He also wants to reinstitute the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, pass a workplace religious freedom act and allow prayer at school events.

Santorum said other candidates are focused on tax plans, and he admitted that getting the economy going is “job number one.” But there’s more to government than government and the economy, he said.

“But the people of Iowa, at least the folks that I’ve been talking to, they understand that there’s more to America than taxes and spending,” Santorum said. “There’s more to America than just the size and scale of government.”

Santorum said the after completing a visit of every county in the state he wanted to present his plans for supporting faith, family and freedom as president.

“I decided after, as we wrap up this tour and celebrate this tour … that I would try to put forth some ideas to reflect the values of the people of this state,” Santorum said.

Social and cultural issues can’t be separated from economic issues, Santorum said, and these actions will help jumpstart the economy.

“The economy is inextricably linked to the moral fabric of this country,” Santorum said. “And we can’t have a real solution-based conversation about fixing the economic problems in this country without faith and family being a large part of that conversation.”

Santorum ended his speech, attended by about 50 people, with a plea for support.

“A lot of campaigns will come out and tell you that they need your help and support. They’re lying, they don’t,” Santorum said to applause and laughter. “I do. All those other campaigns have a lot more money than we do, have a lot more coverage in the national media than I do. I really need you.”

Here is the list of actions Santorum said he’d take as president:

Executive Orders, Rulemaking and other Executive Branch Actions:

• Repeal Clinton-era Title X family planning regulations, and will direct HHS to restore the separation of Title X family planning from abortion practices and restore a ban on referrals for abortion
• Reinstitute the Mexico City Policy to stop tax-payer funding or promotion of abortion overseas
• Ban federal funding for embryonic stem cell research
• Restore conscience clause protections for health care workers
• Defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court
• Ban military chaplains from performing same sex marriage ceremonies on military bases or other Federal properties
• Repeal Obamacare mandate for contraceptive services in healthcare plans
• Re-direct funds within HHS so it can create a public/private partnership with state &local communities, not-for-profit organizations, and faith-based organizations for the purpose of strengthening marriages, families, and fatherhood
• Veto any bill or budget that funds abortion or funds any organization that performs abortions including Planned Parenthood

Congressional Directives:

• Call on Congress to abolish the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
• Advocate for a Personhood Amendment to the Constitution
• Call on Congress to pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act
• Advocate for a Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution
• Call on Congress to reinstitute Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell
• Call on Congress to pass the Workplace Religious Freedom Act
• Call on Congress to reinstitute 2008-level funding for the Community Based Abstinence Education program
• Advocate for a federal law permitting schools to allow prayer at graduations, football games and other school functions

Sen. Michelle Fischbach, R-Paynesville, is adamant that a certain kind of stem cell research be banned. Her bill to criminalize somatic cell nuclear transfer was included in the health and human services omnibus bill currently under debate in the Senate, and she was successful in getting a weaker ban included in the higher education omnibus bill. The proposal has sparked a heated debate about whether the bill — and the testimony surrounding it — is misleading to the public on the topic of embryonic stem cell research. Republicans, however, have rejected an effort to clarify the debate.

A common refrain at a Senate Higher Education Committee hearing last week was “I’m not a scientist” as members debated Fischbach’s amendment to the higher education budget bill that would prohibit taxpayer funds for somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), a technique involved in some kinds of stem cell research. The amendment calls SCNT “human cloning,” which some members of the committee found problematic.

There are two kinds of cloning, committee members discussed. “Reproductive cloning” would involve the creation of a new human being — limbs, hair and all. “Therapeutic cloning” involves the creation of eight or so cells to be used to treat disease. The amendment, perhaps purposefully, does not make a distinction between these types:

No state funds or federal funds the state receives for state programs may be used to either support human cloning or to pay for any expenses incidental to human cloning. For purposes of this section, “cloning” means generating a genetically identical copy of an organism at any stage of development by combining an enucleated egg and the nucleus of a somatic cell to make an embryo.

