The Massachusetts Medical Society, the statewide association of physicians with some 18,000 members, has offered testimony before the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies in support of Senate Bill 25, An Act Promoting Stem Cell Research.
Eric Ruby, M.D., a board-certified pediatrician from Taunton who has been practicing in Massachusetts for 28 years, testified on behalf of the Medical Society. Written testimony was also provided to the Joint Committee.
Dr. Ruby, who was also a catalyst for the establishment of the state’s Spinal Cord Injury Trust Fund now coordinated by the Registry of Motor Vehicles and the Department of Public Health, offered the perspectives of not only a physician but also a parent: his 29-year old son is a T-6 paraplegic. Dr. Ruby believes stem cell research may hold hope for treatment and possible cures for such disabilities.
The Society’s testimony echoed its policy on stem cell research, adopted more than two years ago by its House of Delegates. At that time, the Society’s delegates approved a resolution that stated “that the Massachusetts Medical Society supports in principle the concept that, to further the well-being of humanity, it is ethically imperative that federal funding for ethically conducted medical research involving human embryonic pluripotent stem cells, including cloning for therapeutic purposes, should not in any manner be limited or restricted for any reason other than ordinary budgetary constraints.”
In its testimony before the Joint Committee, the Society said it “wishes to be recorded in support of Senate Bill 25, which would specifically establish the fostering of research and therapies involving the derivation and use of human and embryonic stem cells, human embryonic germ cells, placental and umbilical cord cells, and any human adult stem cells, including somatic cell nuclear transplantation” as the policy of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The Society noted that this important work would be conducted under the ethical review of academically affiliated institutional review boards or ethics committees and with the informed consent of the donors and that the legislation also bans the for-profit sale of human embryos and human reproductive cloning.