I want to share with you this article by David Prentice from the Family Research Council on the recent U.S. District Court injunction that stops federal taxpayer funding of unethical human embryonic stem cell research.  In his article, he highlights the importance of noncontroversial adult stem cell research. As you may know, I have introduced a bill - the Patients First Act - which would prioritize federal government funding for ethical stem cell projects that have the greatest chance for near-term benefit for patients.

Opinion: A Stem Cell Victory for Patients
By David Prentice
(Aug. 25) -- The U.S. District Court injunction that stops federal taxpayer funding of human embryonic stem cell research should make patients happy.

The judge ruled that federal funding for embryonic stem cell research violates a current law, passed annually since the Clinton administration, prohibiting government funding for research that involves the destruction of human embryos.

He added that there is a limited amount of federal funding for stem cells, and funding embryonic stem cells competes with adult stem cells. But only adult stem cells are treating people. The good news is that this ruling should free up more funding for adult stem cell research -- which is legal, uncontroversial and already helping treat thousands of patients.

Here are just a few examples of the published scientific successes of adult stem cells:

Italian doctors used patients' own adult stem cells to grow new corneal tissue to restore sight to people blinded by chemical burns, including one patient who had been blind for 50 years.

German doctors reported in June the results of a five-year study on patients with chronic heart failure. The 191 patients treated with their own bone marrow adult stem cells showed significant improvement in heart function, with decreased death and no side effects.

Another recent Italian success involved growing new windpipes for cancer patients. Doctors used cadaver windpipes stripped of their cells, bathed the cartilage with the patients' bone marrow stem cells and then transplanted the reconstructed windpipes. The two young women were released from the hospital just weeks after their surgery, and are now in good condition.

In August, University of Minnesota scientists transplanted donor adult stem cells into children with a fatal genetic skin disease and repaired the damage. The scientists said regarding adult stem cell treatments, "Patients who otherwise would have died from their disease can often now be cured. It's a serious treatment for a serious disease."

For sickle cell disease, published medical papers note that donor adult stem cells are the "only curative therapy." Other patients have had hip repairs using their own adult stem cells, and nonhealing bone fractures have been healed. Published medical papers in journals such as the Journal of the American Medical Association and The Lancet document improvements in patients treated with adult stem cells for juvenile diabetes and multiple sclerosis.

It is adult stem cells that are treating people now, people like Laura Dominguez. A quadriplegic after a car accident, Laura was treated for spinal-cord injury with her own nasal adult stem cells, and she has regained movement and sensation in her lower body. Laura continues to work hard at her physical therapy, bluntly stating, "I'm going to walk again." You can see Laura's story and others at Stem Cell Research Facts.

Noncontroversial adult stem cells from bone marrow, umbilical cord blood and other tissues are treating thousands of patients around the globe, with an estimated 50,000 adult stem cell transplants occurring annually worldwide. For some diseases, adult stem cell transplants have become the "standard of care," meaning the treatments are so effective that they are a doctor's best choice for sick patients.

Embryonic stem cells, in contrast, are ethically controversial since obtaining them requires the destruction of human embryos. However, millions in funding has led to no patient treatments. Adult stem cells in contrast are contained throughout the body, raising no ethical concerns.

The federal government has funded much research on adult stem cells, often for bone marrow transplants. But it can do more. Bipartisan legislation called the Patients First Act (H.R. 877), sponsored by Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., and Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., would prioritize federal government funding for stem cell projects that have the greatest chance for near-term benefit for patients, based on the scientific and clinical evidence.

Shouldn't we put patient treatments first? After all, it's not just tax dollars that are wasted on poor science; real lives have been lost.

David Prentice is senior fellow for the Center for Human Life and Bioethics at the Family Research Council.

I’m happy to share with you that the In God We Trust Resolution that I introduced this year continues to receive national attention and support.

This week, Renewing American Leadership highlighted my bill reaffirming “In God We Trust” as our national motto. Renewing American Leadership is well-known for being under the leadership of former speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, and for their dedication to preserving America’s Judeo-Christian heritage.

You can read a copy of the bill and a personal note from me about the bill on the Renewing American Leadership website.

Yesterday morning I appeared on CNN's "Faces of Faith" to defend the National Day of Prayer in light of a federal judge ruling that it was unconstitutional. In the segment, I discussed the issue with the president of the group that brought the lawsuit challenging the National Day of Prayer, the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Watch our discussion in the clip below:

Yesterday morning I appeared on CNN's "Faces of Faith" to defend the National Day of Prayer in light of a federal judge ruling that it was unconstitutional. In the segment, I discussed the issue with the president of the group that brought the lawsuit challenging the National Day of Prayer, the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Watch our discussion in the clip below:

While Thanksgiving as we know it today is often full of traditions like turkey, parades, football, it has a larger meaning. Take a moment to reflect on the history behind America’s oldest holiday: 

• The very first Thanksgiving celebration lasted three days. After a harsh winter of hunger and starvation, the Pilgrims had a plentiful summer harvest. They declared a three-day feast to thank God and celebrate with family and friends. 

• The first national Thanksgiving holiday was proclaimed in 1789 by President George Washington, in which President Washington called on all Americans to “unite to render unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection.”  

