Bill Frist

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, finally, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order, following up to 20 minutes to be used in morning business by our colleague from the great State of Missouri.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. I will do that shortly.

Mr. FRIST. I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m. on Monday, October 11. I further ask that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved, and the Senate resume consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R. 4520, the FSC/ ETI JOBS bill; and the time until 12 be divided as follows: Senator Boxer, 15 minutes; Senator Landrieu, 30 minutes; Senator Baucus or his designee, 15 minutes; Senator Grassley or his designee, 60 minutes.

Mr. FRIST. Through the Chair, that would be for tonight?

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask the Chair lay before the Senate a message from the House of Representatives on the bill (S. 643) to authorize the Secretary of the Interior, in cooperation with the University of New Mexico, to construct and occupy a portion of the Hibben Center for Archaeological Research at the University of New Mexico. The PRESIDING OFFICER laid before the Senate the following message from the House of Representatives:

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Tomorrow, the Senate will resume consideration of the FSC/ ETI JOBS conference report. Under the previous order, at 12 we will proceed to a vote on adoption of that conference report. That will be a rollcall vote. Following that vote, the order provides for us to dispose of the Military Construction appropriations bill and the Homeland Security appropriations bill and a number of other housekeeping measures. As we indicated earlier, those will be completed without rollcall votes. Therefore, for scheduling purposes we will have one rollcall vote at 12, and that should conclude our voting. Again, I thank Members for their participation over this weekend. We had a very full day yesterday and a very, very full day today. I do appreciate the cooperation of everyone. It was a real inconvenience to people's schedules, but it has allowed us to reach conclusion at a much earlier time than we would otherwise.

Mr. FRIST. I do again want to emphasize what the distinguished assistant minority leader has said. What the American people see and what our colleagues see on the floor is a tiny portion of what is going on, whether it is the pages, law enforcement, Capitol Police, and the hundreds of staff people who are here to make this operation work, from early this morning until late tonight, and they will actually be here well after we close down. So we do want to express our appreciation, especially on this weekend when it is not totally unprecedented, but it is very unusual.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate concur in the House amendment to both bills, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, en bloc, and that any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask the Chair lay before the Senate a message from the House of Representatives on the bill (S. 144) to require the Secretary of the Interior to establish a program to provide assistance through States to eligible weed management entities to control or eradicate harmful, nonnative weeds on public and private land. The PRESIDING OFFICER laid before the Senate the following message from the House of Representatives:

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 742, S. Con. Res. 121.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the measure be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Madam President, while the Democratic leader is here, I want to again thank both him and the assistant Democratic leader and my assistant leader as well and all the parties who have had to participate in bringing the agreement we just reached together. What it means is that tomorrow at noon, we will be having a rollcall vote and that the remainder of the bills I mentioned would be handled by voice vote tomorrow. But we will have a single rollcall vote tomorrow at noon.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I understand there are two bills at the desk to be passed under a previous order.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Energy Committee be discharged from the following bills, en bloc: H.R. 3819, S. 1466, H.R. 4481, H.R. 2400, S. 2656, and S. 1433, and the Senate proceed to their immediate consideration, en bloc.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendments at the desk be agreed to, the bills, as amended, be read a third time and passed, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, en bloc, and that any statements related to the bills be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Madam President, in response, there is Federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and adult stem cell research, embryonic stem cell research at record high levels, and adult stem cell research at record high levels, by the President of the United States using Federal taxpayer funds.

Mr. FRIST. Madam President, indeed, in response, through the Chair, to the distinguished Senator from Alabama, there is no ban. There is certainly no ``sweeping ban.'' Yet you see in the headlines of newspapers references made to this ban, which reflects the words of someone who is running to be President of the United States, which I find unconscionable because of the impact it has on patients, people who do deserve real hope, and not a cruel hope of rhetoric which now has become hyperbole.

Mr. FRIST. Madam President, that is exactly right. Again, both have promise. Embryonic stem cell research is in its infancy and today has yielded no treatments for human disease. Adult stem cell research, there are numerous, I would say probably about 150 or 160 different areas of treatment using adult stem cells.

Mr. FRIST. I am happy to yield.