Sen. Michelle Fischbach

Sen. Sandy Pappas (DFL-St. Paul) expressed the concern that it was misleading. “I think it would be helpful if we could all come to a consensus that we oppose reproductive cloning,” she said. “We can’t send the message out that we are anti-research in Minnesota, and by passing these laws that don’t have enough thoughtfulness. Why do we want to ban therapeutic cloning? The therapeutic use of cells to treat disease?”

She added, “Let’s come up with a clear definition for human cloning.”

Sen. Kathy Sheran (DFL-Mankato) tried to do that with an amendment to Fischbach’s amendment to make clear that the law would ban both therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning, but Fischbach and the panel’s Republicans were having none of it.

“I think we are really in danger of confusing the public about the difference between human cloning using stem cells for the creation of another human being and stem cells used for therapeutic purposes,” said Sheran. “They are very different and very separate, and this rolls them all in together and confuses the public into thinking this is all about human cloning when it isn’t.”

Fischbach said, “I think ‘human cloning’ is pretty clear.”

Sheran responded, “I know from your perspective it is, but we have heard testimony that there is a distinct difference between reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning. It ought to be clear that your intent is to prohibit both, otherwise you will serve to create confusion in the public.”

Despite that plea, the amendment failed.

No scientists in the room

The science of SCNT was clearly an obstacle for just about everyone at the hearing. Pappas advised Fischbach, “You have to explain the biology here of what’s going on.”

But Fischbach couldn’t. “I will have to look that up. That’s beyond my scientific ability.”

Pappas shot back, “Mr. Chair, that’s our problem here today.”

Sen. Ron Latz (DFL-St. Louis Park) complained, “If we had a scientist here, if we had proper notice, some of these questions could be answered directly.”

With that the committee turned to Jordan Bauer of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, which is pushing for the ban. “I am, unfortunately, not a scientist,” she said.

She did accurately explain the process of SCNT, however — something that didn’t happen in earlier committee hearings. In the Health and Human Services committee on Mar. 15, MCCL representative Andrea Rau discussed SCNT:

What they were trying to get at with human cloning research was to be able to create various tissues and they have new found others ways to do that without cloning. Now, what this language [in the bill] talks about, it’s very specific, it refers to only the cloning of human embryos. Once you have a human embryo, you know, if you were going to try to derive some kind of tissue, you would have to grow that embryo. If you wanted to grow a heart then, you’d have to grow the embryo and have the whole thing grow, the whole body and then harvest the heart, now I don’t think anyone here would think that was appropriate, but that’s the only thing you could do with it if you were trying to get a heart from it.

The Minnesota Independent ran that statement by several researchers, none of whom had heard of such a process, let alone of anyone attempting it.

“No one is trying to do that,” Don Gibbons, spokesman for the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, told the Minnesota Independent. “I’ve never heard of anything like that. All organizations that support SCNT strongly oppose anything that would result in the implantation in a uterus,” the only way an embryo could grow large enough to harvest organs.

“SCNT is used to create new stem cells,” he added.

MCCL responded to a question by the Minnesota Independent asking for clarification. The spokesperson asked not to be quoted, but stood by the organization’s statement.

Pro-life versus science?

“The fact that it’s the MCCL that’s here testifying on this bill tells us a lot about the motivation of this bill. This is the pro-life movement trying to move the envelope based in large part on religious belief,” said Sen. Latz. “I think it’s a broader debate than we’ve had. I think we ought to be honest and candid about what’s on the table here and not pretend what’s going on here despite testimony that doesn’t specify that.”

He continued, “I respect that religious belief, but ennobling it in state statute is a different question, and doing it without notice and opportunity to be heard by everyone who might be concerned about this… that’s terrible.”

Dr. John Wagner

MCCL hasn’t been shy about its opposition to “human cloning,” but the motivation appears to be the fact that an eight-cell unfertilized embryo is created in SCNT research and that the group considers such an eight-cell embryo human life and worth protecting from destruction.

