From A Whisper To A Sound

In the light of our new administration a ray of hope for those with incurable and fatal conditions is now felt as warmth as the ban on embryonic stem cell research is lifted here in the US.

Since my first trip to India, there have been many changes in my life-- both physically and emotionally (which I have solicited online via the wonderful world of Blogger). However, there is a another change that I rarely put the effort into telling about: the social and political change that has gone on inside of me. Truthfully, I was never aware of its existence beforehand, but now it appears to twist and turn and rotate in me much like that of a Rubik's cube desperately trying to find each of its sides of monochromatic victory.

For those who know me well, my political stance generally leans nowhere-- tending to stay in that unspoken gray area. I have never been known to be very opinionated; truth-be-told I have been marked by my friends as the last person on Earth to ever sport a bumper sticker, simply for the fact that there would be nothing I'd sway to so easily. Now don't mistake this for being dispassionate-- that is far from true. It is simply a matter of so readily being able to see both the black and the white of a situation; hence leaving an seemingly dull gray color behind. But for any of you that recognize color for what it truly is-- a conglomerate of the spectrum created with perfect quantities of ever-so-specialized proportions-- that my, so-called, gray area was, in fact, not as murky as it appears. This gray was the presence of all the specified fractions of the rainbow, simply all at once. I typically took much pride in being able to see many sides to one issue, much like that Rubik's cube being comprised of many other cubes of color working harmoniously in order to make that final product even more great.

It wasn't until my decision to pursue one of the most controversial of all topics that is argued today, that I became much more rigid in my thinking-- making it apparent that a definite pull to one side was to be announced.

This pull was created as a means to validate the decision to go abroad to encounter something that most were, even so much as, willing to talk about. When I first made my mind up to travel to India for embryonic stem cell treatment, I found myself almost whispering the word, "embryonic." It was created in the likeness of profanity, or at least (socially) that is what I had thought. The word rarely came out of my mouth, instead it was replaced with words like, "experimental" and finally to, "groundbreaking" when I became more excited to make the whole thing a reality.

But something has shifted now.

Suddenly, it is okay to use the term "embryonic." You hear it on the news, see it on commercials, and even find it in line at the grocery stores. This shift, perhaps, has come about thanks to one increasingly powerful individual-- the individual that we are all looking to "be the change that we want to see in the world", one Mr. President Obama.

His promise to revert Bush's veto of using federal monies for embryonic stem cell research has, almost overnight, made it okay for me to longer whisper my adventures made in India. I no longer feel perverse and strange-- this shift has even left me with a sense of pride and empowerment of myself. I want to show the world the true benefits of all that has transformed for me. I want to show off my little baby stem cells and dress them up in a bow tie and take them out for dinner to thank them for all they've done for me. I want to prove to the world that this is the right direction for medicine in our country to travel, no matter the gigantic leap that will be necessary to make.

In order for embryonic stem cell therapies to become available, readily, in the US I believe that a lot of collaboration will need to take place and a lot of control will need to be relinquished. Collaboration on the part of those who have been doing the research for over two decades. There have been many private agencies exploring the power of stem cells for years, and I am confident that the solution is found in letting go of the prestige of being a new marked name in history and being willing to recognize that the answer may be found outside of themselves. I believe (when I wear my little biologist hat) in the work of Dr. Shroff and I can only hope that someone here in the States will believe the same enough to want to explore/implore her procedures here. I also feel that in order for embryonic stem cell therapies to become a part of medicine here, there will need to be a huge shift in the power and control of our medical companies. There is much power and money held in pharmaceuticals and that hierarchy of healing will, no doubt, be challenged by stem cells. Implementing stem cell therapies would make the use of most medicines and medical treatments rendered as useless-- surely creating a paradigm change in our entire medical system here. Someone has to be willing to think of the lives of those in this country rather than only the financial and governmental gain of structure when laying out bricks of civilization.

But can that happen in my lifetime? Will the power of change be pursued in a manner that can transform an entire country or will we continue to be stuck in old thoughts and dollar signs?

Only time will tell, I suppose.