Mr. FRIST. Madam President, let me just close with that comment, that the importance of the human subject type protections and having this ethical framework is because that human embryo is living, it is embryologically distinct in terms of a genetic formulation, and it is biologically human, and therefore deserves the respect that the President has given it. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. FRIST. Madam President, we are currently in conversations about the schedule for tonight and tomorrow, and as that discussion continues, I will spend the next few minutes talking about an entirely different topic, and it concerns stem cell research. I bring to the floor this whole discussion of stem cell research because it has been so much of the news of late in part in the Presidential debate and in part comments made by scientists and patients who look to the future promise of stem cell research. I really wanted to take the opportunity before we departed to clarify remarks that have been made by certain constituencies and also to reflect on where I think we are today, in part to restate what the President's policy is. Senator Kerry, our distinguished colleague from Massachusetts, has made some remarks earlier this week on the issue. As in the past, the Senator from Massachusetts was not completely accurate in his comments to my mind, and I would like to explain why I feel that way. There were some key facts about the science of stem cells that were deliberately excluded from those comments, and I think there have been some deliberate mischaracterizations made by the Senator from Massachusetts about President Bush's record on this issue. It is a critically important issue, a hugely promising field that we are going to be hearing a lot more about as the rapid advances in medical science are made. It is important for the American people to be fully informed and to be accurately informed about stem cells and the President's stem cell policy, about the facts of the science so we can together participate in this debate. There are several points I would like to make. First, what does the science entail, what are the basics? First, scientists today are engaged in two basic types of stem cell research. One is adult stem cell research with cells taken from fully mature cells, for the most part. It might be cartilage or it might be bone marrow. The other type of research is embryonic, and that is where the cells are taken from human embryos. Embryonic stem cell--and this is really everything else--or adult or nonembryonic research. We think of it as embryonic and adult. The adult stem cell research, which really doesn't have any real ethical problems with it at all, has already led to successful human treatment. Embryonic stem cell research has not. Adult human stem cell research has promising but real treatments today. Some examples. Researchers have treated diabetic patients with islet cells from the pancreas of deceased human donors. More than 80 percent of those treated were able to stop their insulin shots for more than a year. That is an adult stem cell type of research. Adult bone marrow cells have been used successfully to heal chronic skin blemishes in patients. Adult bone marrow stem cells also have shown promise in my own field of heart disease. In the journal ``Circulation'' this past March, patients showed significant improvement in heart function for several months after receiving injections of their own bone marrow stem cells. Again, these are all adult stem cells. Bone marrow stem cells, blood stem cells, and immature thigh muscle cells, all of which are adult stem cells, have been used to grow new heart tissue in both human subjects, as well as, of course, animal subjects. All of these human treatments are with adult stem cells. None are with embryonic stem cells. Two, as policymakers and as scientists, we absolutely must be careful not to oversell the science of embryonic stem cell research. The tendency out there, and it is cruel to patients, is to overpromise and say with embryonic stem cell research you can be cured. We should not overpromise. As a physician, you never give a patient a false sense of hope. You want to give them real hope, but you do not want to give them a false sense of hope. That is wrong. Doctors should not do it. Scientists need to be very careful in making these promises to patients. Policymakers should not do it. Both adult stem cell and embryonic stem cell research do hold potential promise. Yet the embryonic stem cell is still in its infancy, where adult stem cell is much further along. That is why we see these human treatments today. Embryonic stem cell research science offers hope. That is the hope for potential future advances that can be made in treating debilitating and life-threatening diseases, chronic diseases, and disabilities. However, politicians and scientists have to be careful about overselling this science, about manipulating that hope that is out there way off in the future into hype or political gain. That is wrong. It is unfair to patients. It is unfair to humankind. We have to avoid this hyperbolic rhetoric. Giving false hope is wrong. It is wrong for a doctor to do it. It is wrong for a politician to do. Neither should cruelly exploit the hopes of patients and their families. I have to give one example because it is one that is most commonly used. When President Ronald Reagan died earlier this year from complications probably associated with Alzheimer's disease, some who support unlimited embryonic stem cell experimentation rushed to suggest Alzheimer's could be cured with embryonic stem cells. As a scientist, as a policymaker, as a physician, I have to say that is wrong. It is disingenuous. It is untrue. It gives people a false sense of hope. The science is not there today. Today, there are far more promising avenues of research for the discoveries of treatment and cure for Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease is a plaque on top of cells and therefore the study formation and manipulation is not where the most promising areas of research are today. If you ask any scientist working in the field of Alzheimer's disease, they will tell you treatments involving embryonic stem cells are among the least likely fields of research to yield cures. They will also tell you even the most promising developments, none of which involve any type of stem cells, will not yield a cure for years, and maybe even a decade or more. I mention Alzheimer's because it is the one most commonly used to give this false hope. As a physician, it hurts me to see that because it is wrong. Stem cell research, both embryonic and adult, does hold real promise for a whole range of diseases, including certain types of diabetes, spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's disease. We should aggressively pursue both embryonic stem cell research and adult stem cell research. We need to do so vigorously, and we are, both embryonic and adult. However, we have to do so in a framework that respects ethical considerations and moral considerations. It does not matter what you call it, but put a framework around human research as we have done in every other field of human experimentation. In my own field of heart transplantation, where