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Thursday, Oct. 14, 2004

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  Edwards, promoting the benefits of stem-cell research in a Monday campaign event in Newton, Iowa, said: "If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve will get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."

Reeve, a quadriplegic for the last nine years of his life who vowed that he would one day walk again, died Sunday of complications from an infection caused by a bedsore. He had become an advocate for spinal cord research - including looser restrictions on stem cell research - after his horse-riding accident.

In a conference call Tuesday arranged by President Bush's campaign, Frist accused presidential hopeful John Kerry and running mate Edwards of "shamefully trying to use the death of people like Christopher Reeve to promote falsehoods and dishonesty" about Bush's position on stem cell research.

Frist, a physician, said Bush was the first to make it possible to do embryonic stem-cell and adult stem-cell research using taxpayer money.

Edwards - should Kerry lose - and Frist are both potential 2008 presidential candidates.

There are no controls on private stem-cell research, but Bush signed an executive order in 2001 limiting federal research money to embryonic stem-cell lines already in existence, to ensure government does not support future production of embryos for research purposes. Kerry has said he would reverse those restrictions and put money into the research.

Following Reeve's death at age 52, Kerry praised him as an inspiration, and Bush called him an example of courage and optimism.

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