The group, which is run by Sen. Fischbach’s husband, Scott, distorted the position of leading stem cell researchers to make their case. In every committee where MCCL representatives have testified, they’ve cited world-renowned stem cell researchers Drs. Rudolf Jaenisch and Ian Wilmut.

“Leading researchers and scientists, including Ian Wilmut who cloned Dolly the sheep, and many others have turned away and against human cloning even for so called therapeutic purposes,” said MCCL’s Bauer at one committee meeting. “Ten years ago there was a lot of discussion about human cloning,” MCCL’s Rau said at another committee meeting. “They’ve tried that and, like Jaenisch and like others, they are continually turning away from that.”

But that’s not the whole story.

Dr. John Wagner of the University of Minnesota Stem Cell Institute talked directly to the researchers about their positions.

He told the committee, “When [Jaenisch and Wilcut] make statements that they are against cloning, they are talking about reproductive cloning not SCNT.”

“I am sure that it is no one’s intention to speak incorrectly about the science,” said Wagner. “I did call Dr. Wilmut on Saturday and Dr. Jaenisch, who was brought up, and they support my position entirely despite what you have heard. It’s misunderstanding what they are saying. They agree with the ban on reproductive cloning but not SCNT. There is certainly no question that there should be a ban on reproductive cloning.”

Sen. Fischbach and MCCL have cited a United Nations declaration numerous times in committee hearings as an example of international agreement on banning “human cloning,” but the UN declaration is nonbinding and the international body working on changing its position to allow the very research that Fischbach wants banned in Minnesota.

Committees in both the Minnesota Senate and House passed a bill this week that would criminalize the somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) process in embryonic stem cell research as well as prohibit the products of that research from entering the state of Minnesota. Despite expert testimony that the bill would hamper medical research in Minnesota, it passed three key committees this week.

The Senate’s Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety heard the bill on Thursday.

John Wagner, professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota and the Stem Cell Institute, said the bill would harm research at the university. He also implied that the bill’s title, The Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2011, was misleading.

There are two kinds of uses for SCNT, he told the committee: one is to create a living, breathing human clone, also called “reproductive cloning,” and another is to use SCNT for “therapeutic cloning” to create stem cell treatments for treating disease. Wagner said that no one is trying to create whole human beings with the reproductive cloning, but many researchers are using SCNT to create stem cells for medical purposes.

“Human cloning should be prohibited. Everyone is in complete agreement with that,” Wagner told the committee. “However, there is language in here that could be construed that this is also prohibiting embryonic stem cell research. And that’s the part that I think we need to make very clear.”

Sen. John Marty (DFL-Roseville) asked Fischbach if she would approve an amendment to protect the medical research uses of SCNT. “I’m willing to work on an amendment to try and limit it to banning reproductive cloning and to protect stem cell cloning,” he said. “If that’s not the intent I’d just be wasting time.”

“The intent off the bill is to ban human cloning,” Fishbach responded. “I think what the doctor was describing in very scientific terms was either you clone a human to make a baby and implant it into a women or you clone a baby to use it in experiments”

She added, “I think what we are trying to do here is to prevent a human from being created for experiments and reproduction.”

Dr. Wagner indicated that that was not quite accurate. “None of us are creating a baby. Once you insert a nucleus in to that oocyte you get an embryo,” he said. “The intent is not to create a baby, the intent is to create an embryo. I think it comes down to what you think an embryo is. We are talking about eight cells here.”

Wagner added that the University of Minnesota currently does not use the SCNT technique and does not create new embryos; instead researchers use embryonic stem cell lines created in different states and countries. He said there was concern, however, that the bill would ban the importation of cells and products created by SCNT in Minnesota and that it would impact the university’s research.

But according to testimony by Andrea Rau of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, much of the bill may not matter because the type of research the group is trying to ban is already illegal.

