미국 민주당 부통령 후보인 에드워즈 상원의원이 크리스토퍼 리브의 죽음에 대해 언급한 말이 논란을 불러 일으키고 있습니다. 에드워즈 상원의원의 발언 내용은 아래와 같은데 케리 미국 민주당 대통령 후보의 출신 주인 메사츠세츠주에서 발행되는 보스톤 글로브지에서 퍼왔습니다.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/bush/articles/2004/10/13/gop_hits_edwards_on_stem_cell_talk/

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''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 are going to get up out of that wheelchair and walk again," Edwards told the Iowa audience.
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당장 의사이기도 한 미국 공화당 상원 원내 대표인 빌 프리스트 상원의원(한 때 체니 부통령이 인기가 워낙 없어 만약 현 부시 대통령이 부통령 후보 교체를 생각한다면 대상이 될 수도 있다는 소문이 돌기도 했던 사람입니다)이 비난하고 나섰더군요. 프리스트 상원의원의 발언은 위 보스톤 글로브지 기사에도 나오기는 합니다만, 최근 민주당 케리 선거 캠프에 합류한 제임스 칼빌을 여전히 방송진행자로 기용하고 있는 CNN에서 퍼왔습니다.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/12/edwards.stem.cell/

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"I find it opportunistic to use the death of someone like Christopher Reeve -- I think it is shameful -- in order to mislead the American people," Frist said. "We should be offering people hope, but neither physicians, scientists, public servants or trial lawyers like John Edwards should be offering hype.

"It is cruel to people who have disabilities and chronic diseases, and, on top of that, it's dishonest. It's giving false hope to people, and I can tell you as a physician who's treated scores of thousands of patients that you don't give them false hope."
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역시 의사이기도 한 워싱턴 포스트지의 보수적 칼럼니스트 찰스 크라우트하머는 에드워즈를 "snake oil" 장사꾼에 비유하며 당선을 위해선 어떠한 일도 서슴치 않는다며 비난하였구요.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34167-2004Oct14.html (링크를 보시려면 무료이긴 하지만 등록이 필요합니다. 그래서 좀 길긴 하지만 전문을 아래 실었습니다.)

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After the second presidential debate, in which John Kerry used the word "plan" 24 times, I said on television that Kerry has a plan for everything except curing psoriasis. I should have known there is no parodying Kerry's pandering. It turned out days later that the Kerry campaign has a plan -- nay, a promise -- to cure paralysis. What is the plan? Vote for Kerry.

This is John Edwards on Monday at a rally in Newton, Iowa: "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 are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."

In my 25 years in Washington, I have never seen a more loathsome display of demagoguery. Hope is good. False hope is bad. Deliberately, for personal gain, raising false hope in the catastrophically afflicted is despicable.

Where does one begin to deconstruct this outrage?

First, the inability of the human spinal cord to regenerate is one of the great mysteries of biology. The answer is not remotely around the corner. It could take a generation to unravel. To imply, as Edwards did, that it is imminent if only you elect the right politicians is scandalous.

Second, if the cure for spinal cord injury comes, we have no idea where it will come from. There are many lines of inquiry. Stem cell research is just one of many possibilities, and a very speculative one at that. For 30 years I have heard promises of miracle cures for paralysis (including my own, suffered as a medical student). The last fad, fetal tissue transplants, was thought to be a sure thing. Nothing came of it.

As a doctor by training, I've known better than to believe the hype -- and have tried in my own counseling of people with new spinal cord injuries to place the possibility of cure in abeyance. I advise instead to concentrate on making a life (and a very good life it can be) with the hand one is dealt. The greatest enemies of this advice have been the snake-oil salesmen promising a miracle around the corner. I never expected a candidate for vice president to be one of them.

Third, the implication that Christopher Reeve was prevented from getting out of his wheelchair by the Bush stem cell policies is a travesty.

George Bush is the first president to approve federal funding for stem cell research. There are 22 lines of stem cells now available, up from one just two years ago. As Leon Kass, head of the President's Council on Bioethics, has written, there are 3,500 shipments of stem cells waiting for anybody who wants them.

Edwards and Kerry constantly talk of a Bush "ban" on stem cell research. This is false. There is no ban. You want to study stem cells? You get them from the companies that have the cells and apply to the National Institutes of Health for the federal funding.

In his Aug. 7 radio address to the nation, Kerry referred not once but four times to the "ban" on stem cell research instituted by Bush. At the time, Reeve was alive, so not available for posthumous exploitation. But Ronald Reagan was available, having recently died of Alzheimer's.

So what does Kerry do? He begins his radio address with the disgraceful claim that the stem cell "ban" is standing in the way of an Alzheimer's cure.

This is an outright lie. The President's Council on Bioethics, on which I sit, had one of the world's foremost experts on Alzheimer's, Dennis Selkoe from Harvard, give us a lecture on the newest and most promising approaches to solving the Alzheimer's mystery. Selkoe reported remarkable progress in using biochemicals to clear the "plaque" deposits in the brain that lead to Alzheimer's. He ended his presentation without the phrase "stem cells" having passed his lips.

So much for the miracle cure. Ronald D.G. McKay, a stem cell researcher at NIH, has admitted publicly that stem cells as an Alzheimer's cure are a fiction, but that "people need a fairy tale." Kerry and Edwards certainly do. They are shamelessly exploiting this fairy tale, having no doubt been told by their pollsters that stem cells play well politically for them.

Politicians have long promised a chicken in every pot. It is part of the game. It is one thing to promise ethanol subsidies here, dairy price controls there. But to exploit the desperate hopes of desperate people with the promise of Christ-like cures is beyond the pale.

There is no apologizing for Edwards's remark. It is too revealing. There is absolutely nothing the man will not say to get elected.
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에드워즈 상원의원에 대해서는 매력적인 외모와 trial lawyer 경험을 통해 단련된 훌륭한 연설솜씨 때문에 케리 상원의원에 비해서는 훨씬 좋은 인상을 받아 왔었습니다만, 이번 발언은 좀 지나치지 않았나 하는 생각이 드네요.

여담입니다만 비록 에드워즈 상원의원이 trial lawyer로 지난 10년 간 3900만 달러의 소득을 올린 유명한 trial lawyer지만
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/03/edwards.tax.returns/ 상원의원 선거 때나 지금 대통령 선거에서도 미국 공화당에서 열심히 뒤를 캐 보아도 문제가 될만한 사건이 없었다고 하네요. 오히려 그가 주로 변호사로 활동하던 노스 캐롤라이나 주 대법원의 파머 판사가 판사 생활을 오래해 보았지만 에드워즈처럼 전문 의학용어와 기술용어를 메모 한 번 보지 않고 자유자재로 구사해 가며 90분씩 최종 변론을 하는 사람은 처음보았다는 취지로 회상할 정도로 정말 뛰어나고, 성실하고 열심히 서민 편에서 일한 변호사였던 모양입니다. 전국 작문 경시 대회에 입상할 정도로 뛰어 났던 아들이 10대 때 불의의 교통사고로 세상을 떠난 다음에 변호사 생활을 접고 역시 변호사인 부인 엘리자베스와 늦게 다시 두 아이를 가지고(그래서 유세장마다 50대인 에드워즈에 걸맞지 않은 어린애들 둘이 역시 어울리지 않는 에드워즈의 큰 딸과 함께 다니지요) 정계에 뛰어 들었다고 하더군요(2003년 12월 10일자 시카고 트리뷴지 기사).