you define brain death for the first time and you are removing living tissue from a body and transporting it to another body to give this body life, that whole field of experimentation has a framework of ethical and moral concerns that has to be defined with certain guidelines that are not crossed, no matter how promising that moving of tissue or transplantation might be. We call that human subjects protections. It is not unusual and thus doing so in the field of stem cell research is nothing new for a scientist or for a physician or for someone interested in medical research. There are ethical guidelines that we as a society must, should, and actually do establish for any type of human research. The third point, President Bush's stem cell policy, what is it? President Bush's stem cell policy supports and encourages scientific discovery. It does so within an ethical framework. First, President Bush's policy funds all types of stem cell research, both embryonic and adult. He is the first President in history to fund embryonic stem cell research. All embryonic stem cell lines created before August 2001 are eligible for unlimited Federal funding. Two, there are no funding limits on adult stem cell research whatever. That is the type of stem cell research, as I mentioned, that has yielded real results in human patients. Adult stem cell research is the type that is free of any sort of ethical concern. I will come back to the embryonic stem cell concern, what are the ethical concerns, in a moment. The National Institutes of Health is spending record amounts for both embryonic stem cell research this year as well as adult stem cell research. Four, the President has placed no limits or restrictions whatever on the private funding of embryonic and adult stem cell research. Private funding is legal and totally unrestricted. Fifth, because this whole field of embryonic stem cell research is young, it is emerging, it is a relatively new science, and because it takes very specialized skill, highly trained skill and expertise, the Department of Health and Human Services has engaged in a number of activities. It has developed a stem cell clearinghouse or a stem cell bank of eligible lines. It has devoted substantial efforts to sharing that technical, specialized expertise with researchers around the world so the stem cell science will advance as rapidly as possible. The National Institutes of Health is establishing three stem cell, what we call centers of excellence. It has created a stem cell task force. While we are vigorously searching for cures with stem cell research, under the President's policies, we are also showing respect for the moral significance of human embryos. The President has reached a careful balance. Pursue promising medical research, devote unprecedented Federal resources to health care breakthroughs with stem cells, allow unlimited private funding, but do not use Federal taxpayer dollars to destroy human life or create human embryos solely for the purpose of experimentation. Fourth, there is no ban on stem cell research. I say that directly because our distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, Senator Kerry, claims the President has put, in his words, a ``sweeping ban'' on stem cell research. Those are his words, sweeping ban. Last Monday he accused the President of ``sacrificing science for ideology and playing politics with people who need cures.'' Then he added that treatments ``could be right at our fingertips'' were it not for the--these are his words--``stem cell ban.'' Now, I just have to ask the Senator--I know he is not here now--but ``at our fingertips''? That is not right. ``Stem cell ban''? Wrong again, Senator Kerry. There is no ban. President Bush is the first President, as I mentioned, in history, to fund embryonic stem cell research. The President is funding stem cell research, as I mentioned, at record levels. There is no limit on stem cell research or funding in the private sector. These are the facts. Senator Kerry is playing politics with the truth. Even worse, he is playing politics with the hope of those today who are suffering and their loved ones and their families. That, I believe, is irresponsible. It is cruel to play politics with people who need cures. My fifth point, and last point, has to do with the moral significance of embryonic--of really the human embryo and why this ethical framework is so important and why this balance that the President achieved is so critically important. It boils down to the fact that embryos do have moral significance, and they do deserve moral respect. The President believes we should conduct this research with the highest moral and ethical standards. The President has struck a balance. We must carefully weigh the potential, as far off as it might be, but the potential for saving lives against the reality of destroying life. I say that because an embryo is biologically human, it is living, and it is genetically distinct. Thus, it deserves moral respect. Thus destruction of living human embryos for experimentation is not a morally neutral act. In closing, these times are extraordinary for many reasons. In part it is because, as a physician, I see the tremendous advances that are being made in science, in my own field of heart disease and lung disease, but for arthritis and for spinal cord injuries, and a whole range of illnesses, really every illness. But the times are extraordinary, probably most profoundly because of the pace of change in our own lives. Nothing is changing our lives quicker and with greater sweep than science today, and in particular, the scientific discovery within the field of medicine. It gives hope. It gives cures. It gives treatment. Science is moving more rapidly than ever, and the race will quicken. Every day it will quicken in the future. I believe we have an obligation to vigorously support this progress, but we must do so in an ethically appropriate framework. No doubt, stem cell research shows great progress; it shows great promise. The President's policy harnesses that promise, and it also strikes a balance with the values of our people.

Mr. FRIST. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. I ask that the Chair now lay before the Senate the House message to accompany S. Con. Res. 135, providing for the printing of a commemorative document honoring former President Reagan. The President pro tempore laid before the Senate a message from the House, as follows: Resolved, That the resolution from the Senate (S. Con. Res. 135) entitled ``Concurrent resolution authorizing the printing of a commemorative document in memory of the late President of the United States, Ronald Wilson Reagan'', do pass with the following amendment: Page 1, beginning on line 13, strike [Senate document, with illustrations and suitable binding] and insert ``House document, with illustrations and suitable binding, under the direction of the Joint Committee on Printing''.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate receives from the House a message regarding S. 2845, the Senate disagree to the amendment from the House, agree to the request for a conference if one is requested, and that the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate in a ratio of either 7 to 6 or 6 to 5.