Idea Store Whitechapel library blocks my laptop from accessing the Internet

Well, it seems obstacles just keep coming our way: in yesterday’s blog, I published a letter that Declan wrote to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions concerning the difficulties we are experiencing trying to get the benefits we are entitled to - and this after the Department for Work and Pensions unlawfully put us the street for more than 2 1/2 years; in the blog of last Wednesday (see here), I published a letter Declan wrote to the Papal Nuncio in London about his formal complaint of discrimination against the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy - for denying us access to food!

Today I had to put away my laptop because Tower Hamlets Council’s Idea Store Whitechapel library - where I have been doing all my work since we were put to the street in November 2006 - restricted my access to their network to “local only” (a first), effectively blocking my access to the Internet. I didn’t see anybody else raising the issue with a member of staff. Anyway, I am unlucky: the technician is away for the day and no other staff member “has the expertise” to deal with my query. Next time, Declan will write to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, Councillor Lutfur Rahman (see blog of 13 May “Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council”).

So much for the work I had hoped to do on “War on Terror” today - I have been sent some amazing stuff from a conference that was held in Buenos Aires a couple of weeks ago; of course, now I'm twice as interested! This is the email Declan sent to the manager of the library a moment ago:

Subject: Idea Store Whitechapel

Dear Mr. Ali,

I wish to confirm that at 1.00pm my wife brought to the attention of a member of your staff that she didn't have access to the Internet via her laptop. At 1.30pm, a member of staff explained to her that the technician is away for the day and that there is no-one else in the IT Department that has the expertise to explain to her why she is the only person in the library whose access to the Idea Store network has been restricted to "local only".

I can confirm that as at this moment (3.00pm) no Internet access has been restored to my wife on her laptop, and a member of staff has only spoken further to her to reconfirm that nothing can be done to rectify the situation today.

I present below a copy of my email to you on 21 September.

Yours sincerely,
Declan Heavey

cc Ms. Heather Bonfield, Head of Cultural Services

----------------------

21 September 2009

Subject: Idea Store Whitechapel

Dear Mr. Ali,

I wish to confirm that at 5.30pm this evening my wife brought to the attention of a member of your staff that her access to the Internet via her laptop had slowed down to an almost standstill. She inquired of this member of staff if she was the only user experiencing such difficulties, as no announcements had been made and no other user seemed to be having problems using the Idea Store network. I can confirm that as at this moment (6.45pm) no Internet access has been restored to my wife, nor has any member of staff spoken further to her.

Yours sincerely,
Declan Heavey

More police intimidation at the place we sleep, Salters

Last night I was lucky enough to avoid being escorted by two police officers to a police van at the place we sleep – the back of Salters' Hall, a porch located on a derelict highwalk (see blog of 5 June “Salters back in the spotlight” for two Google map photos of the pitch).

At around 10.00pm – Declan is about to nod off to sleep in his sleeping bag and I am reading a book – two security guards from the company Guarding UK approach us. They flash their lights into my face and as bluntly as possible one of them tells me that they are patrolling the highwalk and they want us off it, right away. I point out that we have been sleeping at Salters’ Hall since last September, on the highwalk since January, and the porch is owned by the Salters’ Company over which they have no jurisdiction. All falls on deaf ears, and within ten or so minutes two police officers are on the scene (incident no. 10903).

By now Declan has all our stuff out of the porch and is separating things for what we believe will surely be my arrest – last September I was arrested by four police officers for a breach of the peace because I refused to move on as a result of having nowhere else to sleep (see blog of 11 September “I am arrested for ‘breach of the peace’”); last Friday night I was also threatened with arrest by another police officer who wanted us to move ourselves and our things away so that two City of London Corporation street cleaners could wash and disinfect the porch floor (this skulduggery is carried out under what the City of London police call Operation Poncho II, see previous blog).

PC 208CP and PC 671CP from Bishopsgate police station are adamant that we have no option but to leave the highwalk, and no, PC 208CP says, the police don’t need a court order to force us to vacate the highwalk! Anyway, I refuse to move and we very much repeat the things we said on the night of the 28 May when two police officers from Snow Hill police station and two workers from the homeless organisation Broadway visited us (see blog “Last night something surreal happened”) - Declan made a couple of hilarious comments, as usual, particularly relating to his washing on the street since 10 April of last year because of harassment and intimidation by other homeless at the RC Sisters of Mercy Dellow Day Centre and the Catholic Manna Day Centre (see blog of 14 May “Letter to Archbishop Vincent Nichols”).

