Summary

THE SENATE The Senate meets for 1 hour of morning business followed by the start of up to 20 hours of debate on 2 stem cell bills. 18:00:00.2 jersey, support for stem cell research is overwhelming. in fact, rutgers university, new jersey state university is one of the leading advocates of stem cell research. one thing, mr. president, that 18:00:16.4 this country has always been, it's been about hope, about the chance for a better life.? when president bush talks about 18:00:32.9 vetoing stem cell research bill, it denies hope to millions of americans. last year, congress passed similar legislation that would 18:00:45.0 have eased the president's policy on stem cell but the president vetoed that bill based on "ethics and morality." what's ethical about the non-cure of children's suffering 18:01:01.6 from diabetes? is there anything moral about denying people who have paralysis the chance, possibly, to walk again? any real ethical issues are addressed by this bill. new stem lines come from embryos 18:01:19.3 donated by further tilt patient -- fertility patients under strict guidelines. there will not be embryos for research. that is fiction. what we are talking about is embryos that otherwise would be disposed of, discarded, thrown 18:01:36.2 away. we stand at a cross road in america. we can take the position that cells in a petri dish are a gift for healing. or we can throw away the opportunity to alleviate human suffering. 18:01:53.4 mr. president, the men, women and children who suffer from diabetes are racing against time. the statistic is around now that says that children born today will, one out of three children 18:02:09.9 born today, will suffer diabetes before their death. because of the president's veto, we have wasted so much time and opportunity. these men, women and children simply cannot afford to wait for 18:02:25.5 the president to put aside the politics and deal with the fact -- i would love to see president bush meet some of these families or see the children who come in, the 18:02:46.1 diabetes group, when we have 300 children in one of the meeting rooms in a senate building. to see those children. to see how beautiful they appear to be. 18:02:58.7 to see how desperately they want help. but we, for some unexplained reason, don't think that is important in our government. when we see the president with his threat of a veto, coming 18:03:19.2 back again and saying we are not going to permit this, it is a terrible thing, a terrible message to try and have to listen to across the country. so, mr. president, i salute the 18:03:36.3 bipartisan leadership of senators harkin and specter on this issue. i want my colleagues to look at their own children. if they are all normally healthy, they are blessed -- 18:03:52.3 blessed. but i also know that everybody in this country has had contact with someone who is suffering from a condition that desperately, desperately needs help. when it looks like there's such 18:04:07.2 an easy way to think these problems through, to try to allay the conditions of discomfort that come with these diseases, it's hard to understand why we woin have 100 18:04:24.7 votes in this -- why we wouldn't have 100 votes in this body to say yes, we want to do whatever we can for children who are sick or who are likely to encounter problems that our country is 18:04:38.5 facing -- talking about the conditions that thread throughout our society. yet, the president has insisted on turning his back on these opportunities. it's a pity. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. 18:04:58.1 mr. harkin: mr. president, how much time remains on our side? the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. harkin: mr. president, i obviously yield the floor and i suggest the absence of a quorum. 18:05:09.7 the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. without objection. 18:15:53.3 18:16:01.7 quorum call: 18:17:56.1 mr. brawn back: mr. president, i ask that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brownback: mr. president, i want to resume the discussion on embryonic stem cell research. i want to resume the discussion on adult stem cell successes and why we should not move forward on destroying more human life 18:18:14.0 for the purposes of research. i'm going to start out with a simple picture and a -- a picture of one child, hannah, that was a frozen embryo, and i want to just go through this briefly because we -- we talk 18:18:29.9 about frozen embryos as if just -- this is kind of something you can discard and there's really no significance here. or if there is, it's minimal, it's not really human, it's just something that's sitting there in a frozen state and we should just research on this -- this 18:18:46.3 person. i just want to note this because hannah was a frozen embryo, was adopted, was implanted and then here we are looking at her april of 2001 at age 28 months. i met hannah. 18:19:02.6 she has been in my office. bright, young, vivacious girl. i just want to point out that she starts out as what we're talking about researching on here. she starts out being conceived, frozen alive, adopted as an embryo, arrives in a clinic, 18:19:18.6 then is thawed, confirmed implantation, heartbeat audible at may 14, 1998. age 21 weeks, here's a picture of her at 231 weeks. we can see -- here's a picture of her at 21 weeks. 