Last week, Liz Kastner, a prospective constituent of mine, presented Governor Jim Doyle with a bag of 1400 capped needles she had used to inject her diabetic child with insulin over the last year. She asked him to deliver the needles to Republican Assembly Speaker John Gard - my likely opponent in this Congressional race - to protest the bill Gard had rammed through the Assembly to ban most stem-cell research in Wisconsin.
Kastner, along with many other people, sees stem-cell research as a potential gateway to a cure for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and many kinds of cancer, as well as the juvenile diabetes that afflicts her daughter. Gard's bill would close the doors of one of the leading centers of stem-cell research in the world at the University of Wisconsin - Madison.
One of Doyle's staff delivered the needles to Gard's office, who had a staff member of his call the Capitol police. Gard eventually decided not to bring charges against Kastner.
Here's a link to the Green Bay Press-Gazette story about the incident ("Gard upset over stem-cell needling"):
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/news/archive/local_21961628.shtml
Here's a link to the police report, which is terrific reading for its genre:
http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/large/050727needle.pdf
Many of the details of this story are funny. But the overall point isn't funny at all. Gard, along with many in his party, is willing to sacrifice potential cures for crippling diseases for an abstract principle. It's sad to think that our government's current policy is to block medical advance. It's even sadder to think of what this means for Liz Kastner's daughter and the millions of other Americans who might benefit from a more rational policy on stem-cell research.