“It is already not allowed under Minnesota law,” said Rau, citing laws related to “human conceptus.”

“If it’s already unlawful then I don’t see why we need this legislation,” Marty said. “Then this is not to stop a cloned human being, this is to stop research into cures for Parkinsons, ALS and other diseases.”

The University of Minnesota provided legislators with a fact sheet that calls the bill a “law to make stem cell research a crime.” The university also created a website to oppose the bill.

Its author, Sen. Michelle Fischbach, said the penalties for such research under the bill have been reduced from a felony charge to a misdemeanor. Fischbach is the wife of Scott Fischbach, the executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, a group that is working to draft and pass the bill.

The bill passed the committee by a 8-5 vote on Thursday. And on Tuesday, the bill passed the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. The House Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety passed it by a voice vote on Tuesday as well.

Source: Wikipedia

The University of Minnesota’s Stem Cell Institute is facing scrutiny for the second time in a year over allegations of falsified data in research reports. The New Scientist identified the suspect research in April, prompting the University to launch an investigation.

Last fall, an expert panel ruled that a former Ph.D. student in the institute, Morayma Reyes, falsified images in a published research report.

And this spring, the New Scientist identified more allegedly falsified research involving photographs by researcher Jizhen Lin.

In April, New Scientist told the university of our concerns about Lin’s work. The university took the decision to begin an inquiry in mid-July, but it has not clarified which papers will be covered. Lin declined to comment on the concerns about his work while the inquiry is under way.

The New Scientist inquiries have resulted in three papers affiliated with the Stem Cell Institute being corrected and one being retracted entirely.

In all cases, researchers appear to have used doctored photos as evidence in published reports.

The University of Minnesota’s Stem Cell Institute has also been the subject of controversy over an effort by anti-abortion activists to have the institute’s embryonic stem cell research shut down.

(Photo: Malevda, Flickr)

University of Minnesota researchers are reporting a major advance in the field of embryonic stem cell research that undercuts the anti-abortion movement’s — and Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s — chief argument against state funding for the research.

The researchers used human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) to create immune cells to fight cancer and found a 100-percent success rate at eliminating cancerous tumors in 13 trials. The researchers also used human umbilical cord blood cells, the type of cells anti-abortion activists say are equal to hESCs, and only five trials of 13 saw the successful elimination of cancerous tumors.

“This is the first demonstration of anti-cancer activity in a living organism by cells derived from human embryonic stem cells,” said study leader Dan Kaufman, an associate professor of medicine and associate director of the University’s Stem Cell Institute, in a statement. “The superior performance by cells with an hESC lineage points to a crucial role for hESCs in developing new cell-based cancer therapies.”

The Minnesota Legislature passed a bill in 2008 that would have allowed state funding to be used for embryonic stem cells research,but it was met with Pawlenty’s veto pen. He did so at the behest of anti-abortion group Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life.

“The biotech industry wants you to pay for its ruinous research,” says MCCL’s anti-embryonic stem cell pamphlets, “but not even a lab mouse has ever benefited from embryonic stem cell research.”

All thirteen of the successful University of Minnesota trials eliminated cancerous tumors in lab mice.

Because of Pawlenty’s veto last year, legislators have taken a different approach to getting state support for hESC research. Instead of a bill to allow state funding for the research, Rep. Phyllis Kahn, DFL-Minneapolis, has put forward a bill that requires fertility clinics to inform patients about the options for discarded embryos — including stem cell research.

But Republican House members want to eliminate research on viable embryos. Their bill, the Minnesota Hope Act, would limit research in Minnesota to “naturally dead” embryos. Reps. Matt Dean of Dellwood, Laura Brod of New Prague, Steve Gottwalt of St. Cloud, Joe Ward (DFL) of Brainerd, Tom Emmer of Delano, Tara Mack of Apple Valley, Jim Abeler of Anoka and Mary Ellen Otremba (DFL) of Long Prairie.

Neither bill passed out of committee this session.