PC 208CP informs us on leaving with the two security guards that if we want our copies of the record of the encounter/stop (called 386s) to which we are entitled, Declan should call into the police station in the morning to collect them because he doesn’t have any with him! The police station had nothing for him this morning, though.

This visit from the police just happened to come on top of an afternoon of variety for Declan. First, he had to email Asab Ali, the manager of our local council’s Idea Store Whitechapel library – located only a few minutes from the huge East London Mosque and London Muslim Centre – regarding the library’s MIMEsweeper software blocking access to his Google Mail account due to “Porn Detected”. (Only a few weeks ago I was bullied by two security guards into vacating the computer I had booked the previous day, which I refused to do, see blog of 13 May “Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council”.)

Then he had to submit a written complaint to the manager of the local internet café against a homeless man from the Salvation Army’s Booth House hostel for homeless men across the road, such was the extent of the unprovoked and loud verbal abuse he was subjected to sitting among the upstairs computers – “you have no f*ckin’ manners”, “you are an Irish grass”, etc.; of course, Declan has no idea how this guy knows he is Irish!

For the record, this is the email Declan sent this afternoon to City of London Police Commissioner Michael Bowron on the incident last night:

Subject: CAD 10903 (16/06/09)

Dear Commissioner Bowron,

I refer to the attached copy of my email to you of 13 June (and attachments) regarding Operation Poncho II and wish to confirm that I retain a stamped With Compliments slip dated today from Bishopsgate police station, stating:

On wed 17/06/09 at 08.00 Mr Declan Heavey attended Bishopsgate police station to collect 386 in relation to stop at Salters Hall (CAD 10903 of 16/06/09). Copy not found. Mr Heavey intends to return on 18/06/09 in the hope of collecting said 386.

As you are aware, my wife and I are of no fixed abode and have been sleeping rough in the City of London since 3 November 2006. (We slept in the same porch until a trellis gate was installed on 4 September 2008, and as from 12 September our sleeping pitch has been located at Salters' Hall, Fore Street.)

I can confirm that at 10.00pm last night two City of London police officers from Bishopsgate police station, PC 208CP and PC 671CP, were summoned to our sleeping pitch at Salters' Hall by two security guards from the company Guarding UK who were patrolling (a derelict) St. Alphage Highwalk. PC 208CP informed my wife that he was not in need of a court order and that she had to vacate the highwalk immediately. My wife refused as a result of having nowhere else to sleep, the upshot being that the two police officers and two security guards left, PC 208CP informing me on leaving that if I wanted our copies of the record of the encounter/stop to which we were entitled I should call into the police station in the morning to collect them.

I reconfirm that at 1.00am last Friday night PC 493CP from Snow Hill police station insisted pursuant to Operation Poncho II that my wife and I move out of our sleeping pitch at Salters' Hall to allow two City of London Corporation street cleaners to wash and disinfect the porch floor. When my wife refused as a result of having nowhere else to sleep, she was told by PC 493CP that she would be arrested if she did not vacate the porch. Again my wife refused, the upshot being that one of the street cleaners poured disinfectant around where she remained outstretched in her sleeping bag. With that, PC 493CP and the two street cleaners left the highwalk.

Perhaps I should mentioned here that the homeless organisation Broadway, in an unsolicited email to my wife and me on Monday (also attached), and in quoting from my wife's blog of 11 June "Harassment at the place we sleep, Salters", acknowledged by implication the content of her blog of 29 May "Last night something surreal happened", thereby sealing my wife's defense for a court subject to the Human Rights Act 1998.

In the event of error in transmission, please note that the order of attachments is as follows:

cussen(13.6.09).htm
cussen(12.9.08).htm
cussen(10.6.08).htm
broadway(15.6.09).htm

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey

Sherry Jones: "We must speak out for free speech"

I have taken the above title from a piece dated 19 May which can be accessed through the homepage of the Index on Censorship website – subtitled: “Why are UK distributors refusing to handle The Jewel of Medina? It’s time to raise an outcry says its author”. (As I stated in Tuesday’s blog “Free Speech Watch: Gagging in Britain” – the title taken from a recent Center for Inquiry blog entry – we are now emailing writers associated to the Index on Censorship, Reporters Without Borders, and others, on the hacking and on-going vandalisation of the NAC website (see blog of 9 May “SiteGround confirms our website has been hacked”); only last night the “Links” page carried a “Reported Attack Site!” notification, which got removed once I reposted the page.)



