First of all, seeing that we have this unique opportunity that you've granted us, I'd like to be very practical in the answer. JDRF's official position on stem cell research is that we do not want to see any areas of potential research leading to a cure be cut off. We recognize the issue that everybody has with embryonic stem cell research. What we're saying is that adult stem cells have yielded great potential as well. You folks are the parliamentarians who have to make those decisions. We are in agreement, and always have been, with the Canadian position. We made that position clear prior to the passage of the current legislation.
I'd like to add one further point, if I may. Without the concept--the word is “concept”--of cell regeneration, which came from this huge time-bomb of an issue called stem cell research, our researchers did not have the ability to think of the body regenerating its own ability to take care of itself, if I can put it that way. What was not known before the area of stem cell research was first delved into is that the pancreas in fact still produces islet cells, and those very few islet cells, which are not sufficient to take away type 1 diabetes from any of us who have to take insulin, may be capable of regenerating themselves.
In fact, at our JDRF research centre in Canada there is currently research going on in Montreal on a very specifically identified portion of the islet that seems to be the button you push to make islets replicate. The goal of that research is to make someone's own islets reproduce within their own bodies. That is a step beyond what you've referred to, Mr. Fletcher, which is stem cell research. I would just like to point out already what tangible research progress has resulted simply from the idea that stem cell research has been carried out.