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PR: Funding of Adult Stem Cell Research Urged
02.10.2006
Jacki Rabon, who is walking again after being treated by adult stem cell therapy, yesterday urged the Irish government to support research into the uses of adult stem cells. Speaking to a packed meeting in Wynn's Hotel in Dublin, Ms Rabon said that she did not support embryonic stem cell research and that funding and support should be given to research into adult stem cells which were providing cures where embryonic stem cells had failed to do so.
Jacki knows the benefit of adult stem cell therapy. It has given her back the use of her legs. Following an accident in August, 2003, she was paralyzed. It seemed as if she might never walk again.
Then she travelled abroad to have Carlos Lima, a neurologist at a Lisbon hospital, perform surgery in hopes of regaining at least some movement. She has regained sensation in the top of her legs and, six months after that surgery, she was walking with braces on a parallel bar. Her goal is to walk on crutches by the end of the year, and she appears to be well on her way. Beyond that, Jacki says, she hopes someday to walk at her wedding.
"(The surgery) allowed me to walk again and go back to my normal life," Ms Rabon told her attentive audience. She is in Ireland as part of Youth Defence's No Exceptions Campaign, described at the meeting as “an ongoing, crucially important project, which has created a new awareness of the need to protect human life from conception.” The campaign strongly opposes lethal embryo research and has emphasised the difference between embryonic and adult stem cells.
Ms Rabon told the meeting: 'People have asked me what I think of Stem Cell research. Before the accident I never really gave it much thought. But today I have reflected on the issue often. I do not support Embryonic Stem Cell research. I think it is morally wrong the killing of another human being no matter what stage of life. But I do support Adult Stem Cell Research. Adult Stem Cell research has already helped people with Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injury, sickle cell anemia and heart damage. Stem Cell research is finding solutions, Adult Stem Cell research not embryonic. Science and medicine does not have to kill in order to cure. The great advantage to Adult Stem Cell treatment it is just your body healing itself.'
Also addressing the meeting was Eoghan de Faoite of Youth Defence who said that 20 years of unethical research into embryonic stem cells had failed to produce any benefits and had diverted funding from adult stem cell research which was proving to have enormous potential
Ms Rabon will also speak in Cork on Monday 2/10 at the Imperial Hotel at 8pm.
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