The Guardian also carried a story two days ago, titled “Muhammad child bride novel author condemns UK ‘censorship’”, which says that Sherry Jones, the author of The Jewel of Medina, has accused British publishers of being too afraid to publish her book in the wake of a firebomb attack on the office of Gibson Square, the London-based publisher which had been set to release it last year.

Her novel was initially acquired for a six-figure advance by Random House US, but dropped by the publisher last summer after it was warned that the book’s subject matter “might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment”. It was later acquired and published in America by small US publisher Beaufort Books. Gibson Square bought UK rights, but dropped the book following an arson attack on the home and office of its publisher Martin Rynja. Last week three men were found guilty of conspiracy to recklessly damage property and endanger life.

Jones has now revealed on her blog that despite attempts to find a new UK distributor for The Jewel of Medina, “everyone, it seems, is too afraid”. “Although the extremists lost in court, they have apparently won where it really counts – in the UK’s book stores,” she wrote. “The ‘thugs’ have accomplished their task – and freedom of speech, the first freedom to go when fascism gets a foothold, has taken a blow in the western world.”

She called on “the people of Great Britain” to “speak out against those who are limiting their right to read, think, speak, listen, debate, discuss, criticize”. “I hope the people of the UK can find the power, and the courage, to raise an outcry against censorship,” she said. “Now it’s time for the rest of us, including moderate Muslims and the press, who cherish our culture and our freedom, to raise a cry louder than that of radicals, so we don’t lose that most precious, and crucial, of freedoms.”

Across the road from our local council’s Idea Store Whitechapel – the borough’s flagship library, learning and information service where I spend most of my day – is the huge East London Mosque and London Muslim Centre. According to research seen by The Times, books calling for the beheading of lapsed Muslims, ordering women to remain indoors and forbidding interfaith marriage are being sold inside some of Britain’s leading mosques; one book, Fatawa Islamiyah, which urges the execution of apostates, was found in a bookshop at the mosque in Whitechapel.

Which reminds me that we frequently run into difficulties in Idea Store Whitechapel: only last week I was bullied by two security guards into vacating the computer I had booked the previous day, which I refused to do (see blog of 13 May “Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council”); a supervisor subsequently agreed that I would be able to have my bookings confirmed in writing by a member of staff, as Declan confirmed in an email of 13 May to the manager of Idea Store Whitechapel, Asab Ali, but this week a member of staff has still to agree to do so. For the record, this is Declan’s email yesterday evening to Ali, the fourth such email this week (all four emails have been copied to Heather Bonfield, Head of Cultural Services, Tower Hamlets Council):

Subject: Idea Store Whitechapel

Dear Mr. Ali,

I refer further to my email of 13 May (attached) and wish to confirm my wife's bookings* for tomorrow on computer 1.16 as follows:

D000355837 (Declan Heavey)
11.45 - 12.45
13.45 - 14.45
14.45 - 15.45

D000350314 (Maria Heavey)
12.45 - 13.45
15.45 - 16.45
16.45 - 17.45

*Bookings checked by a member of staff, but a confirmation signature, printed name, initials or mark of any description refused by the same member of staff.

Yours sincerely,
Declan Heavey

cc Ms. Heather Bonfield, Head of Cultural Services

Also last week, the then out-going leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, said in a BBC Radio interview with Roger Bolton that atheists are “not fully human”. Philosopher Stephen Law, editor of the British Royal Institute of Philosophy journal THINK, comments: “[I]t is also worth just drawing attention to the fact that going round saying that those with whom one most profoundly disagrees are ‘not fully human’ is an extraordinarily insulting and dangerous thing to say, whether true or not”. Law also asks: “And does he consider my not-fully-human existence worth less than that of a fully-human religious person?” Well, the fact that Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor considers Declan and I “not-fully-human” might go some way to explaining why we have been kept to the street for over two and a half years, after being put there in November 2006 (see “About us”).

