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LINCOLN — The e-mails have been flying across Nebraska as the adversaries in the stem cell battle prepare for a critical vote today by the University of Nebraska Board of Regents.
The regents will take up a resolution, backed by four of the eight board members, that would restrict human embryonic stem cell research at NU to pre-existing lines of stem cells in use since before 2001.
The pro-research Nebraska Coalition for Lifesaving Cures has been running radio and newspaper advertising and pre-recorded “robo” telephone calls, urging supporters to ask the regents to vote against the resolution.
The group has placed advertisements in The World-Herald every day this week. One features former Husker football All-American Rik Bonness, whose two sons have Type 1 diabetes.
“The Board of Regents is being pressured ... to ban some of the most promising avenues of research,” the ads say.
The Nebraska Coalition for Ethical Research, which opposes embryonic stem cell research, is airing radio advertising urging the regents to vote for the resolution.
“We love stem cell research. ... We just don't want embryos destroyed to do it,” those ads say.
NU officials say a vote to restrict stem cell research would damage the university's reputation, making it more difficult to recruit scientists and compete for federal research money. Supporters of the resolution say the university should focus on adult stem cell research and a process that involves replicating embryonic stem cells.
Victoria Kohout, executive director of the Nebraska Coalition for Lifesaving Cures, said research supporters decided it was time to make their voices heard, despite misgivings about basing research decisions on popular opinion.
“We weren't going to stand by and let the regents hear only from research opponents,” Kohout said. “We have conducted an educational effort to make sure Nebraskans who support stem cell research have their voices heard.”
The regents have noted the effort.
“Clearly, the proponents of the expanded stem cell lines are far better organized than they have been at any previous time,” said Kent Schroeder of Kearney, chairman of the regents.
Schroeder has said that he supports expanding the research.
Julie Schmit-Albin, director of Nebraska Right to Life, and Chip Maxwell, executive director of the Nebraska Coalition for Ethical Research, said research opponents are being considerably outspent by supporters.
Schmit-Albin said her group has relied almost entirely on e-mail alerts and Facebook pages to mobilize supporters, who in turn urge their friends and acquaintances to contact the regents.
Both groups declined to say how much they're spending to try to sway the regents.
State law on lobbying applies only to legislative actions and does not require the groups to report how much they've spent to lobby the NU Board of Regents, said Frank Daley, executive director of the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission.
Schmit-Albin said Nebraska Right to Life began telling its members last year that federal restrictions on stem cell research were more likely to be eased with the election of President Barack Obama and that they should begin lobbying the regents to limit such research at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
As the months passed, the lobbying effort narrowed to regents who had been elected with Nebraska Right to Life endorsements and then to Regent Jim McClurg of Lincoln, who is now viewed as the swing vote on the resolution.
Schroeder, Chuck Hassebrook and Randy Ferlic are the only current regents who were serving in 2001, when the board adopted its policy of following federal guidelines governing human embryonic stem cell research. The guidelines, adopted by President George W. Bush's administration, limited the research to stem cell lines that existed in August 2001.
With Legislative Bill 606 last year, the Nebraska Legislature barred state funds and facilities from being used to destroy or clone embryos for research, but otherwise agreed to allow the stem cell research under federal guidelines.
After Obama took office, those guidelines were changed to allow the approval of additional lines of stem cells.
Contact the writer:
402-473-9581, leslie.reed@owh.com
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