18:19:33.5 and we can see her and we can see the development. and the reason i point this out, and it should be obvious to everybody, but what we are talking about is something under elm yolg books is defined as a human. it's defined as a person with a human number of chromosomes. it's defined as a unique person, 18:19:50.9 never to be recreated. we are defining and talking about somebody that if these frozen embryos are adopted can be implanted and grow into human beings. 18:20:03.9 and hannah, as she was, in april of 2001, the hannah that was in my office. i would urge more people look at this as a possible option. people -- a number of people have embryos at i.v.f. clinics, frozen embryos at i.v.f. clinics. 18:20:19.6 this is a viable option if people don't want to have them implanted in themselves. if they're extra, that they would consider that are there, they are a number of people that cannot conceive that want to adopt. i would urge people to look at this as a possible and a viable 18:20:36.8 option and a very beautiful -- a beautiful option that people would look at. this is happening quite a few times in places across the united states. it's important. it is a great option. my wife and i have adopted two 18:20:54.4 children. not at the frozen embryo stage but at a later stage. and i can say with all candor, it is a wonderful thing. it has been a great gift to our family to have two of our 18:21:09.2 children that are adopted. and with the rest of our family, it's just been a fabulous thing for all of us. and i hope people would look at this as a viable option. it is a viable option technologically. this is something people can do. 18:21:24.0 you can do this today. this can take place. it does take place. it is a regular event that takes place. it is something that you can feel good about in doing and having a beautiful child that is here and functioning and in the world and bringing joy to 18:21:39.7 people's eyes. i've got our two adopted children are both nine and they just bring great joy to everybody they're around. even when they're bugging their older sister, they bring her joy. and it's just a great thing to do, and i really hope we could 18:21:55.7 do a lot more of this. if people would consider this as a real option rather than just saying, okay, these are extra embryos or these are throwaway or they're going to be disposed of anyway, why not look for the best option? why not look for this beautiful 18:22:12.1 option that's out there and -- instead of saying, just, well, aren't doing anything with them any way, let's just discard them. there's another option here. there is a different chance, there's another hope and that child then can bring so much joy and possibilities into the world 18:22:29.5 that are endless. why not that one? what's -- what's wrong with that option? and i would hope people would really look at -- at this as a real chance and something that they can do. in my earlier remarks, i read a 18:22:46.9 definition from an embryolgy textbook which anairmd each individual life begins as a 46-chromosome embryo. the presiding officer did, i did, senator harkin from iowa did. textbook definitions are good but living examples are often 18:23:01.7 even better and that's what i'm showing on this chart. of course, each one of us alive today is an example that life begins at an elm yonic stage -- embryonic stage because we were all once embryos. another clear example of this truth are those children alive today, 137, i'm told, with 16 18:23:19.1 currently in utero, who used to be numbered among the so-called spare or leftover embryos. that's not as many as i would hope it would be and i'd hope in the future we could have a lot more. as i mentioned, last year i had the privilege of meeting one of these children, a young girl by 18:23:33.5 the name of hannah, can see her growth along the live continuum detailed in this chart. and of course, if she is terminated at any phase along this way, she's not out here. life is that continuing. i'd like to draw my colleagues' attention to this, in particular 18:23:49.3 and ask how can we just wantonly destroy these embryos for research purposes with taxpayer funding because they're allegely spare, left over or just going to be destroyed anyway? it's wrong to turn living, human persons into research objects to 18:24:06.3 be exploited. and i believe that those embryos which have been adopted make this point very, very well. i also want to note on this that currently in the united states, it is not illegal anywhere in the country for a person to donate an embryo to develop a 18:24:25.8 stem cell -- an embryonic stem cell line. that's not illegal anywhere. what we're talking about is expanding the taxpayer funding -- federal taxpayer funding for human embryonic stem cell research. so we're talking about taxpayer funding of this that is 18:24:41.3 considered and is highly unethical to a number of our fellow americans and it's something we don't need to do. and on that point of not needing to do, i want to just enter into the record -- and i'd ask 18:24:54.5 unanimous consent that this article could be submitted into the record at the end of my statement. