Tommy Thomson

Former Secretary of HHS, former governor of Wisconsin.

I didn't like your crack about Sarah Palin . . .

Here's news from somebody who was there at the beginning. I learned about stem cells in December of 1998, when Jamie Thomson made the world stand still for a moment
(lots of bombast here . . . speaking style is very politician, boisterous, with significant pauses and heavy thrusts on certain words . . . he's in a pretty politically unfriendly environment here but talking as if that's not the case)

No secretary has ever gone through what I've gone through. Nobody thought we'd get hit on 9/11
or SARS
or anthrax
or failure of flu vaccine

In August 2001, prior to 9/11, president Bush called me over and asked me to have lunch with him. We went into his office off the oval office, and he and karl rove and I sat down. I think he had a peanut butter sandwich. He asked us to debate stem cell research. Karl, I know you're against it, and Tommy, you're for it. Tell me why.

So we did.

I turned to the president and said that he could double the money for the NIH without allowing research on esc, you'll always be remembered as the guy who stopped it.

Why, asked Bush

Because every American has some family member suffering from something. And each one of them has some inner hope that escr will find a cure. (He's shouting like a preacher!)

And embryonic stem cell gives that person hope (almost in a whisper)

And that's why you have to find a way.

And I'm absolutely certain that if that lunch had not taken place, you would not have had the 78 lines . . . granted, you now only have 21 lines . . . and we have $650M ready to be used, $40M annually, but the point is there is no barrier.

(BARF)

The point is that regenerative medicine is here to stay. I just talked to the head of the NIH, who said that the most promising thing right now is that scientists are taking the diseased cells of sick people and studying the markers in their cells . . . and they're going to turn what they learn into cures.

My family has suffered from cancer, mostly breast cancer.

As a presidential candidate, I advocated for finding a cure for cancer by 2025. We have a chance in this room and on this campus to get that done.

Science is great. We can't put boundaries around science because if we don't do it here, they'll do it in CA, NY, London, and China. Let's do it everywhere.

The proudest moment of my life was about 20 months ago when my daughter, who had been able to salvage a single egg before her mastectomy. It was fertilized by her husband, and her sister carried that fetus in her womb because she couldn't. I got to hold that baby in my arms.

Whoever is elected president, it is our duty to convince them of the potential and the possibilities and the opportunities. That's why I got up at 4 am and drove here 4 hours to give you this message. Because it's not about red or blue, Republican or Democrat, it's about getting this done.

Sustained applause.