Barbara Mikulski: “I rise today to speak with some great urgency on the need to pass the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007, S. 5.…”

“I rise today to speak with some great urgency on the need to pass the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007, S. 5. We must pass this bill because if we do not, the American people will continue to suffer, our brilliant researchers will be discouraged and think about leaving the field of scientific research and, No. 3, we are also outsourcing our intellectual capital because other research is going overseas. We have to have a sense of urgency because stem cell research takes a long time. We cannot have science on demand or scientists on demand. If we do not act now, we are going to be discouraging very important research and wonderful young people from going into this field. Every year we wait, we fall 3 years behind in our research--another time where a patient might have been saved, a family might not have had to watch a loved one suffer, and also where we would not have to watch our great ideas going somewhere else. Stem cell research is very important to the American people. It is very important to Maryland. It is very important to me. I am a firm, clear, unabashed supporter of expanded stem cell research and, at the same time, that this research be conducted under the strictest bioethical standards. That is why I like S. 5. This legislation is based on sound cellular biology science and also good, sound ethical principles.”