Candidates clash on science

COLUMBUS, Ohio – President Bush and John Kerry turned the fields of medicine and science into fields of political combat Thursday.

Kerry said in a speech here that Bush is blocking research that could cure millions. Bush said in Downingtown, Pa., that Kerry has the wrong prescription for making health care accessible to families lacking insurance.

Kerry devoted much of a speech on science and technology to blasting Bush’s policy on embryonic stem cell research. He was introduced by Dana Reeve, whose husband, actor Christopher Reeve, died Oct. 10. Paralyzed in a 1995 equestrian accident, he advocated embryonic stem cell research as a promising path to curing spinal-cord injury and many diseases.

“My inclination would be, frankly, to remain private for a good long while,” Dana Reeve said. But she said she traveled here to endorse the Democratic candidate “because John Kerry, like Christopher Reeve, believes in keeping our hope alive.”

Bush banned federal funding for research that uses stem cells from destroyed embryos. In 2001, he allowed research by government-funded scientists on 60 existing lines of cells. Citing moral considerations, he did not allow research using new lines from embryos that had not already been destroyed.

Bush “has an extreme ideological agenda that slows instead of advances science,” Kerry said. “When I am president … we will lead the world in stem cell research.”

Bush lambasted Kerry’s health care plan as one that “would move America down the road toward federal control of health care, which would lead to lower quality and health care rationing.”

Bush highlighted one aspect of his agenda: reining in “junk lawsuits” against doctors and hospitals.

Besides pushing Congress to limit malpractice awards, Bush’s health care plan includes tax credits for individuals who buy insurance, expansion of tax-free health savings accounts and insurance-buying pools for small businesses.

His campaign says Bush would cover 10 million of the 45 million Americans without insurance. Kerry says his plan would cover 26 million. It includes offering employers incentives to insure workers.