Kris Claypool isn’t interested in making a political statement. She just wants to breathe.
Last year, doctors found that Claypool, who stopped smoking six years ago, had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a combination of several lung diseases, after she’d experienced constant shortness of breath and several bouts of pneumonia.
As COPD gets worse, patients have more and more difficulty breathing. There’s no cure, and, other than oxygen therapy, costly maintenance medication, and frequent trips to the hospital and the doctor’s office, Claypool’s treatment options are limited — at least in the United States, anyway.
Claypool, who lives in Springfield, is making arrangements to travel to Mexico this fall to undergo therapy involving the injection of stem cells.
“I thinks it’s criminal. The U.S. is supposed to be the leader of the free world,” Claypool says of having to seek treatment in Mexico, which is often characterized as a Third World nation.
The political debate over stem-cell research has flared across the nation in recent weeks. Earlier this month, President George W. Bush vetoed a bill to expand federal funding of stem-cell research.
Here in Illinois, Gov. Rod Blagojevich last week angered conservative lawmakers when he redirected $5 million toward the study of embryonic stem cells.
Opponents of embryonic-stem-cell research, mostly social conservatives, object on moral grounds, arguing that the technology involves the creation and destruction of life.
Supporters of stem-cell research, which includes many in the medical community, insist that the cells may be the key to curing some terminal illnesses, including COPD.
Meanwhile, Claypool must figure out how to pay for her Mexico trip. Altogether, she’ll need about $6,000. Besides the cost of the plane tickets and injections, she will need to rent a portable oxygen tank, which her state-employee health insurance won’t pay for.
Claypool’s friends are throwing her a benefit at the Alamo, 115 N. Fifth St., 4-8 p.m. Sun., Aug. 6. A $10 donation will be collected at the door. There will be music, raffles, 50/50 drawings, and a silent auction.
This article appears in Jul 20-26, 2006.
