Anger, hope split stem cell issue

Re “Reality check for stem cell optimism,” Dec. 3

The fact is that proponents flat-out lied about the prospects and time frames for imminent cures based on stem cell research in order to garner funds for their pet cause. This includes no less than the chairwoman of the state Senate’s Health Committee.

The rationalizations and situational ethics that these elites employed to burden California taxpayers to pursue their half-baked ideas are a shining example of what is wrong with leadership in America today.

That leadership misrepresents its own self-interest as the public interest.

KIP DELLINGER

West Los Angeles

*

The article credits those who attack the newborn California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. This is fair; they deserve to be heard. But when my paralyzed son, Roman Reed, spoke words of hope from his wheelchair, he too was in touch with reality, every bit as much as those who never miss an opportunity to attack the funding of embryonic stem cell research.

None of us knows the future -- not me and certainly not the “it’ll never work” crowd, the same folks who bet against the airplane, the moon walk and insulin. I stand with my son. Ten years from now, let’s look back and see who was right.

DON C. REED

Fremont