Mr. Speaker, it pleases me that I am able to speak to the Bill C-56 amendment where the words are inserted:
--this House declines to give second reading to Bill C-56, an act respecting assisted human reproduction, since the principle of the Bill does not recognize the value of non-embryonic stem cell research which has had great advancements in the last year.
This past weekend this very issue was brought to light through the Pembroke and area diocese of the Canadian Catholic Women's League. It brought forth the following resolution which bans human embryonic stem cell research.
Whereas The Canadian Government will soon formulate legislation on reproductive technologies including human stem cell research, and
Whereas the compelling moral, ethical and scientific issues surrounding embryonic stem cell research needs clear guidelines to avoid the dehumanizing and the utilitarian premise that the end justifies the means, and
Whereas human embryos, tiny human beings are being killed to obtain stem cells, and
Whereas killing of human life at any stage of development is intrinsically evil, and
Whereas no amount of public benefit can ever justify the deliberate killing of a human being, especially since the scientific literature demonstrates that stem cells from sources other than from human embryos are being used successfully for therapeutic benefit in human; therefore, be it
Resolved that the Ontario Provincial Council of the Catholic Women's League of Canada, in the 55 Annual Convention assembled, urge the Federal Minister of Health to formulate legislation which would ban human embryonic stem cell research under the Criminal Code of Canada, and be it therefore
Resolved that this resolution be forwarded to the National Council of the Catholic Women's League of Canada for consideration at the Annual Convention in 2002.
Submitted by Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, CWL Council.
Members of the regional council diocese are: president, Margaret Maloney; vice president, Andria Dumouchel; secretary, Inie Schlievert; treasurer, Silvia Smith; past president, Irene Perrault; and resolutions chair, Donna Shaddock. They will be bringing this forth and it will eventually reach the federal level. However, if the bill goes forth now, Canadians in this one area alone will not have had a chance to speak.
I would like to expound upon the issue brought forth by Wesley Smith and the conclusions drawn by the Catholic Women's League, that when research advances occur with embryonic stem cells, the media usually gives the story big treatment. Whereas when researchers announce even a greater success with adult stem cells, the media reportage is generally less intense and a stifled yawn.
As a consequence, many people in this country continue to believe that embryonic stem cells offer the greatest promise of developing the new medical treatments involving the human body cells. This is know as regenerative medicine. While in reality, adults and alternative sources of stem cells have demonstrated much brighter prospects.
This misperception has real societal consequences, distorting the political debate over human cloning and embryonic stem cell research and perhaps even affecting levels of public and private research funding that embryonic and adult stem cell research therapies receive.
For example, this media pattern was again very evident in the reporting of two very important research breakthroughs announced within the last two weeks. Unless people made a point of looking these stories, they might have been missed.
Patients with Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis have received significant medical benefit using the experimental adult stem cell regenerative medical protocols. These are benefits that the supporters of the embryonic stem cell treatments have yet to produce even in the animal experiments they have been doing. Yet adult stem cells are now beginning to truly alleviate the suffering in human beings.
We have celebrities like Michael J. Fox and Michael Kingsley really promoting embryonic stem cell research in the Washington Post and on Crossfire . Yet these major advances are being almost totally disregarded by the American press and less so by the Canadian press.
In case some members may have missed the story I will repeat it again. A man in his mid-50s had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease at age 49. The disease grew progressively leading to tremors and rigidity, especially in the patient's right arm. Traditional drug therapy did not help. Stem cells were harvested from the patient's brain using a routine brain biopsy procedure. They were cultured and expanded to several million cells. About 20% of those cells matured into dopamine secreting neurons. People suffering from Parkinson's disease are short of the neurotransmitter dopamine. In March 1999 these cells were injected into the patient's brain.
Three months after this procedure the man's motor skills improved by 37%, and there was an increase of dopamine production of 55.6%. One year after the procedure the patient's overall unified Parkinson's disease rating scale had improved by 83%. This was at a time when he was taking no other treatment for Parkinson's disease. That is an astonishing and remarkable success story. One would have thought that story would have set off blazing headlines across the country and around the world. Had the same treatment been achieved with embryonic stem cells we would have seen those headlines.
Unfortunately, reportage about the Parkinson's success story was strangely mooted. It is true that the Washington Post ran an inside the paper story and there were some wire service reports, but overall nobody has really heard about this.
Multiple sclerosis patients have also benefited from adult stem cell regenerative medicine. MS is an autoimmune disorder in which the patient's body attacks the protective sheaf surrounding the patient's neurons.
A study conducted at the Washington Medical Center in Seattle involved 26 rapidly deteriorating MS patients. First, physicians stimulated the stem cells from the patients' bone marrow to enter the blood stream. They then harvested the stem cells and gave the patients strong chemotherapy to destroy their immune systems.
Finally, the researchers reintroduced the stem cells into patients hoping they would rebuild healthy immune systems and alleviate the MS symptoms, and it worked. Of the 26 patients, 20 stabilized and six improved. Three patients experienced severe infections and one died.
This was a very positive advance offering great hope but rather than making headlines the test was lost. This test received less attention than the successful studies using animals on embryonic research. The Los Angeles Times and the New York Times ran articles but they were only minimal reports.
Meanwhile, in Canada younger MS patients whose disease was not as far advanced as those in the Washington study have shown even greater benefit from the same procedure. Six months after the first patient was treated, she was found to have no evidence of the disease on MRI scans. Three other patients have also received successful adult stem cell graphs with no current evidence of active disease.
The Parkinson's and MS studies have offered phenomenal evidence of the tremendous potential effects of adult stem cell research and the regenerative medicines offered.
It is worth underscoring and re-emphasizing the fact that adult stem cell research is providing cures. It is not necessary to go into the zone of creating life only to destroy it.