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brownback: thank you, mr. president. this was an article posted on cnn at 4:05 today eastern daylight time about type 1 diabetics live without insulin 18:25:11.9 in stem cell experiment. this was just out on cnn this afternoon. 13 young diabetics in brazil -- and i want to get to that point. it's the point that i've been making, that this research should be done in the united states. 18:25:26.4 instead, it's going other places. 13 young diabetics in brazil have ditched their insulin shots and need no other medication thanks to a risky but promising treatment with their own stem cells. apparently the first time such a 18:25:42.4 feat has been accomplished. this is just the highlighting of this particular article. again, the research being done in brazil. you'll see some consistency on 18:25:52.5 points. if any followed my earlier comments, i was talking about a gentleman who is getting a heart treatment with his own stem cells in bangkok, thailand. a young lady in illinois who received treatment for her 18:26:08.0 spinal cord injury, a paraplegic, in portugal. and now this diabetic work being done in brazil. all of these adult stem cell work that's taking place, and it's outside of the country rather than being done here and 18:26:22.8 us funding and doing it here. we're losing the battle in the research anywhere, it's in the adult stem cell field that's producing these type of cures. let me proceed. this is an a.p. story. it was on cnn. i'm reading from it. "though too early to call it a cure, the procedure has enabled 18:26:38.9 the young people who have type 1 diabetes to leave insulin-free so far, some as long as three years. the treatment involves stem cell transplants from the patient's own blood. it's the first time in the history of type 1 diabetics -- diabetes where people have gone 18:26:56.3 with no treatment whatsoever, no medications at all, with normal blood sugars, said study coauthor dr. richard bird of northwestern university's medical school in chicago, illinois. while the procedure can be potentially life threatening, 18:27:11.3 none of the 15 patients in the study died or suffered lasting side effects but it didn't work for two of them. larger more rigorous studies are needed to determine whether stem cell transplants could become standard treatment for people with the disease once called juvenile diabetes. 18:27:28.5 it's less common than type 2 diabetes, which is associated with obesity. the hazards of stem cell transplantation also raises questions about whether the study should have included children. one patient was as young as 14. dr. lani ross, a medical 18:27:44.1 ethicist at the university of chicago, said the researchers should have studied adults first before exposing young teens to the potential harms of stem cell transplant, which include infertility and late onset cancers. in addition, ross said that the study should have had comparison 18:27:59.2 groups to make sure the treatment was, indeed, better than standard diabetes care. bird -- dr. bird, who wrote the study protocol, said the research was done in brazil because u.s. doctors were not interested in the approach. the study was approved by ethics committees in brazil, he said, 18:28:15.4 adding that he personally believes it was appropriate to do the research in children as well as adults as long as the brazilian ethics panels approved. dr. burt and other diabetic experts call the results an important step forward." "quote -- "it's the threshold of 18:28:32.8 a very promising i'm for the field, said dr. jay skyler of the diabetes research institute at the university of miami. skyler wrote an editorial in the journal of the american medical association which published the study, saying the results are likely to stimulate research 18:28:48.2 that may lead to methods of preventing or reversing type 1 diabetes." now, that's exciting. these are exciting results. they look impressive, said dr. gordon wier of jocelyn die bets center in boston, 18:29:03.8 mississippi. still, he cautioned more studies are needed to make sure the treatment worked and is safe. quote -- "it's really too early to suggest to people that this is a cure." the patients involved were ages 14 to 31 and had newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes. an estimated 12 to 24 million people worldwide, including 18:29:21.4 one million to two million in the united states, have this form of diabetes, which is typically diagnosed in children or young adults, an autoimmune disease that occurs when the body attacks insulin producing cells in the pancreas. insulin is needed to regulate blood sugar levels which when 18:29:35.8 too high can lead to heart disease, blindness, nerve problems and kidney damage. dr. burt said the stem cell transplant is designed to stop the body's immune attack on the pancreas. a study published last year described a different