Umbilical cord funds needed

By Tony Staley
Compass Editor

Congress needs to approve adequate funding or risk jeopardizing therapeutic advances made in using umbilical cord blood for curing diseases.

That is the warning of Richard Doerflinger, deputy director of the U.S. Bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities.

A 2005 law, supported by the U.S. Bishops, authorized funding to collect and store cord blood and to establish a National Cord Blood Inventory so doctors could match patients and donors through a central computer data bank.

That law authorized $15 million in funding per year from 2007 through 2010, subject to Congressional approval each year. The Bush administration budget seeks only $2 million in funding for fiscal year 2008, which begins in October.

Doerflinger spoke out after attending a briefing organized by the main sponsor of the 2005 bill, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J. Smith urged his colleagues to approve the full $15 million in annual funding.

At the briefing, doctors and cord-blood bank officials said stem cells from cord blood, transplanted into patients, have cured brain, heart and blood diseases. It also is an ethical alternative to embryonic stem cells, which can be extracted only by destroying human embryos.

Congress needs to approve the full funding for this ethical, life-saving procedure.