candidates are important to investigate, and in this case Bernie took the wrong path while Hillary took the Progressive position.
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Harold Eliot Varmus (born December 18, 1939) is an AmericanNobel Prize-winning scientist and was the 14th Director of the National Cancer Institute, a post to which he was appointed by President Barack Obama.[1] He was a co-recipient (along with J. Michael Bishop) of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovery of the cellular origin of retroviraloncogenes. He is currently the Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and a Senior Associate at the New York Genome Center.
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Robert Nicholas "Bob" Klein II, 61, is a stem cell advocate. He initiated California Proposition 71, which succeeded in establishing the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, of which Klein is now the head.