kind of experimental transplant using 18:29:52.6 pancreatic cells from donated cadavers that enabled a few diabetics to give up shots. but that requires lifelong use of antirejection medicine which isn't needed by the practice disblil patients since the stem cells were their own. the 15 diabetics were treated at a bone marrow center at the 18:30:09.5 university of san paolo. all of them had insulin producing diabetes and their stem cells were not destroyed. the timing is key, dr. burt said. if you wait too long, he said, you've exceeded the body's ability to repair itself. again, he talks about repairing 18:30:23.7 itself later in this article and i want to hit that point. "the procedure involves stimulating the body to produce new stem cells and harvesting them from the patient's blood. next comes several days of high-dose chemotherapy, which virtually shuts down the patient's immune system and stops destruction of the few 18:30:41.0 remaining insulin producing cells in the body. this requires hospitalization and potent drugs to fend off infection. the harvested stem cells when injected back into the body build a new, healthier immune 18:30:53.1 system that does not attack the insulin producing cells. patients were hospitalized for about three weeks. many had side effects. one developed pneumonia, the only we're complication. @doctors changed the drug regime 18:31:11.7 after the treatments failed in the first study. the other patient relapsed. the remaining 13 -- quote -- "lived a normal life without requiring insulin" said a doctor of the university of sapallo. 18:31:28.1 they went back to their lives. the length of time they have been insulin-free differs. they used the procedure in 170 patients with other autoimmune diseases including lupus and multiple sclerosis. 18:31:42.9 one patient with an autoimmune form of blindness can now see, dr. burt said. and he had this quote -- quote -- "the body has tremendous potential to repair" he said. the study was partly funded by the brazilian ministry of 18:32:00.0 health, the maker of a blood-sugar monitoring products. now, why aren't we doing this here? why wouldn't we be funding this sort of work here? and we don't have unlimited 18:32:15.8 amounts of funds to go around, and we're putting $620 million into speculative embryonic stem cell research that's produced no cures. 18:32:30.3 and yet, we're having people from the united states go to bangkok and to portugal and to brazil to get this work done that's financed by the brazilian ministry of health along with a private corporation that's the maker of blood-sugar monitoring products. 18:32:47.2 why isn't it being done here, where we have now 13 young diabetics have ditched their insulin shots. that's beautiful news. and it should be here. and yet, we're starving this field that's producing so much results, putting in $620 million 18:33:06.2 into embryonic stem cell research that's highly speculative, that is considered by many to be unethical of our fellow citizenry in the united states, producing no treatments or cures, and people are going 18:33:20.1 to brazil to be able to get their, be able to deal with diabetes. or to portugal to deal with spinal cord injury. or thailand, to be able to deal with congestive heart failure and difficulties with the heart and heart disease. 18:33:36.6 is there something wrong with this? i think it clearly is, where we're not getting this done here, it's going other places. and we're not funding it. we need to do more in the adult stem cell field and the cord blood field. 18:33:51.0 we need to do more in amniotic fluid. we need to do more in the placenta of stem cells and harvesting there so that we can get these treatments here for our own citizenry instead of people having to go to brazil and other places to get this cutting-edge technology. 18:34:08.3 and yet, we'll spend a lot of time debating on the floor that, yes, we need to do this and we need to do all of them. but the problem is we don't have infinite amounts of money. you do have a limited research budget, and the money that we're putting into the embryonic 18:34:25.5 field, destroying human life at taxpayer expense doesn't go into adult stem cell work. it doesn't go into other areas that we could do more of this work in to get the results out that would treat people so that diabetics don't need their 18:34:39.3 insulin shots. this is cutting-edge work that's being done somewhere else because we're not funding it. i want to talk too about another aspect of this that i haven't 18:34:56.4 brought up previously, and that's private-sector funding. i note on this diabetes story that was just out on the a.p. wire that was private corporation gensmen corporation, 18:35:13.4 as maker of a blood sugar monitoring products. it is not illegal anywhere to do embryonic stem cell research in this country if it is so promising in the health care field, one would think there 18:35:28.9 would be heavy private-sector investment taking place in embryonic stem cell research. if this is producing and holds the key to curing alzheimer's and parkinson's and diabetes, then one would think there would 18:35:45.5 be a flood of private-sector money coming into this field to develop and to get the early 18:35:51.0 patents on some of the work. let's see what's happening in the investor community on this. how many private investors are going into it. 18:36:06.1 we can talk about following the money into the field. this is july 17, 2006, edition of the "new york sun," an article written by harold fujgod 18:36:28.0 roth, a former f.e.c. commissioner. he notes quotes, and i just want to quote some from this article, 18:36:38.0 and i will just put this in. he says this, "for investors, the debate over federal funding of embryonic stem cell research is an indication that profits are remote, in many areas of technology. 