Florida Fights Back!

BREAKING NEWS: Campaign Launched to Put Stem Cells on Florida Ballot

--->Print and Sign the Petition NOW!<---

Palm Beach County Commissioner Burt Aaronson has organized an organization "Floridians for Stem Cell Research & Cures" which will put stem cell research funding on the Florida ballot in September, 2006. He is being helped by a range of Florida leaders, including Bernie Siegel, a hero of the stem cell movement who has been a great friend to StemPAC.

Stempac urges our community to back this important effort in this critical state. Here is what you can do right now :

  1. Sign the petition by clicking here. When you're done, print it out and mail it to:
    Floridians for Stem Cell Research and Cures, Inc.,
    c/o Weiss, Handler, Angelos & Cornwell, P.A.
    One Boca Place, 2255 Glades Road, Suite 218-A
    Boca Raton, Florida 33431;
  2. Sign up using the form to the right. Let Commissioner Aaronson know that you support this effort;
  3. Tell a friend: Spread this page to as many people as possible, especially those in Florida;
  4. Write a letter to the editor: If you are a Floridian write a letter to your local newspaper telling them that you support the initiative of the Floridians for Stem Cell research & Cures to place stem cell research funding on the Florida ballot. Most importantly, send your letter.  (Be sure to include your phone number; they won’t call you, but it lets them know you are a real person.) You will find their email and groundmail addresses in the contact section of their website, or the paper itself.  Not sure what to say?  Scroll down, and use some of the "Top 20" reasons to support stem cell research in Florida. 

This effort is just starting out, but may well turn out to be the most exciting and important stem cell battle of 2006.   Please sign up to the right, and we'll keep you posted as things develop.

Top 20 Reasons to Support Stem Cell Research in Florida

Our good friend Don Reed has supplied us with some important points that can go into your letter to the editor. Please consider:

  1. Pro-life Senators like Orrin Hatch of Utah are proud to support embryonic stem cell research. "After careful consideration, thought, prayer, and study, this pro-life Senator has concluded that federal support of embryonic stem cell research is appropriate...consistent with pro-life and pro-family values. I believe that life begins in a womb, not a Petri dish...The research holds promise for more than 100 million Americans suffering from a variety of diseases…--Newsroom, the Senator's Press Releases.
  2. Stem cell research matters to all, but most especially those over sixty. "Stem cell research is important to the elderly. Unlike young people who feel immortal, those of us faced with fading hearing and sight, skipping memories, struggling hearts, and the terror of cancer and degenerative diseases...we don't want to see biomedical research slow down..." Dr. Wise Young, M.D., Time Magazine Scientist of the Year.
  3. Public funding for stem cell research can help Florida take her rightful place at the front of the booming new biomedical industry. Already some of America's greatest scientist reside here -- but they need our support. Some say that this emerging new field will be bigger than the computer industry; certainly chronic illness affects millions of people, both here in America and around the world. What a wonderful career biomedicine could be!
  4. Stem cell research has nothing to do with cloning babies! Human reproductive cloning should be illegal everywhere in this country, and our research will not fund one nickel's worth of it.
  5. Stem cell research offers hope to sufferers with diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, paralysis and dozens of other chronic diseases and disabilities called "incurable" people who will never get well, ever-- except, perhaps, with stem cells.
  6. Stem cell research is supported by mainstream America. Poll after poll reveals that a great majority of Americans support embryonic stem cell research for the simplest of reasons: we protect our families. That is our right, and our obligation.
  7. America supports stem cell research for common sense practical reasons, like: "the financial cost of caring for someone with Alzheimer's disease… estimated to be about $50,000 a year in direct medical expenses." International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders, July 22, 2002. Fifty thousand a year...and that is not healing anyone, just keeping them alive, maintaining their misery.
  8. Even the healthiest family suffers the costs of chronic illness and injury -- skyrocketing health care rates. An estimated 75% of all direct health care costs is directly attributable to medical maladies embryonic stem cell research may alleviate, prevent, or cure. What better way to lower health insurance rates than cure itself? Think what the cure of polio meant to America in financial terms alone -- saving roughly $30 billion dollars every year.
  9. The cost of suffering cannot be calculated. Visit with a paralyzed person for just one day, and see what they endure. Or, visit a burn ward. Stem cell research offers the hope of new nerves for the spine, and new skin, possibly even healing without leaving a scar.
  10. Communities of faith increasingly support stem cell research. For example, a large majority of Catholic voters (72%) support "allowing scientists to use stem cells obtained from very early embryos to find cures for serious diseases such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and Parkinsons..." from prominent DC polling firm Belden, Russonello and Stewart, survey(ing) 2,239 Catholics. "Catholics for a Free Choice," July 8, 2004. And a growing number of Judaic, Islamic, and Protestant groups also support the research: this is natural and to be expected; is not healing at the center of all religion?
  11. Stem cell research offers hope, where there was none. Imagine taking a loved one to the hospital, and the doctor shakes her head and says: "There is nothing that can be done." Now at last, there is something we can do, even for diseases like cancer, and AIDS, and multiple sclerosis, and Lou Gehrig’s disease, ALS. We can study the progression of the disease in the laboratory, and find ways to fight it -- instead of helplessly watching its devastation.
  12. Stem cell research is supported by every major scientific, medical, and educational group that has taken a position on the issue. These are huge, careful organizations, like the American Medical Association, The Association of American Universities, the National Academy of Sciences, and many more. Which major scientific, medical, or educational groups oppose embryonic stem cell research? Not one. The opposition, sadly, is political and ideological.
  13. Stem Cell research helps America regain our rightful role as leader in world medicine. It was an American, James Thomson, who began embryonic stem cell research in 1998; it would be a shame to deny ourselves the rewards of our pioneering efforts. America has always been the go-first country: that is a legacy not lightly to be discarded.
  14. Stem Cell Research embodies the American spirit of liberty: the freedom to find out, that same Stars and Stripes attitude of scientific inquiry that let us conquer polio, and tuberculosis. Research can bring light into the darkness of despair. As the Good Book says, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
  15. Stem cell research is bi-partisan cooperation at its very best, reaching across the political aisle to men and women of good will. Medical disaster strikes Republicans and Democrats alike; cure research must never be perceived as belonging to a single party. HR 810 is for everyone.
  16. Stem cell research supports the care-givers: like the exhausted wife of a man with Alzheimers', who works from morning to night to keep her husband safe, because she cannot bear the thought of institutionalizing him; and for someone who cares for a paralyzed loved one, assisting him or her with the endless daily needs of life, like using the rest room.
  17. Stem cell research may help return sight to the blind. The number one cause of blindness in Americans over 60 is macular degeneration: the death of retinal cells in the eye. Scientists have used embryonic stem cell research to make those same cells, that may one day be transplanted, bringing vision to those who cannot see.
  18. Stem cell research is part of the battle to cure deafness, which affects 28 million Americans. Hearing depends on tiny hair cells inside the ear. When these are gone, we are deaf. Scientists have used stem cell techniques to grow these cells in a dish of salt water; we must continue and support that research.
  19. Stem cell research offers the possibility of curing paralysis, the symbol of an incurable condition. We all remember paralyzed movie star Christopher Reeve, and mourn his loss. Our champion has fallen. But the flame of his faith still lights our way. We honor his memory by continuing the research for which he gave so much.
  20. America has one hundred million reasons for supporting stem cell research. These are the people who suffer "incurable" illness and injury. They are not empty statistics, but people we know and love, members of your family and mine. When we support embryonic stem cell research, we are fighting for them, and for all of us, in Florida and every state across this land.