"George,

I appreciated the balanced information that I received from your article
which has given me the opportunity to add my comments.

My mother will most likely benefit frorm the research now being done using embryionic stem cells. My mother has ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) and will die a horrible death if not helped in the very near future. This new research holds the first real promise of help for all of the various diseases similar to what my mother has and time is of the essence. How can we say No to research such as this and let hundreds of thousands or even millions of people world-wide die until we eventually come up with something else and God knows when?!

Please forward this to whomever could do the most good............

The hesitation in the funding of such a profound discovery is beyond me.
These embryo cells from invitro fertilizations are so elemental that it is
impossible for me to believe that they could have more importance or
significance than a human "person". Why are the same people so worried about a few cells and cannot feel for a living person? These cells do not feel - they have no nerves, no brain - they are only the bud of possibilities to be human - they are growth mechanisms that can be human in many ways. In our world today, these cells can be human by replenishing our human ailing bodies in a myriad of ways - one of which can be by replacing damaged motor neurons in our brains. We are asking for the use of embryonic stem cells in vitro - nothing more - to aid mankind. People who say no to using cells from a petrii dish to possibly cure or help our sick across our nation and the world and can say yes to war and killing our neighbors and ourselves are hypocritical, unchristian and inhumane.

Those of us who have loved ones who may be helped by this particular research are sickened and dismayed when we know that stem cells are to some more important than the lives of people who are warm, caring and loving human beings. Evidently, they are not touched on a personal level. Let those who deny the sick their chance to life again, live with the thought that they have condemned some people to death.

Thank you" (Barbara Szymanski, electronic mail, March 4, 2001).