18:36:53.2 the frontiers of research and development are spearheaded by private business, where profits are powerful inducement. innovation needs little federal funding. from pharmaceutical to electronic monitoring equipment, much of medical research advances to the drumbeat of 18:37:10.3 capitalism. innovative ideas are rewarded. tens of billions of private dollars in america and around the world finance new research because it offers visible roads to rewards. what does he say about then stem cell research? we know this to be true. there's heavy investment in the 18:37:24.7 commercial sector and pharmaceutical supplies and electronics and computing. this has been the, one of the big driving areas is the private-sector investors are going into these fields and investing heavily. so what are they doing in stem 18:37:40.9 cell research and embryonic stem cell research? to date private investment in stem cell research has been relatively small and unrewarding. several publicly traded but relatively small american companies, list a couple, conduct research and development on stem cells. 18:37:56.9 many privately held companies also pursue stem cell research, but venture capital backing for stem cell research is waning. it's not growing. it's waning. nor is there evidence of 18:38:13.2 substantial private research and development migrating abroad. american financial institutions raise enormous funds to invest in businesses engaged in medical research both in america and abroad. we certainly know that to be true. but little, if any, of that money targets foreign 18:38:29.6 investments and stem cell research companies. the current policy does not appear to have left america back in the basic science of stem cell research. the recent study in the nature biotechnology, american 18:38:45.2 scientists account for the dominant share of research publications on embryonic stem cell research and the number of publications is growing rapidly. perhaps american science will be even more dominant with greater federal funding but the stimulus for that funding should not be that we are falling hopefully behind the rest of the world. 18:39:02.1 mr. president, i ask that the rest of this article in its entirety be in my comments, at the conclusion of my comments. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. brownback: thank you, mr. president. my point? saying this is that we know this is -- my point in saying this is we know this is true. 18:39:18.0 we know in the medical health field, if there are some great results that are coming on that could be patentable or treatment that the medical sector of our economy is growing as a percentage of the gross national product, and i think it's somewhere around 15% now, going 18:39:34.1 faster, that there's a heavy investment into medical research taking place. we know that in the pharmaceutical industry. we know that in the medical treatment areas that's taking place. and so why isn't that happening in stem cells, in the embryonic 18:39:52.2 stem cells? the reason is because it's not producing any results. and instead we have people, ministries and korpgs going ab-- and corporations going abroad to make these investments in the adult field where they feel like 18:40:05.4 there isn't sufficient interest here and taking place. that should tell us something. if the private sector is not putting money in, indeed if the private sector research is waning. these are all indicators that we ought to be looking at and 18:40:21.0 asking ourselves what's taking place. now, earlier i covered some of the advances in stem cell research that's happened. i note that, and i want to build on this statement here that 18:40:37.5 we've had put forward about this a.p. story out just this afternoon on diabetes being treated in brazil with adult stem cells, on the lack of private-sector investment. 18:40:49.6 i want to hit another point as to why the private sector isn't investing in embryonic stem cell research,. i made part of this presentation earlier but i want to make it 18:41:04.5 stronger now, and that is embryonic stem cells produce tumors. and this is continuing to come out in all the data. and i think it's part of the reason why you don't see private investors going into this field. if this was a pharmaceutical field and the drugs that you're 18:41:21.5 treating people with are producing tumors, it's unlikely that that drug's going to get approved by the f.d.a. it's unlikely that that's going to move forward of taking place of any sort of drug delivery system, or it's going to be 18:41:36.5 accepted by the public if there's this high likelihood that you're going to get tumors. and here, mr. president, i'd like to ask unanimous consent to put this set of documents in at the end of my statement. the presiding officer: is there objection? 