PLEASE write to NZ cabinet re LCT Trials NOW! Today!
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Posted by Al Gordon on 18:40:25 2008/10/17
It is essential that as many of us as possible email key New Zealand cabinet ministers regarding the pending decision on LCT's clinical trial. Please write this minute! The emails must be sent no later than Sunday, October 19 at 3 PM EST. Recipient email addresses are below.
Many of you have already written very articulate and passionate emails to the Hon. David Cunliffe, NZ Minister of Health. Now is the time to send those messages again. Be polite, respectful, evidence-driven, forceful, grammatically perfect, and do not ramble.
Below is the email that I just sent. Feel free to plagiarize or just to express and of the arguments that appeal to you in your own words.
I cannot stress how urgent this is. Remember, we have Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday until 3 PM EST to send these emails. Let us not be regretting afterward that we hadn't taken every possible action when we had the chance.
You WILL make a difference!
Al
To:
Hon David Cunliffe - dcunliffe@ministers.govt.nz
Rt Hon Helen Clark - pm@ministers.govt.nz
Hon Dr Michael Cullen - mcullen@ministers.govt.nz
Hon Pete Hodgson - phodgson@ministers.govt.nz
Hon Annette King - aking@ministers.govt.nz
Cc:
McGee, Caitlin - cmcgee@skytv.co.nz
Seymour, Bryan - bryan.seymour@tvnz.co.nz
Atkinson, Kent - Kent.atkinson@nzpa.co.nz
Kiong, Errol - errol.kiong@nzherald.co.nz
Hembry, Owen - owen.hembry@nzherald.co.nz
Barton, Chris - chris.barton@nzherald.co.nz
Helyer, Michael - cadmusic@ihug.co.nz
Gendelman, Ed - egendelman@oilexchange.com
Noble, Katherine - Katherine_Noble@nhc.govt.nz
Elliott, Professor Robert B. - relliott@lctglobal.com
Tan, Paul - PTan@lctglobal.com
Harrington, Chris - Chris.Harrington@parliament.govt.nz
Jessamine, Dr. Stewart - stewart_jessamine@moh.govt.nz
NZ Herald Newsdesk - newsdesk@nzherald.co.nz
Collinson, David - dcollinson@lctglobal.com
Johnston, Martin - martin.johnston@nzherald.co.nz
McCarthy, Karen - kmccarthy@tv3.co.nz
Ng, Lillian - lng@tv3.co.nz
Subject: Cabinet Approval of LCT Clinical Trials in New Zealand
Dear Honourable Members of the New Zealand Cabinet,
New Zealand will either lead the world in ending the scourge of juvenile diabetes, or will watch as other nations reap the humanitarian and financial benefits of perhaps the most significant medical advance of the new millennium. Your nation's cabinet has the power to save thousands of New Zealanders and millions of families around the world from the horrors of juvenile diabetes, including blindness, infections, heart disease, amputation, neuropathy, kidney failure, dialysis, and early death.
Auckland-based Living Cell Technologies (LCT) has received approval for a small clinical trial from your government's safety and ethics committees, and awaits only cabinet approval to begin. I am the founder and president of The Islet Foundation (TIF), a non-profit focused on research that has the potential to eradicate juvenile diabetes. As someone who has no financial interest in LCT or any other aspect of this procedure, I have spent the last decade studying in detail the leading initiatives for curing this dreadful disease. It is absolutely clear that no other group has a record of safety, effectiveness and universality that comes close to New Zealand's LCT.
These trials have been held up by the New Zealand government for at least the past five years. How many families with diabetes have suffered unnecessary disease and death as a result of this delay? As we now know, the safety, cultural and spiritual risks that have been cited as reasons have all proven to be indefensible. Families with diabetes are now asking why their human rights have been selectively violated, and what is the reason for this violation?
It is important to ask whose interests are served by disallowing this trial. Certainly the world's multinational drug companies and their proxies would appreciate your help in defending the annuity they enjoy from every person with diabetes, and from the governments who pay for the medical supplies and costs of diabetic complications. These companies fear not only losing billion-dollar revenues from diabetic supplies and related diseases, but also the threat to anti-rejection drug revenues as LCT will be the first group to transplant foreign tissue using NO expensive, toxic, lifelong immunosuppressive drugs. Some fringe animal rights advocates may also be happy to prevent the sacrifice of a pig to save a child from the horrors of diabetes. Holders of certain religious or spiritual beliefs may be pleased to see their values prevail over families with diabetes. These groups have a right to defend their interests, but not at the expense of children and adults who will suffer and die from a potentially curable disease.
The spectre of cross-species infection by Pig Endogenous Retrovirus (PERV) has been raised as a risk. This issue has been rendered moot by the fact that the pigs from the isolated source herd used by LCT do not express the PERV virus from their genome. In other words, the PERV virus is not even present in these pigs and hence there is no risk of infection. Having said that, it is important to note that despite millions of opportunities for PERV infection over the last millennium of pig-human interaction, not one single case of infection has been identified. Furthermore, hundreds of thousands of people suffering from hemophilia have used Pig Clotting Factor for decades, and there has not been a single case of infection. In short, this oft-cited risk has proven itself to be virtually non-existent.
Juvenile diabetes cannot be treated by diet and exercise, an argument often made by opponents of these trials. Juvenile (type one) diabetes must never be confused with type two diabetes, a totally different disease that can often be improved through lifestyle changes. Newborn children can be struck with type one diabetes, and the only treatment is to replace the insulin-producing islet cells that have been killed by a the patient's own immune system with living cells. As diabetics have injected pig insulin for over 80 years to stay alive, we know it is safe. LCT is merely transplanting the pig cells that precisely secrete that insulin to restore the normal blood sugar control mechanism that will prevent the complications of this disease.
The financial benefits to New Zealand that will flow from successful trials will be immense. New Zealand will be a global leader in "pharming", specifically the raising and breeding of specific-pathogen-free pigs for medical applications. Diabetes patients from all over the world will come to New Zealand clinics for treatment, and New Zealand companies will establish clinics internationally. Your nation will be a leader in all forms of cellular transplantation and non-toxic immunoprotection.The biotech spin-offs represent an incalculable financial and intellectual opportunity. All these benefits will be handed to other nations if this trial does not proceed.
You may wish to read the article in the National Business Review entitled "Clinical trials could see billion dollar pig industry rival dairying". The link is below:
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/clinical-trials-could-see-billion-dollar-pig-industry-rival-dairying-35506
Your cabinet is facing a scientific and ethical decision, not a political decision. By confirming the position already taken by your safety and ethics committees, you may face fleeting challenges from multinational drug companies and certain local advocacy groups. A positive decision may generate short-term, unscientific criticism from a small coterie of special interests, but be assured that you will have the public support of millions within and beyond New Zealand.
I trust we can look forward to a science-based decision by your cabinet in accordance with your own safety and ethics committees, and that New Zealand can take its rightful place as a biotech leader in the new millennium.
Thank you for this opportunity.
With best regards,
Alastair Gordon
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Alastair Gordon, President
The Islet Foundation
Toronto, ON Canada
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