Greene votes against bill to reauthorize National Marrow Donor Program
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-rome, was one of two House lawmakers who voted against a bill to reauthorize the National Marrow Donor Program this week.
The bipartisan measure seeks to reauthorize a national inventory of cord blood and a database of bone marrow donors for matches with patients diagnosed with leukemia and other fatal blood diseases.
Approximately every 3 minutes one person in the United States is diagnosed with a blood cancer, according to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. The group also estimated that every 9 minutes, someone in the U.S. dies from a blood cancer.
The bill passed resoundingly in the house with only two votes against, Greene and freshman Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert voting against it. Twelve other House members did not cast a vote.
On Twitter, Greene criticized the bill saying it did not have sufficient protections against the use of fetal tissue in research.
A portion of the bill directs the Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, and other federal agencies to review the science of using adult stem cells and birthing tissues for potential therapeutic use for the program.
“No taxpayer dollars should be used to buy aborted baby body parts,” Greene stated on her official Twitter account Friday. “In fact, this practice (which the Biden admin would love to spend big on) should be ended immediately. The American people would be outraged if they knew this was happening with their hard earned dollars.”
Congress passed the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act of 2005, signed into law by then President Georgia Bush, must be reauthorized every five years. The measure has gained wide bipartisan support and was reauthorized in 2010 and 2015 under the Obama administration.
After the bill’s passage, National Marrow Donor Program/be The Match posted to Twitter that the group was “grateful to be one step closer to renewing our federal Program and the Nation’s registry!”