![]() “Even though I sit here in a wheelchair, frustrated by today’s public policy, I’m very hopeful about tomorrow and what will be achieved,” Reeve said. … If you really want to heal people, you go where the work is being done. He called stem cell research “the future of science.” “There’s going to be a seismic shift,” Reeve told an audience composed largely of medical and doctoral students, “and you will ride the wave into an era when stem cells will be able to aid millions of people.” He urged the audience to “make it happen here,” but advised young scientists to leave the United States and pursue the research elsewhere, if necessary. Reeve rejected the implication “that science has no ethics and that it will run rampant if religion and conservative ideologies aren’t brought into the picture.” Reeve made a distinction between reproductive cloning of human beings (which “sounds like Frankenstein’s work,” and which he opposes) and cloning stem cells from embryos and adult tissues for research. President Bush has followed his ruling on stem cells with a call for a ban on all forms of human cloning, whether therapeutic or reproductive. Christopher Reeve spoke out forcefully and often about the need for stem cell research, and he is credited with helping make it a major issue in the presidential campaign. “They know very well that you can’t go to a couple and say, ‘You can’t have a child this way.’” Reeve noted that, although typically about a third of embryos are discarded as medical waste, even vocal opponents of using embryos for research have never suggested banning in vitro fertilization. seeking out innovative doctors around the world and the approval of stem-cell research in. Did he suddenly develop a new morality effective August 10th?” Christopher Reeve gets a kiss from his son Will on a '20/20' special interview on September 29, 1995. “Those lines were derived from leftover embryos from infertility clinics. Zerhouni, M.D., acknowledged that only 11 of those lines were eligible for federal research funds.) Reeve suggested that the decision made no ethical sense in light of Bush’s objection to using embryos for research. (Last May, National Institutes of Health Director Elias A. In a talk sponsored by the Yale Stem Cell Interest Group, Reeve criticized President Bush’s order of August 9, 2001, restricting federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to only 64 extant cell lines. Reeve also hopes that stem cell research will lead to a cure for paralysis such as his, the result of a 1995 riding accident. Yet religious conservatives, including the Pope, he said, “have an undue influence in the debate.”īecause of their plasticity-their ability to differentiate into any cell in the human body-stem cells “have unlimited potential to cure disease,” Reeve told the crowd that filled the auditorium of the Anylan Center for Medical Research and Education. “When matters of public policy are being decided, no religion should have a seat at the table-that is what is provided for in the Constitution,” Reeve said. “We’re going to lose incredibly valuable time. “We’re giving away our pre-eminence in science and medicine,” he said. When cancer is confined to the lung, the survival rate after five years is 49 percent but only 2 percent live five years if it has spread to other organs.Social and religious conservatives have robbed American scientists of their chance to play a leading role in the promising field of stem cell research, actor and writer Christopher Reeve said during a visit to the medical school in April. (AP Photo/Stuart Ramson, FILE) Stuart Ramson / AP 9, 2005, that she been diagnosed with lung cancer, and is currently undergoing treatment. Last week, he attended a conference in the US where. The widow of actor Christopher Reeve confirmed in a statement Tuesday Aug. Christopher Reeve, the actor who played Superman, has been actively endorsing embryo stem cell research. Christopher Reeve poses for photographers with his wife Dana as he arrives at the 13th annual Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation gala event in New York, in this file photo. Scott Swanson, chief of thoracic surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan, said that depending on the extent of the cancer, Reeve would be treated with surgery, chemotherapy, radiation or a combination. She did not say where she is being treated.ĭr. The Reeves have a 13-year-old son, Will.ĭana Reeve, chairwoman of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, said Tuesday that her lung cancer was recently diagnosed and is being treated, but she did not reveal the extent of the cancer or her prognosis, except to say that she and her doctors were optimistic. ![]() ![]() ![]() “As always, I look to him as the ultimate example of defying the odds with strength, courage, and hope.”Ĭhristopher Reeve, the star of the “Superman” movies who was paralyzed in a horse-riding accident in 1996, died last year. ![]() “Now, more than ever, I feel Chris with me as I face this challenge,” said the 44-year-old actress. ![]()
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