March 24-30, 2005

loose canon

Noodging for Stem Cells

To Harrisburg with Hadassah, seeking funds for tissue-cloning therapies.

by Bruce Schimmel

I had barely slipped into my seat on the bus going to Harrisburg when Toby Rosenberg, a petite woman with an endearing smile, sprung up from across the aisle.

"This is why I'm going," she said, holding a framed picture of a young woman. "This is my daughter, Dina. She was a business woman who lived in Old City and worked to help minority businesses. She was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer and suffered for two years. Dina was very brave and never complained. All she wanted to do was live. She died at 40."

It was then that I understood how these women would win. The women of Hadassah, the American-Jewish medical charity, would roll back the ban on advanced stem-cell research. With 300,000 members nationally — teachers, lawyers, nurses and the other influentials — Hadassah will get state funding for the life-saving, tissue-cloning therapy.

Throughout March, the women will visit legislators in all 50 states. With more than 15,000 members in Pennsylvania, 130 of them chose the Ides of March to converge on Harrisburg for what they billed as a "Date with the State."

They are asking for a bill authorizing research that the feds won't fund and which they want Pennsylvania, like California and New Jersey, to pay for. Until now, politicos rated their chances near nil, but that was before legislators heard what Rosenberg and her peers would say, and say, and say. As one member joked, "We have the power of noodge."

Hadassah has a long tradition of public-health advocacy here and in Israel. Founded in 1912, it brought the best practices of American public-health medicine to (what was then called) Palestine. In early March, Hadassah was nominated for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize for its medical practices promoting peace in the Middle East.

With the prospect of getting the Nobel, the women on the bus were psyched. Every woman here, it seemed, has been touched by disease for which stem-cell research could offer hope. Just tell your story, the women were instructed as the bus hit the road. Explain the science and forget the politics. "We need to make them understand that embryos are not babies," Rosenberg said. "That they are not living beings until they're implanted."

The stem-cell technique with the most promise and for which federal funding is forbidden is called somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT. Here, material from a patient is inserted into an unfertilized egg whose own genetic material has been removed. Filled with a patient's own DNA, the egg can grow replacement tissue that won't be rejected because it is cloned from the patient's own genetic code. The problem is that for some opponents, this egg has been "fertilized." If implanted in a womb and permitted to grow, instead of producing only genetically matched tissue, the egg could develop into a complete, cloned person. Hadassah, like other stem-cell advocates, wants to strictly forbid all cloning of human beings.

Arriving in Harrisburg sporting a badge that read "Proud to be from Hadassah," the women fanned out. Rosenberg headed for Sen. Vincent Hughes from Philadelphia. She got a private conference in his chambers. The door was open and she sat on the edge of her seat, talking softly.

"I put my child's picture on his desk," Rosenberg said later. "I told him that Dina had a stem-cell transplant, and she almost made it. I said we need, desperately, stem-cell research, and we must get this bill as soon as possible. I said I don't want other parents to go through what we did: No parent should have to bury their child."

"You get a hug," said Hughes, gently embracing her.

"Very compassionate; he's into it 1,000 percent," Rosenberg said. "Maybe we should visit someone who's not so supportive and show him a picture of my baby."

But remarkably, instead of opposition, many women garnered promises of support.

Kim Sultzbaugh, an aide to Center City's state Rep. Babette Josephs, was astonished to hear Rendell promise the women over lunch that Josephs' bill authorizing research would "move forward at the very least by fall." Pennsylvania is currently "in the forefront of medical research," said Rendell, "and we don't want to lose that." California has authorized a $3 billion bond to underwrite stem-cell research; New Jersey is proposing $380 million. Advocates in Pennsylvania are asking for a $500 million bond.

Even more surprising was support from Rep. Bruce Smith, a Republican from rural York and Cumberland counties who promised the women to not only support Josephs'bill but to co-sponsor it.

Josephs reminded the women that "you are powerful because you vote. We [legislators] all know who goes into the voting booth, and this is a grassroots movement with very large numbers."

Still, Rosenberg is not satisfied: "I'm going to follow up. I will talk to anyone. I will go anywhere, do anything, answer any questions. I'm not afraid to speak to anybody. I could go face-to-face with Bush."

Behold the awesome power of the noodge.