I know it’s tough to believe, but we have caught another moralizing member of the Republican Party with his mouth full of lies. This time, the culprit is Dave Weldon of Florida.
His victim is a woman named Susan Fajt, a resident of Austin, TX, who was paralyzed in November of 2001–three months after our president decided that we didn’t really need to pursue cures with embryonic stem cells. On her own dime, she travelled to Portugal in June, 2003 for a treatment that involved using her own nasal mucosa . . . not adult stem cells. The results were not impressive–but Dave Weldon used her anyway. What’s a “doctor” supposed to do when the medical facts don’t fit the political agenda? Sigh. Same as his president, I guess. Make shit up!
http://weldon.house.gov/Photos/?PhotoID=20541
See, before she left for Portugal, Susan could stand up with braces and a walker. When she got home, she could still stand up with braces and a walker.
Here’s the funny part: last week when members of the Congress who oppose ESC research were having a press conference, Dave Weldon held up a picture of Susan Fajt and claimed, “This poster is of a young lady who was paralyzed for years and had an adult stem cell transplant. She is able to stand up.”
Problem is, she never had an adult stem cell transplant. She had another kind of treatment, and her condition was not changed by that treatment.
On a message board for paralyzed people and their families that I frequent, someone happened to see that press conference on CSpan and posted about it here:
http://carecure.atinfopop.com/4/OpenTopic?q=Y&a=tpc&s=4754088921&f=3854088921&m=4981
01017&p=1
The very next day, our hero Dave Weldon was on CNN talking about this great new treatment with Miles O’Brien and Kyra Phillips. The “doctor” recommended to a high-level quadriplegic (former race car driver) that he go to Portugal for this surgery. Dumbass! That interview was seen by another member of the same paralyzed community.
Do you guys have any idea how fucking crazy it makes paralyzed people to hear these bastards talking through their asses about how the cure is already here, and they should just go and get it? Most of the paralyzed people I know are far, far more educated on the latest promising therapies than their own doctors, much less the clowns who are actively lobbying to take away every chance of ever seeing those therapies come to the market.
Since then, there has been a lively conversation about how best to get “Dr.” Weldon’s dumbass lie out there for public consumption.
Can you guys help? Please clean this post up and cross-post it wherever you like. (A diary from me will not get a lot attention at DailyKos, but some of you can put it up and maybe get it seen . . . ) Newsweek can be drawn and quartered for a single sentence that is not strictly accurate . . . but a US Congressman can go on national television, make shit up, use a disabled woman to add weight to his airheaded arguments, and no one will raise a flag.
Unless we make them.
Here’s a copy of what Susan had to say to Representative Weldon:
Dear Representative Weldon-
I am writing you today to respectfully but firmly insist on a well-publicized retraction of the statement you used to accompany an exhibit on C-span this week. The statement is below:
“This poster is of a young lady who was paralyzed for years and had an adult stem cell transplant. She is able to stand up.”
I am the young lady pictured on the poster to which you referred. My name is Susan Fajt.
The short sentence which offends me is full of inaccuracies.
- I went to Portugal for a cellular transplant involving my own nasal mucosal cells. There was NO “adult stem cell” transplantation involved.
- Although I am standing in the picture you referenced, it is only with the use of braces to stabilize my paralyzed legs. I could also do the same prior to the cellular transplant.
- My picture was used to support your stance of opposition to federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. I do not agree with your opposition to this funding and my likeness should not be used to defend your opinions.
I’m not sure of the legalities involved with such a use of my image. Perhaps such use is indeed legal; however it was also highly unethical and was offensive to me. I request an apology and a public retraction. This retraction must clarify the 3 points above.
Congressman Weldon, I’m playing in a game with high stakes. I need a cure for paralysis. If you want to use my image to justify a significant increase in research funding for adult stem cells, I can support that. I cannot be party to the use of my likeness to stop funding for a type of research because you find it to be morally repugnant. To my eyes, the use of blastocysts for medical research is less repugnant than the disposal of the same blastocycsts as medical waste.
On the embryonic stem cell issue, we may have to agree to disagree. Regarding your somewhat fraudulent use of my photo, I feel sure that you will appreciate my stance. I look forward to your immediate response, apology and retraction.
Sincerely,
Susan Fajt
Thanks! Oh, yeah. I want ESC research because I’m married to one of those paralyzed people. Politics prevents the research that would make him well; it ain’t a game to me.
see why you find this particularly offensive. It really is beyong the pale of acceptable political discourse. Weldon should be bull-whipped in a public square for behaving in such a manner.
Infuriating, this is just infuriating. Even worse, the lie has already gotten a lot of play, a friend sent me a few lines about it from Australia! As in, why isn’t this being used instead of embryonic stem cells etc etc.
I’m sending her the link here-hard to catch up with a lie.
I would think that a resourceful lawyer might be able to successfully argue some emotional distress and recoup damages from the honorable Mr Weldon if he doesn’t decide to step forward in an equally public forum and “do the right thing”… it’s just acting; it’s all in finding the “proper motivation”…
I really hope one does. These azzweepays need to be smacked with a magazine when they crap on the carpet.
Ms. Fajt should look into the “legalities” she mentions.
I can’t understand why he would use a poster of a woman supposedly cured by stem cell research to oppose stem cell research. Is he saying we don’t need the research because you can go to Portugal and get the operation?
That can’t be right. That is just asinine.
Why not just make heart transplants illegal because you can just go to Canada and have one? I mean, heck, if God gave you a faulty heart, you should just suck it up. This logic makes absolutely no sense. Please tell me I missed something here.
Kamakhya, it’s all about those frozen embryos.
People on the right oppose embryonic stem cell research out of fear that it will undermine their position on abortion. As we sit here conversing, there are about 400,000 frozen embryos sitting in tanks of frozen nitrogen, waiting to be thawed and dumped into medical waste bags. They exist because the process of in vitro fertilization usually creates many more embryos than the hopeful parents are able to raise.
We have friends who still pay to store about half a dozen of them, even though they know they’ll never try to use them to have another pregnancy. They have twin daughters created by the process who are spectacularly wonderful first-graders. They can’t bring themselves to throw the “siblings” out.
We have other friends who are the parents of twin 13-yr-old boys, who long ago donated their excess embryos to science.
The point Weldon was trying to make is that the adult human body also has stem cells, (which is true), and which can be used to find cures (which is not true).
Some of the best researchers in the world are here in Seattle, at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Institute. I’ve heard them testify in public that they of all people know the limits on adult stem cells–and that it’s criminal to flush those embryos down toilets instead of allowing–and funding!–the regulated research that might create cures.
The thing that makes them crazy is that China, Israel, the UK, Australia, and many other countries are working to find the cures they COULD find if only they had the backing of our country. Well, they do, actually. It’s just Bush and his stupid “base” that do not care that we spend 100 times as much on caring for paralyzed people as we do on curing them.
The thing that makes me crazy is that Weldon used a disabled person to build support for a policy she does not support by pretending that she was helped by something she never even had. And he’s a doctor!
A lying doctor.
Thank you. I thought I had to be missing something, but you never know with these idiots. I have certainly heard crazier talk from them.
I do understand the issue of using the woman’s photo without permission. She should get in touch with the couple in Seattle whose photo was used to attack the AARP. How did they get the picture? If it was from a newspaper and the newspaper did not give permission, then she has a case and should sue.