From Don Reed, national stem cell research advocate:

The next 12 days are crucial in the stem cell research struggle.

Here's why.

Remember when President Obama signed that document removing the Bush stem

cell restrictions? That same day he called upon the National Institutes of Health to draft a new set of guidelines for scientists wanting federal

funding.

Those guidelines have just been issued. see

http://stemcells.nih.gov/policy/2009draft.htm

The next 14 days are the comment period for the new guidelines for stem cell research, which American scientists will have to live with if they want federal funding. This is the public's only chance to shape those guidelines, which can be improved-or made worse.

Unfortunately, there are problems with the proposed guidelines!

Not only are the guidelines far more conservative than we had hoped, but

opponents of the research are systematically flooding the comment process.

Conservative religious bodies, have launched a national campaign to attack early stem cell research by mass emails to the NIH.

Go to this page and leave your comments. You can simply copy and paste the phrase "I support embryonic stem cell research, and am glad some of the restrictions are being loosened." There are longer boilerplates and snail mail addresses/contacts available here.

As someone who has watched and grieved as loved ones suffered and passed away from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and cancer, there really is too much at stake to allow ourselves to be limited by anti-science and religious rhetoric.