18:41:50.9 without objection. mr. brownback: thank you. this is a series of the front-page articles of the various publications where we have had to date tumors being developed by embryonic stem cell 18:42:09.1 work. and these are in animal models because, of course, we don't have any human clinical trials that are taking place yet. and these are all in the animal field. but we are seeing continuously in the research results, as i 18:42:23.2 stated earlier, that the embryonic stem cell, once injected into an animal model, is creating teratomas, creating tumors. this, as i noted earlier, happened to us in the fetal 18:42:38.1 tissue debate of 15 years ago, that they were creating teratomas or tumors. and we're now seeing it again come up consistently in the research data on embryonic stem cell work. and here, this gets quite technical, but i want to read 18:42:56.4 just some of the quotations from these various articles that any of my colleagues or others would like to look it up, this will be in the record. here is a research article from 2004, when the cultures were transplanted in diabetic mice 18:43:11.7 -- we were talking about a successful diabetic treatment in humans. this is in diabetic mice. they formed teratomas and did not reverse the hypertkpwhraoeu see mick state -- hyperglycemic state. 18:43:30.2 this is just the front page of this article that's out in a 2006 article. embryonic stem cell derived neuroprogeny, more than 70% of mice received these types of embryonic stem cells, developed 18:43:48.1 teratomas, thus posing a major safety problem, is what this article noted. 70% of mice developed tumors. it doesn't sound like that one's going very well. we've got another one in stem cell publication. 18:44:01.5 this is again, a 2006 publication. developed severe teratomas. this particular publication using human embryonic stem cells in a, in lab rats, grafted into lab rats. 18:44:17.8 that one's not going very well. here's a 2005 article from a publication, four weeks post-implantation, cells implanted in high numbers, formed teratomas in the majority of the animals implanted. 18:44:35.0 that one's not going very well. here's a brazilian publication. they were doing very nicely, doing very well on the adult stem cell. this is on human embryonic stem cell. this one, unlimited 18:44:51.0 self-renewing high differentiation poses the risk of tumor inductions after ingraftment. this is in brain tissue, and this is december of 2004. but that one's taking place, that one's not going very well.p 18:45:09.4 here's another publication. this is out in 2003, conclusions transplanted e.s. cells can be grafted but the cells form a 18:45:20.9 tumor if they leak into an improper space such as the thoracic cavity. now we have a bigger problem. if the stem cells leak in another area they form tumors in other pars of the body. that's not going very well. 18:45:36.6 here's another publication. this is a 2005 publication, when the cultured cells were transplanted into diabetic mice, they reversed their state for 18:45:48.6 three weeks but the rescue failed because of immature teratoma formation so they did something for three weeks and then formed cancer cells. that does not work out very well. here's another publication. 18:46:04.5 this is out of washington university, 2004. results suggest a transplanted e.s. cells into the injured spinal cord does not improve locomotive rover and can lead 18:46:22.9 to -- rover and can lead to tumor like growth of cells accompanied by increased mortality. that's not going very well. that's the set of publications, 18:46:36.4 just the front pages of these i am entering into the record. my point is not to belittle introirks but this is highly consistent with the fetal tissue work earlier. it's consistent with all the research that was taking place. 18:46:51.4 we have something that is working. why move forward, putting $620 million, or more now, of federal dollars into an area that has not worked for 25 years? i recognize my colleague. mr. sessions: i ask if my 18:47:08.6 colleague will yield for a question. the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: mr. president, i would just thank my colleague, senator brownback, for the many hours of effort he has put into this to analyze the data that's 18:47:25.0 out there about this important issue. i think it has been helpful to us. i know some people think that it is an easy question for them. senator brownback has taken the 18:47:41.0 road less traveled. he's been willing to dig into the issue because it does, i think, touch on real moral and ethical questions. it's not a light matter, here. 18:47:56.9 let me just ask the senator a question: is it true that the embryonic stem cells we are talking about here, if allowed to grow and mature, would be a human being, and that human 18:48:14.9 being with hair, eye color and height, would have been determined at that very moment when it was at that embryonic stem cell, how they would grow can mature? mr. brownback: yes. 18:48:28.9 my colleague states the obvious that we all know. it is when we get that first set of chromosomes from your mother and your father that your hair color, so many of your features are determined. 