Superman is nothing more than a popular retelling of the Christ story, or Greek mythology. It's an archetype, watered down and made in vivid colors f… - Christopher Reeve

I've always been a practical person, not one to waste time pursuing unrealistic goals or dreams. But today's dreams can soon become tomorrow's reality in biomedical research. Scientists studying how the brain's cells and chemicals develop, interact, and communicate with the rest of the body have been making strides in alleviating the suffering of patients with Alzheimer's, strokes, Parkinson's, and MS, as well as brain and spinal cord injuries. Only recently researchers have dis-covered that stem cells, which have the ability to adapt to any environmentt in the body, will probably be the most important factor in curing all of these conditions. For example, in order to repair the damaged spinal cord, stem cells can be extracted from the ventricles of the brain or from bone marrow and genetically engineered to become nerve tissue. Highly successful experiments on mice have shown that when these transformed stem cells are transferred into the site of the injury, they apparently understand that their mission is to replace the damaged circuitry, which causes significant functional recovery. Mice that have had their spinal cords completely transected have been able to walk confidently across tightropes and climb rope ladders after this treatment. You would think that these breakthroughs would be a cause for celebration throughout the disabled community. In scientific terms, we are very close to achieving the impossible; in practical terms, we have a long way to go. But it is very disheartening to hear a leading researcher announce, "give us a hundred million dollars and we can cure Parkinson's"; or, "if we raise 300 million dollars, we can find a cure for paralysis in 5 years instead of 15." The idea of spending 15 more years in a wheelchair being fed, dressed, and washed by others would be tolerable if the scientists were still in the dark and there was no hope of recovery. I think most disabled people would agree with me that it is very difficult to cope psychologically with the stark reality that our future now depends mostly on money.

The key word for me on him is "inspiration." He is a leader by inspiration. He sets an example. It's quite important that people realize that I don't see him as a glad-handing show-off, a one-man vigilante force who rights every wrong. Basically, he's a pacifist, a man who comes along and says, 'What can I do to help?' He stands on the sidelines until there is real trouble. He does not want to get involved unless it's absolutely necessary because he thinks people should learn to make their own decisions.

[Y]ou have to understand that therapeutic cloning is a very nascent technology that's not ready for use in humans. But knowing that it will not . . . provided our scientists are allowed to go ahead with the research, it really shouldn't take that long before they're ready for humans. However, knowing that there is a better technology out there than just using embryonic stemcells, he as a doctor feels, given the immune rejection problem for people with spinal cord injuries, he's not going to go ahead, as he had planned to. There was a plan to actually use embryonic stem cells as soon as it would be allowed by the FDA. He is not going to do that until therapeutic cloning gets to the point where it could be applied to humans. And I just want to make one other very quick comment and that is in England, just a month ago, Dr. Ann Bishop, who works with the tissue engineering corporation over there, was able to take mouse embryonic stem cells that derived . . . had been made obviously therapeutic cloning, and they turned those cells into tissue that is applied to the lungs, to deficient cell types or cell tissues in the lungs, and said, have already reported, I guess it's public knowledge, that they feel they are now ready to do it in humans, so the idea that it would be decades before you could get to human application, I think that is one example I'm giving you right now of the fact that that's not true. I can give you another example. Doctor Oswald Stewart, of the Reeve Research Center, UC Irvine has said that you could probably get to the use of therapeutic cloning in humans within about three to five years. So I absolutely dispute the time line that's been put up before.