Flier attacks Senjem on stem cell vote

A new campaign flier goers after Senate Majority Leader Dave Senjem for his vote in favor of a cloning ban that opponents say would end up banning embryonic stem cell research in the state.

The Minnesota DFL piece says it bold letters: "Not only did Senator Senjem vote against funding medical research, he voted to make it a crime." It goes on to say that medicine and research is the "lifeblood" of the Rochester region, "yet Senator Dave Senjem voted at least twice to undermine stem cell research — even voting to make it a criminal offense." It ends by saying that Senjem used to stand up for Rochester, "But today, the needs of our community take a back seat to an extreme political agenda. It's time for a change."

Olmsted County Commissioner Judy Ohly is challenging the Republican leader in Senate District 25. So far, I have seen two fliers sent out this week by the DFL party going after Senjem — this one and another focused on the state government shutdwon the elimination of the Market Value Homestead Credit.

DFL Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed the omnibus Health and Human Services bill that contained the cloning provision citing concerns raised by medical researchers that it would ban embryonic stem cell research. Organizations opposed to the ban included Mayo Clinic and University of Minnesota researchers. Supporters said it was not intended to limit medical research but rather simply ban the cloning of another human being.

The dispute centered around how human cloning is defined.The legislation would have prohibited a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer, where the nucleus of a body cell is placed within an egg from which its nucleus has been removed. That process can be used to clone humans through reproductive cloning. It also can be used for therapeutic cloning to grow body tissues that match a patient’s body.