31 March 2012
Roman Reed Paralysis Act passes first step
Thank you to you and all of yours who sent emails to Sacramento, California in response to our call to support the Roman Reed Paralysis Act keep it's funding to bring about a cure for paralysis.
The Public Safety Committee has now passed the funding in a 4-2 vote, but we're not out of the woods yet as there are still four more steps.
Assembly Health Committee, then...
Appropriations Committee (this one is the key), and then...
A full vote in the Assembly, and...
A full vote in the Senate, and finally...
The Governor's desk to be signed.
And now I'll say it again.
The battle for a cure is more than a scientific problem; it's more of a political and economic problem.
This means your participation is key.
Keep up the great work everyone.
24 March 2012
From some friends of ours in Italy
I just got an email from a friend who is very involved in the battle to cure paralysis. Great news!
One of the main Italian newspapers carried a story about their Facebook page, and the members' struggles to find a cure for spinal cord injury.
The whole article wasn't about the group, but to score news about a cure and their great picture, puts cure clearly in people's minds.
Just a short blog to celebrate my Italian friends and their work!
Even if you can't read Italian, Google can. So have a look here.
23 March 2012
Cure paralysis bill needs your support NOW!
You can help lead the charge to cure paralysis by sending an email (see below) to the three California assembly members. We need your help to pass the funding for this very important piece of legislation by 27 March 2012.
Here is the information from Don Reed's Stem Cell Battles blog.
Last year, the funding was cut off for California’s Roman Reed Spinal Cord Injury Research Act. This is the law which funded the famous “paralyzed rats that walked again” stem cell research that Christopher Reeve so often talked about.
BUT– here is some great news!
Assembly Bill 1657 Roman Reed Research Funding Act (Wieckowski, D-Fremont) was officially filed today in California!
We need your support as the first committee vote (Public Safety) is next Tuesday, March 27th.
We need one short email letter of support (see below)
Background:
The Roman Reed Spinal Cord Injury Research Act was first signed into CA Law in 1999. We provided State funds of 1.5 Million annually to be administered through the UC system to any researcher in CA working on SCI or closely related. Our program is operated at the UC Irvine Christopher Reeve Center and the Roman Reed Core Laboratory is supported within the Center and provides on-site equipment free of charge to new SCI researchers or collaborations.
Supported over 300 Scientists and staff, our program produced over 125 peer reviewed medical breakthroughs, and provided the initial funding to pioneer Dr. Hans Keirstead’s work with re-insulating the damaged spine– work that became the Geron Trials!
Please send your one-sentence email today!
This campaign is now closed. Thanks to all for your support!!
18 March 2012
08 March 2012
Burning for a cure
I got an idea in my head the other day. With the increased burning in my legs crazy thoughts do come to me and I have to do a little bit of a reality check. The problems though with reality checks is they often stop you from doing what needs to be done.
So, I'm going to write about it and while I'm writing, I'm going to think about it, and at the end, I may decide to go ahead.
My idea goes a little like this.
1. Write to the ministers or secretaries or whatever they call themselves of Health in the G8 countries.
2. I'm going to invite them to a skype conference about curing paralysis. They get together about other stuff, so why not curing paralysis? I feel that this is an important enough thing that they can spare two or three hours for.
3. I'm going to empathise with their problems about limited budgets and then give them an idea that if they work together it will be cheaper.
4. When we work out a good time for the call, I'm going to get them to invite the top researcher from their own countries. If they don't know these people, I'll give them a list. There's no sense having a bunch of health ministers sitting on the phone together because they wouldn't know what to talk about, and since the first one who talks about ramps is getting cut off I have to make sure they got someone to listen to.
5. Then I'm going to call a few friends of mine and I'm certain they will attend. These are people who know stuff and especially why there is currently no cure for paralysis.
6. So at this point there will be scientists working on a CURE for CHRONIC spinal cord injury. They'll know about the science and what they need. There will be ministers of health who control money and all those regulatory bodies that can get in the way. And then there will be me and my friends who can tell everyone why it's currently not working.
7. Then we're going to dole out the homework and get together in another month to see who's done what and we're going to keep doing this until it gets done.
So tell me. Am I crazy? Does this have a chance to work? I think that they're going to ignore me and then I'll have to ask you all to write to them to organise this.
I decided to try. And so I don't bug others that I work with right now, I'll first see how it goes.
I might just be crazy enough to pull it off. And so I don't chicken out, I'm emailing this directly to my blog
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