James Kelly is an Important Voice in the Cloning Debate

James Kelly is a man with a spinal cord injury who has taught himself almost all there is to know about stem cell science. He began as a supporter of ESCR and therapeutic cloning, but has since changed his mind.

In this piece he describes a chilling episode in which he claims he was literally muzzled before he could tell Christopher Reeve, whom he had just debated, about adult stem cell successes for spinal cord patients. I have asked him if this really happened, and he assures me it did. Here is that paragraph.

“Later that year I debated the practicality of cloning with Reeve at the New York Academy of Sciences. At Reeve’s request I tried to tell him of an adult bone marrow clinical trial for ALS and SCI in Turin, Italy. But as I began to speak I was physically muzzled from behind by the scientific moderator of the debate. While I struggled to pull his hands from my mouth, fifty reporters looked on in stunned silence and Reeve’s handlers quickly wheeled him from the room.”

There is much in this column worth pondering and considering. The full article can be accessed here.