mr. speaker , i do not know why this debate has to be either/or , either we are going to cure sickle cell anemia or we have the potential to cure type 1 diabetes .  every single american who suffers from a terrible disease should have the right to a cure .  now , this bill that we are debating right now , it is a fine bill .  i support this bill .  i think cord blood research is important .  like adult stem cells , umbilical cord stem cells have proven to be a source of hematopoietic stem cells .  those are the ones that are the blood-forming stem cells that have been used for about a decade to treat blood diseases like leukemia and lymphoma .  that is great .  but it is not either that or h.r. 810 , because unlike human embryonic stem cells , stem cells from umbilical cord blood can not continually reproduce themselves .  instead of proliferating , they quickly evolve into specialized cells .  that is why they have not proven to be useful in some of the early studies .  now , the opponents of h.r. 810 say , well , embryonic stem cells have not been used to cure any disease .  that is because we are in the very promising early stages of that research .  and the adult stem cells have been used in their narrow milieu to cure diseases and to help with diseases that are blood specific .  mr. speaker , i am here to say that there is no , no scientific evidence today that will show that the cord blood or the adult stem cells will cure alzheimer 's , parkinson 's , type 1 diabetes , or the multitude of other diseases that are not blood based .  now , some of the opponents of h.r. 810 say , well , scientific studies have shown adult stem cells to be pluripotent .  number one , their argument , their argument is that embryonic stem cells have not shown clinical application .  guess what ?  neither have adult stem cells been shown clinically to be pluripotent .  furthermore , the studies where there were some indications of that were not peer reviewed and , frankly , are rejected by the scientific community .  here is a chart .  this chart shows exactly what embryonic and adult stem cells are good for and , frankly , they are good for different things .  so let us not muddle the science .  if people do not want to do embryonic stem cell research , they can look in the eye of our colleague , the gentleman from massachusetts ( mr. langevin )  and others and say to them , we do not want to do the research that could cure your disease , and i challenge them to do that .  in conclusion , curt civin , m.d. , who is a doctor at johns hopkins university school of medicine and a researcher , says `` as a physician-scientist who has done research involving umbilical cord stem cells for over 20 years , i am frequently surprised by the thought from nonscientists that core blood stem cells may provide an alternative to embryonic stem cells for research .  this is simply wrong. '' and it is wrong to say either/or .  that is why we should vote `` yes '' on this bill and h.r. 810 .  