18:48:44.7 and it doesn't change. that's your genetic material you get from the early instance as a human embryo. embryo. mr. sessions: the life that is being proposed -- it is a living organism -- this life, if 18:49:01.2 allowed to develop, will it be developed into a distinct human person? so, i think that implicates some questions to us, all of us. 18:49:19.4 i think it is -- it's not something outside the realm of reason that good people question whether we should experiment on that life. 18:49:37.5 now, you had, i believe, a number of children that were brought here, snowflake babies, is that right, that i didn't get to be with us on that occasion but it was reported to me, would you tell us about those children that you saw. 18:49:54.3 mr. brownback: i have a picture of one here. anna, one of the first snowflake babies. it's pretty simple and direct story. just like you and me they started out as embryos. they went into a frozen state 18:50:10.2 for a period of time. and then, they were adopted and allowed to be adopted by other individuals and implanted into a mother's womb and then grew in a normal process that takes place. the point that you made earlier that should be so obvious to all 18:50:26.7 of our colleagues is that this is hannah here and hannah as an embryo as we were at one point in time. mr. sessions: this very tight embryo is what we are talking 18:50:42.8 about experimenting with in the 18:50:46.5 legislation before the senate? mr. brownback: at federal taxpayer dollars is what we are talking about here. mr. sessions: now, with regard to this, we know that good people can differ. i certainly believe good people can differ. 18:50:59.4 i don't count myself morally superior to anybody on these questions. i'm not a scientist. i certainly haven't studied it to the extent that you or other members of this body have. senator coburn, senator hatch, and others have studied it. some have different opinions 18:51:15.5 about it. however, i don't think it is an insignificant matter that this is a piece of life, a small embryonic life that would go into a distinct human being and that is what we are going -- what we are talking about 18:51:30.8 providing federal funds to experiment with. now, it's not a crime, today, for a private person or a university to experiment on this, even if it causes people moral and ethical problems, is 18:51:49.5 it? mr. brownback: that is correct. not a crime today. anybody can do so. mr. sessions: and it is -- private people are doing that today? mr. brownback: yes. mr. sessions: and, i guess in 2001, president bush 18:52:09.0 acknowledged that there were embryonic lines available at that time and that any action we took at that moment against those lines, really, did not 18:52:21.2 implicate human life. he said that those lines would be available for embryonic stem cells for any university that would apply, is that correct? mr. brownback: that's correct and the federal taxpayers funds could be used to experiment on 18:52:35.6 those human embryonic stem cell lines where the life and death decision had already been made. mr. sessions: and i'm informed that -- let me just say this. i heard at some point that those lines may not be continuing. but i'm informed that, in fact, 18:52:53.3 those lines do continue -- at least some of them -- and that there's a substantial number of embryonic cells available for research if they were asked for, but they haven't been all 18:53:09.0 utilized, is that correct if. mr. brownback: that is correct, as well. mr. sessions: so, when we get up to this line of experimenting with human life, one of the things i would ask myself is, is this medically necessary? 18:53:29.3 is this a matter about which we are debating here that would prevent some sort of research? the way i see it, there are federally funded stem cells available for research today, as 18:53:47.1 you have just explained, and then there's no limit whatever on the number of stem cells that are available in the private sector, in the universities, and the great research centers in the world and in the united states, is that correct if brown 18:54:01.1 brown that is correct. as i also noted to my colleagues, any sort of private sector investment can take place; any sort of state or local investment, state sector can take place. although, as i noted in the 18:54:16.6 article, the private sector does not seem to be putting much money in the field and i believe that is clearly because of a lack of results coming forward. mr. sessions: i think that is. i think it is important for you to share it with us because decisions become easy when there 18:54:33.4 is not a crisis. we deal with self-defense issues and moral issues and a lot of times -- but it