Facebook issues me another warning

Facebook’s warnings keep coming. And I don’t know with what logic: this time I was using the search facility because I was looking for a specific person who turned out to have a FB page and 27 friends in common. How can that be deemed engaging in abusive behavior? Perhaps it can be explained by some sort of software malfunction, but I have also lost at least one FB friend. I spotted he was missing because I had some correspondence with him and couldn’t access his wall. I found it difficult to believe he would have removed me as a friend: well, he didn’t; and now we are friends again. Anyway, a FB group has now been formed "Support Lola Heavey - Stop Facebook Banning Her", which can be accessed here.

I do all my work on computers in my local council-run library, Idea Store Whitechapel (the borough’s flagship library, learning and information service), which is not easy at all in the three free hours we get on each of our membership cards and frequently we run into difficulties. Yesterday, for example, my internet connection slowed down to such an extent that I had to leave the library and go to the local internet café; Declan manned the computer for an hour and a half and says that he was not aware of the lodgement with a member of staff of a complaint by any of the other 23 computer users on the floor. This is Declan’s email this evening to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, Councillor Lutfur Rahman:

Subject: Idea Store Whitechapel

Dear Cllr. Rahman,

I refer to your email of acknowledgement of 13 February 2009 from Ms. Rekha Ruparelia, stating:

The Leader is in receipt of your letter dated 10th February 2009 and he is sorry to learn of the problems you encountered in getting hold of Idea staff at Whitechapel branch. He has asked Stephen Halsey to look into this matter and he will contact you direct.

I can confirm that I have yet to hear from Mr. Halsey or anyone else for and on behalf of Tower Hamlets Council in respect of the difficulties I have had getting through by email to Ms. Lisa Randall, Acting Manager, Idea Store Whitechapel, concerning internet access on both my wife's card (card no. D000350314) and my card (card no. D000355837).

I attach copy of my email of even date to Ms. Randall on our on-going difficulties with internet access and reconfirm that since my original complaint of 21 January 2008 to the former Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, Cllr. Denise Jones, my wife and I have not only experienced repeated loss of computer bookings and internet access, but several other problems to boot. Please reconsider:

(1) On 1 February 2008, the Principal Idea Store Manager, Mr Sergio Dogliani, wrote to me advising that the restriction by Idea Store Whitechapel of both my wife and I to a 3-hour maximum free computer use per day as from 29 January stood, despite that for several months previous we were given "additional time" subject to computer availability and in accordance with the Council's then and current "Idea Stores PC Usage Policy";

(2) On 24 June 2008 at 12.30pm, a member of staff threatened my wife with security if she did not give her computer up to another card holder, despite that thirty minutes earlier a member of staff had confirmed in writing that my wife had booked the computer from 11.30am to 2.30pm;

(3) On 3 August 2008, both of the computers my wife and I had booked the previous day contained an identical virus which spread to the two USB drives we were using. This rendered my wife's portable programs inoperable. It also corrupted some of my most valuable data, namely, a Word document containing a categorized list of over 150 British signatories of a petition of mine to the United Nations on therapeutic cloning (SCNT) and a related database containing the names, email addresses and contact information for over 3,000 scientists and academics from around the world;

(4) On 6 August 2008 at 2.45pm, MIMEsweeper blocked access to my Google Mail account due to "Porn Detected". Following the restoration of my access to the account at 3.10pm, the IT technician informed me that "it may happen again for any length of time".

As I mentioned in my initial letter of complaint to you of 4 August 2008 following (3) above, my petition to the United Nations on SCNT has been signed by recognized authorities from the world's leading universities and research institutes, now numbering 590 scientists and academics, including 24 Nobel Laureates. Of late, my wife has been using as much of her computer time as she can to develop her wall on Facebook in accordance with our website at
http://religionandmorality.net; so far she has 617 FB friends, including several distinguished scientists and academics from around the world.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely,
Declan Heavey

New NAC website very much in the firing line

This morning Declan thought it best if we left the Catholic Manna Centre at 9.00am, for the third Saturday in a row (see blog of 21 January “Violence and economic strangulation”); on this occasion, Declan was man-handled in the men’s toilets by a homeless who insisted that he engage in conversation with him. We left without Declan getting a bite to eat.

Declan continues to wash in the street, which he has been doing since 10 April last year as a result of all the harassment he has received from other homeless: see, for example, blog of 16 May 2008 “More racially aggravated harassment in the Dellow Centre”; or blog of 18 June 2008 “Declan robbed in the Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre”; or blog of 19 June 2008 “Declan assaulted in the Manna Centre”. On 18 June 2007, we were barred from the Methodist Church Whitechapel Mission by the minister’s wife due to concerns about our safety after I was assaulted in an unprovoked attack by a homeless woman in the canteen (see here). Declan has written on several occasions to the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, in his capacity as Archbishop of the Diocese of Westminster, to which the Dellow Centre belongs (see blog of 6 November 2008 “Letter to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor”).

