Question to:	Noel McCullagh
Issue:	Social policy
20.05.2009 Question sent by Seán Ó	Will you commit yourself publicly to legislation banning embryo destruction and preventing any regulatory body from rubber-stamping embryo destruction?
05.06.2009 Reply from Noel McCullagh	Dear Sean. Thanks for your question. Excuses for the late reply, I wanted to really look into this question you posed carefully before answering you. As I said in earlier answers and in my manifesto: I value information gathered from those with viewpoints on key issues. On the question of committing myself to banning embryo destruction. Is that within my powers as an MEP? To have something banned? I´ve looked into this and there are already ´experiments´ ongoing. Another interesting thing I noticed is that there are companies advertising stem-cell treatment on Google sites! Pharma companies have been reproached by the FDA in the USA for such advertising : in this case the add seemed to suggest that stem-cell treatment was ´the best´ for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. Now I happened to be very skeptical of all of the would-be ´wonderous´ treatments that are on the marketplace, which are in fact treatments that have never been tested before. They are ´experimental´ and the experiments carried out to produce them are done in ´labatory´ conditions and at the cost of some manner of life form that is the ´subject´ of those tests. On that subject, yes: I agree that it is questionable to experiment on life forms, including the embryos that you mention in your question. But, I would go one further than that. I would call for an end to the experimentations on the dying Irish in Waterford and Cork hospitals. These are ill people who are roped into so-called ´clinical trials´ at one privately-run and one publicly-run hospital. The ´experimentations´ on the live Irish subjects is carried out as part of a ´clinical trial´. In these trials, patients with multiple sclerosis and cancer are experimented upon by a UK bioPharma corporation based in Sailsbury UK. The corporation is called GW Pharma, and it obtains a licence from the Irish minister of health and children and the IMB to commence the experimentations. Even though cannabis is ´illegal´ in Ireland, under a special section inserted into the Act by the minister, it is not illegal for the UK drugs company to bring in its own cannabis from the UK so that the experimentations may commence. When people are extremely ill, the experimentations commence. At the conclusion of the experimentations, the data collected from the subjects remains the sole property of the UK Pharma Corporation. Based on that information harvested from the dying Irish, there have been products brought onto the marketplace and even legalised in some Commonwealth countries for use in general medical practise (MS). However, despite a great deal of harvesting on information from the Irish citizenry : the "cutting edge" treatments produced as a result of the cannabis-experimentations on the ill (and dying) Irish is not available to the Irish consumers and patients. I suppose, if it ever were... the UK company would probably have no more subjects upon whom to test their cannabis wares and then there would be little requirement to pay the minister for another licence for another year. This entire world of product-testing, cash licences and whatnot. It´s rather serious... when one considers that the Netherlands commenced developing cannabis-based treatments in their universities in the 1970s. Today, there are various products giving wonderful life-altering results; produced in Belgium and Netherlands and exported to Italia, Austria and Finland. If there are already succesful products available : why is there a need to continue the experimentations on the dying Irish? www.independent.ie [last 5 paragraphs outline the processes mentioned above re: live testing experiments in Waterford and Cork hospitals.] I hope that this sufficiently answers you question. Please contact me if that is not the case. Noel McCullagh Candidate North-West
Source:	http://www.candidatewatch.ie/noel_mccullagh-30374-22718.html