• In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln declared the final Thursday in November as a national day of thanksgiving, saying, “No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.”   

 You can read more Thanksgiving history here.

This Thanksgiving, I will give thanks for my family, for the troops who are fighting for this nation, for those who work so hard to make our country great, and for the blessings that God has bestowed on this great nation.

Whatever your family's traditions may be, I hope your homes are filled with gratitude, happiness, and cheerfulness as we offer up our thanks and celebrate with loved ones.   

What will you give thanks for this year?

Congressman Forbes sat down with Ali McSherry from Roll Call a few weeks ago to talk about his office in Washington, D.C.  Check out the article in today’s paper:

Two years ago, Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) was sitting at his desk bemoaning the slow pace of Congress. As he got more and more frustrated, he also grew sick of looking at his own picture.

 Everywhere he turned in his space in the Rayburn House Office Building, he saw photos of himself posing with firefighters, with government officials and even with the president.

“We sit around looking at these pictures, and we start thinking this is kind of all about us,” Forbes says. “So I brought my staff in, and they thought I was having a senior moment. I told them I want to take all the pictures down.”

Today, instead of staring at his own mug, Forbes has hung a large copy of the Declaration of Independence on one wall surrounded by framed pictures of the 56 signers. The display takes up an entire wall.

“It’s not about me. It’s not about us being here,” he says. “It’s about the legacy that they have left, birthing a nation of freedom.”

Forbes, the ranking member on the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness, created the wall in the hope that it would have an effect on the military officials who come to his office.

“I want to make sure every time one of our generals come in or one of our admirals come in and we have a meeting, or every time we have a staff meeting, or every time our constituents come up for a meeting, that we get to look these guys in the eyes and realize that we stand on their shoulders,” he says.

While Forbes admires the Founding Fathers, he looks beyond them to a higher power for advice when it comes to governing. Any visitor who spends even a few seconds in Forbes’ office soon learns that he is a devout Christian.

The founder of the Congressional Prayer Caucus displays a large framed prayer across from the Declaration of Independence wall. Former Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall delivered this prayer in 1948: “If any man lack wisdom let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberally and it shall be given to him.” Forbes looks to this prayer as a reminder of his belief that God is supreme over Congress.

“It’s basically for us never to become so conceited that we think we know more about government than God,” he says.

Near the prayer is a print of a painting called “Daniel in the Lion’s Den,” which depicts the biblical figure in a cave filled with lions. Daniel is looking up to the heavens. Forbes says this also serves as an inspiration to him.

“The main thing to always remember is where Daniel was looking for strength,” Forbes says. “He wasn’t looking at the lion — he was looking at God.”

The wall with the Declaration and the wall with the prayer face each other on purpose. Forbes says the Declaration is the nation’s past, while prayer and God are its future. He points out the beginning of the Declaration of Independence, which, of course, says the rights of man are “endowed by their Creator.”

“If the state gave us those rights, then they can take them away,” Forbes says.

Forbes believes this document brought about “two concepts heard around the world.” The first is that people are given rights that the government can’t take away, and the second is that these rights were a gift from God. As long as Americans recognize and respect these ideals, Forbes thinks the country will do just fine.

“The Declaration has always been the founding document of the country, more important even than the Constitution,” he says. “If that document is illegitimate or if it’s wrong, then nothing else that we do has legs under it.”

Yesterday, individuals across the country who were willing to stand up on behalf of our nation's religious heritage saw a major victory. After more than one year of fighting to restore references to our nation’s spiritual history stripped from the newly-constructed $621-million Capitol Visitor Center, the engraving of our national motto "In God We Trust" was unveiled in the Center.

When I along with several other Members of the Prayer Caucus first toured the newly constructed Capitol Visitor Center, we were troubled to learn that the Center was stripped of all references to America's religious heritage and it contained a number of factual inaccuracies, including incorrectly stating that our national motto was “E Pluribus Unum” and inaccurately representing Capitol church services.

In July 2008, I led 108 Members of Congress in signing a letter to the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) expressing our concerns with the incomplete historical religious content in the Capitol Visitor Center. In October 2008, the Committee on House Administration and the Senate Rules and Administration Committee agreed to correct the inaccuracy of “E Pluribus Unum,” engrave in stone in the Center “In God We Trust” and the Pledge of Allegiance, and create a permanent religious history display. We worked to ensure those changes were agreed to before legislation was passed directing the opening of the Capitol Visitor Center. H.R. 5159 was signed into law in October, and the Capitol Visitor Center opened in December 2008. H.Con.Res.131 passed the House and Senate in July 2009, directing the AOC to engrave the national motto and Pledge of Allegiance in the Capitol Visitor Center.

The “In God We Trust” engraving was completed and unveiled this week and the Pledge of Allegiance is scheduled to be completed in the coming weeks.

This was accomplished due to the efforts of so many individuals in Congress and across the country who were willing to stand up on behalf of our nation’s religious heritage. Thousands of visitors will walk through the center each day. The efforts of the individuals that have joined in this issue have enabled those visitors to experience a more accurate depiction of our nation’s heritage written in stone.

This win should serve as an example to Americans all across the country that because we believe, we stand, and because we stand, we can make a difference.

Read more about the Prayer Caucus, click here.