91色情片

Christopher Reeve studied drama at the Juilliard School in New York. He played both on and off Broadway until he hit the big time in the Superman movies. Reeve has also starred in film adaptations of major novels, including The Bostonians. He took up riding after being cast as Count Vronsky in Anna Karenina. Since his injury, he has acted in the TV remake of Rear Window and in a special episode of Smallville, the TV series about Superman鈥檚 youth. He has also directed film and TV drama. Reeve has written about his life, recovery and campaigns in Still Me and Nothing is Impossible.

You鈥檝e taken conventional therapy as far asit can go and you鈥檝e made very great improvements鈥�

I began to get motor recovery about fiveyears post injury, and that was without medical intervention. That was only because of exercise. There鈥檚 so much conventional wisdom that now appears to be wrong: for example, that whatever recovery you鈥檙e going to get from a spinal cord injury will happen inthe first year, or two years atmost.

Another dogma that turns out to be wrong is that the spinal cord can鈥檛 regenerate. One of the reasons in the past that the spinal cord has not been able to regenerate is because, at the moment of injury and in the days just after, the site of the injury is attacked. There are damaged cells and debris all over the place. What scientists in Israel are doing now is treating a spinal cord patient within the first two weeks, by taking macrophages from the patient, multiplying them by the millions, and putting them back, where they act like little Pac-Men and create a clean environment for regeneration.

Would you put yourself forward to try out some of the new therapies?

Yes, I would, but the question is timing. For me, the comfort level would be probably coming in at phase two, when researchers have proved a treatment is safe but they want to know if it works.

So you wouldn鈥檛 go as far as the people with AIDS, who ended up besieging the research laboratories to try out therapies at a very early stage鈥�

They鈥檙e facing death: I鈥檓 not.

No, but you can see something that looks just round the corner and yet it鈥檚 going so slowly. It must be galling.

Yes, it is. Here we are, with a technology, the ability to use cells that could become any tissue or cell type in the body, that holds the promise of curing everything from Alzheimer鈥檚 to Parkinson鈥檚, leukaemia and cancer to spinal cord injury. Yet we are stalled by an ethical debate which to me is hard to understand.

Do you think we鈥檙e afraid of having God-like powers or something like that?

Well, I know that it鈥檚 very difficult for the Germans, for example, they鈥檙e wary because of the country鈥檚 Nazi past. But they are going to allow their scientists to do work on stem cells from fertilised embryos that would otherwise be discarded. They鈥檙e not going to allow therapeutic cloning, unfortunately. But many countries, like Britain, see the wisdom of allowing science to police itself. The UK government believes that oversight committees and strict regulations will work. But it doesn鈥檛 convince people here. We have to believe we can build protective walls around our own worst practices. I think we have to take responsible risks, given what stem cell research would do for billions of people who are suffering.

You sound like a great believer in science. Did this happen since your injury?

No, I鈥檝e always been a firm believer in science and also in visionaries. Iremember I was nine years old when President Kennedy announced that the US would land a man on the Moon and bring him safely back to Earth by the end of the decade. He said that at a time when there was still no technology to make that possible. But the vision that Kennedy set forth created the reality.

Do you think it works like that?

I do, I definitely do, if you create urgency, if you remind people, remind scientists about their opportunities to change the course of history. Lay people like myself can speak up and say, why not? And not accept no for an answer. Iremember when I addressed a symposium in New Orleans in 2000. There were about 2500 neuroscientists and the majority were pure researchers. I asked if they would stop by on their way home and make a connection between the microscope and human suffering. A lot of them were really quite offended.

Really?

Yes, because they are used to working at their own pace. Their livelihood becomes research: they鈥檙e researchers rather than visionaries who want to get the problem solved as soon as possible 鈥� which would effectively put them out of business. But I always say to them, when research helps cure one disease, there are 20 more to work on. You鈥檙e not going to be out of a job.

Is that the attitude at the research centres run by the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation?

