Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007

STEM CELL RESEARCH ENHANCEMENT ACT OF 2007

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Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I thank the gentlewoman from Colorado.

Mr. Speaker, if I could just tell one story about a small State in the northeast, Connecticut, a place where we made 2 years ago a historic $100 million investment in stem cell research. And there will be others that will speak much more ably about the moral and ethical and scientific rationales for the bill before us; let me talk about the practical rationales from our standpoint in Connecticut.

Our success investing $10 million a year in stem cell research was a bittersweet one, because it was only made necessary by the failure of the Federal Government to act on this question. We responded to the cries of thousands of families throughout Connecticut that wanted us to give them not only hope but tangible support when it came to researching cures and treatments for the diseases that afflicted their family members.

The problem being that, because of the Federal prohibition on the use of Federal funds for scientific research, Connecticut is now having to do back flips to find ways to invest our money. We are having to invest in bricks and mortar, invest in stealing sciences from other of the few remaining States that allow for State funding of stem cell research.

This is a highly inefficient means to spend the State of Connecticut's money, and one of the reasons that I was sent down to this august body was to make stem cell research, to make investment in scientific research, not a 50-State strategy, but to make it a national priority.

We hear from people on the other side of the aisle, I think, a very wise caution that we shouldn't make promises today or throughout the debate that embryonic stem cell research will definitely lead to a cure of this disease or a treatment for that disease. But the point being here is that there are no promises, there are no guarantees, but that what our families wants is a removal of the ceiling that we have placed on scientific research in our States and our Federal institutions so that that hope may become a reality.

From the citizens of Connecticut who have made great strides on this, as the author of that bill in the State of Connecticut, I am very proud, ten times prouder than I was to vote for it in the State of Connecticut, to vote for it today.

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