doesn't seem to me we are at that critical juncture in our scientific activity that would require the american people, through the 18:54:54.1 expenditures of their dollars, to affirm this procedure. would the senator not agree that if the american people fund this procedure, then it represents a 18:55:15.2 national blessing of the procedure -- in effect, an approval of this procedure as moral and legitimate? mr. brownback: well, it clearly does. and it says that you treat the 18:55:27.9 youngest of human lives as property, not as a person. you noted earlier that this is alive. yet some would say it is not a life. it's alive but it's not just risen to the level of being a 18:55:42.6 human life. 18:55:44.1 this would say, we can treat humans at the youngest age of their life as property and that we will use federal taxpayer dollars to destroy them, and to research on them at that point in time. if you can do that at the 18:56:00.5 earliest stages, why not at later stages. what's the differentiation? at what point in time does this become moot from being property which we treat it as in this bill, to becoming a person, as it somehow does magically in this process if my point is, the 18:56:17.8 place to start at this is at the beginning. as to when life begins. otherwise, there is no significant place where you can draw any line, saying, at this point in time it becomes a person entitled to the the protection and law of society. 18:56:33.4 right now we are treating the youngest of humans as property. mr. sessions: well, i'm uneasy about it. i don't claim to know all of it. i haven't studied it to the extent that you have. i know entities of great 18:56:55.7 augustness -- like the catholic church -- who have serious theologians who consider this issue, and scientists, they are uneasy with this. i'm not catholic. but i understand that people 18:57:08.8 have really invested a lot of time and effort and feel like this is crossing a line that's dangerous for us to cross. from what i hear from the remarks here and the science you 18:57:23.0 have been giving us, you do not think it is necessary to cross that line to do the kind of research that could actually save lives and that we all hope will save lives one day. mr. sessions: if our objective is healing people -- if that's 18:57:38.9 our objective -- we have a far more likely route, a route that's already producing substantial success, that's lying in front of us, without ethical concerns or dilemmas. and the adult stem cells, cord 18:57:55.5 blood, and increasingly in the future, and i believe in amniotic fluid that we find abundant supplies of stem cells have no moral problems whatever. so, that is what does not make any sense to me, either, is that we are going to take away all 18:58:11.4 human dignity from the youngest of humans. we are going to do so in an arbitrary fashion because we are not saying where you develop a status of human dignity at some point in time. but we're going to take it away from you here. and we're going to use federal taxpayers dollars to destroy 18:58:27.7 you. yet, we have another way that is producing good results in the adult stem cells -- stem cells in your body; stem cells in mine -- and this route is producing tumors. this just doesn't seem to make a 18:58:42.9 whole lot of sense why we would invest $613 million more into the future as we have in the past since 2002. why would you put more into this square that has all these problems to it? i respect my colleagues on the 18:58:11.4 human dignity from the youngest of humans. we are going to do so in an arbitrary fashion because we are not saying where you develop a status of human dignity at some point in time. but we're going to take it away from you here. and we're going to use federal taxpayers dollars to destroy 18:58:27.7 you. yet, we have another way that is producing good results in the adult stem cells -- stem cells in your body; stem cells in mine -- and this route is producing tumors. this just doesn't seem to make a 18:58:42.9 whole lot of sense why we would invest $613 million more into the future as we have in the past since 2002. why would you put more into this square that has all these problems to it? i respect my colleagues on the 18:58:57.7 other side of this debate and that they want to produce results. they want to cure people. this seems like all the evidence is leading us the other way. and without ethical dilemma. so, why would we then do that if all of the evidence is pointed another way and we don't have 18:59:15.4 unlimited resources, we can put this in better, higher use, and not having, hopefully, people in our country to leave our country to get adult stem cells from out of country. 18:59:29.8 session session i just say this, senator brownback. i thank -- mr. sessions: i just say this, senator brownback. i thank you for utilizing the tree speech the senate allows, and raising questions that some, perhaps, would scwuf as soon not talk about. and, i do think that a decent 18:59:48.4 respect for those millions of americans who strongly believe this is not a good thing to do. that this is crossing boundaries that we ought not to cross.