We run it like a business. Before I came on board, the scientists were more in control. They would tell the foundation what to expect or what they might do in the coming year. Since I became chairman in 1996 we鈥檝e shifted over the other way. I鈥檝e said, OK, we鈥檒l give you X dollars, but if you don鈥檛 perform you might not get any more. So we鈥檙e in the driving seat. At first it was quite an upheaval, because that鈥檚 not the way it was done in the past. But particularly with the advent of stem cells and new knowledge, there really is no excuse to delay.

It must be very difficult for your researchers because they can鈥檛 do the things they probably want to do.

The problem is that nothing has been banned yet in the US. It鈥檚 just not being funded by the federal government 鈥� and the way you get things done quickly is by getting federal funding. We give out money through our foundation and we work with pharmaceutical companies.

How much money does your foundation give out?

We鈥檙e giving out about $15 million annually for research 鈥� and another $4 million for quality of life to help people with day-to-day living. The thing is that we鈥檙e funding the best research, but we can鈥檛 give them as much money as they need. So that鈥檚 why we鈥檙e working on this campaign.

So how do you plan to fight back?

To really make progress, we need the backing of the federal government and the National Institutes of 91色情片. The way to change public policy is through education. When the House of Representatives voted to ban both reproductive and therapeutic cloning in 2002, they did so after only about two hours of debate. Since then we got together a group and the president of it is Michael Manganiello, senior vice-president for government affairs at the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation. There鈥檚 now an office in Washington, and there is lobbying on the Hill. They鈥檝e spoken to the members of Congress who voted against therapeutic cloning, and they admitted they did not understand the issue. Last summer, I asked a high-ranking member of one committee how a representative could vote about something they don鈥檛 fully understand. And he said that most members have a particular area of responsibility, for example, armed services. They serve on specific committees and at any given moment there may be 35 bills pending so they tend to defer to the ranking party member. They let that member take the lead and just vote the party line with little knowledge of what they鈥檙e voting on.

That sounds very dangerous.

Yes, well that鈥檚 not the way the system was designed. For example, the vote on embryonic stem cell research in Australia last year was a conscience vote. And I must say I鈥檓 extremely grateful to them. They took 50 hours over it, and they were told that it was important not to line up behind party leaders.

The result was that Australia has passed a law that allows federal funding of research on stem cells derived from fertilised embryos left over from in vitro clinics 鈥� but not the other part of the equation, which is nuclear transfer, or therapeutic cloning, in which a patient鈥檚 own DNA is put into an unfertilised egg and the stem cells produced that way will not be rejected by the patient鈥檚 immune system.

What does the American public think?

We鈥檙e also working on a grass-roots movement because it appears that the Senate will end up in gridlock because neither side has the 60 votes needed to prevent a filibuster. We鈥檙e already making quite a lot of progress: the polls show that 68 per cent of the American public support nuclear transfer, or therapeutic cloning, the kind that creates stem cells rather than human beings.

We鈥檙e going to the state legislators and getting state laws passed that allow stem cell research. The first success was in California, which passed a law last September allowing scientists there to conduct research on stem cells derived from any source 鈥� and that includes therapeutic cloning. They have a state research fund of about $50 or $60 million. And then in November similar legislation was introduced in New Jersey, which also has a very viable pharmaceutical industry as well as top-flight scientists, just like California. Now we鈥檙e working on Massachusetts, Ohio, Wisconsin and New York. If we can get the legislation passed by that many states, it would be virtually impossible for the federal government to try to stop it.

So the federal government will be surrounded?

Don鈥檛 forget that the elections are coming up in 2004 and the campaigning has already started. Seven Democrats have put their hat in the ring and announced that they are running. And the President knows now that he鈥檚 on shaky ground domestically. His approval rating in terms of the economy and domestic policy is down around 46 to 47 per cent, and that鈥檚 pretty low. No one would be able to become president without winning New York, California, Massachusetts, and possibly Wisconsin.

In the past, you have set dates for when you hoped to be able to walk. Do you allow yourself to set dates any more?

No, it backfires on me too much. I used to think that hope was the product of science funding, but actually to a large extent it is going to be determined by politics. That makes it very difficult to project timelines. But I鈥檓 very grateful to all the researchers in Britain and in other countries, who are going full sheet ahead. They know what the job is, and that is to relieve human suffering.