Jawbone Advance Kicks Bush Policy in the Teeth

Re “German Doctors Grow, Replace Man’s Jawbone,” Aug. 28: I was both excited and saddened to read your report of the “ambitious experiment”: excited to read that stem cells were involved in this (so far successful) project, and saddened to be reminded of how much we in the U.S. are being denied medical advances already being actualized in other parts of the world because of the inappropriate, backward, ideologically-based interference with the medical profession by our current government (consider also, denying the use of medical marijuana to pain-ridden, terminally ill patients or a prescription drug plan that ordinary people can afford).

By also interfering with a prompt investigation into the use of stem cells to alleviate and cure serious illnesses, that government is once again proving itself both cruelly incapable of, and seeing the need of, working toward the well-being of the American people. Obviously, we need a government that has a conscience as well as its head in the 21st century, not the 19th.

Rita Sokolow

Mar Vista