It seems that the new NAC website that I am building in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning at http://network.obxhost.net/index.html is still very much in the firing line: Declan had no problem accessing it this morning from the local internet café but I was once again unable to access it or the web host from our local council’s Idea Store Whitechapel (see blog of 23 January “Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council”). In fact, I still can’t, meaning I can’t upload an article by Steven Pinker entitled “The Stupidity of Dignity” (see below).

Pinker, world-renowned thinker and Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University (and an honorary associate of NAC and early signatory of Declan’s petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning), argues that the concept of dignity is natural ground on which to build an obstructionist bioethics. It’s not surprising, then, he wrote on 28 May last, that ‘dignity’ is a recurring theme in Catholic doctrine: The word appears more than 100 times in the 1997 edition of the Catechism and is a leitmotif in the Vatican’s recent pronouncements on biomedicine. In its most authoritative declaration on bioethics for more than 20 years, the Vatican released on 12 December a 32-page document titled “Dignitas Personae” (the dignity of a person).

As I stated in the previous blog, we received our first donation last Monday and I believe this may be influencing things: perhaps to discourage somebody else for doing the same. For example, this morning I emailed 35 scientists and academics in New York State inviting them to sign Declan’s petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning but received no autoreplies and no-one has signed – I received one undelivered email to my spam box. To date, the petition has been signed by 589 scientists and academics, who include recognised authorities from the world’s leading universities and research institutes, as well as 24 Nobel Laureates.

This is the document (three pages) I am waiting to upload:

Still problems with the new NAC website

It seems our difficulties with the new NAC website I am building in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning at http://network.obxhost.net/index.html (launched the Monday before last) are well from over. Declan was once again unable to access the site from our local council’s Idea Store Whitechapel; we frequently run into trouble in this library, especially with internet access and computer bookings (see, for example, last Friday’s blog “Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council”).

I had no luck either. After working on a piece for our homepage - relating the FDAs announcement last Friday that it had cleared the way for the world’s first clinical trial of a therapy derived from human embryonic stem cells - I couldn’t upload for well over two hours; the web host obxhost.net kept informing me that “permission was denied”. Not even two trips to the local internet café resolved the matter, and in fact it is only a few minutes ago that I was allowed to upload the piece, citing “a new era in medicine”. According to their website, OBXHost.net is “a leading Free Web Site Hosting Provider” whose “service is highly reliable”. They add that they only use “quality high end servers”.

As I said in the previous blog following the blocklisting of our new site only the day before yesterday, perhaps I am just unfortunate with the websites I build. On 8 March 2008, the original NAC website was suspended due to what turned out to be spam as reported via SpamCop on 6 March (see blog of 14 March “SpamCop reports Declan as a spammer”). I believe there is link between SpamCop’s report to our web host branding us as spammers and an email Declan received the day previous, on 5 March, from the Home Office advising in response to several emails he addressed to Home Secretary Jacqueline Smith that no warrant to intercept his communications had been issued (see blog of 9 March Home Office denies warrant to intercept communications - since 22 October 2007, I have been emailing scientists and academics inviting them to sign Declan’s petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning; to date, the petition has been signed by 589 scientists and academics, who include recognised authorities from the world’s leading universities and research institutes, as well as 24 Nobel Laureates.

This is the email Declan sent this evening to the acting Idea Store Whitechapel manager:

Dear Ms Randall

With reference to my recent email to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, I am in receipt of an email from the Council stating: “Ms Lisa Randall, the acting Idea Store Whitechapel Manager, is available and willing to discuss the detailed matters you have raised with regard to the service [at Idea Store Whitechapel].”

I wish to confirm that this afternoon at Idea Store Whitechapel, between 1.10pm and 2.10pm, I was unable to access my website at http://network.obxhost.net/index.html; MIMEsweeper stating: “DNS look-up failed for ‘network.obxhost.net’”. I subsequently experienced no such difficulty on the same computer between 2.10pm and 7.10pm.

I would be obliged if any discourse between us on this matter would be confined to writing in order to avoid any misunderstanding that may occur.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey
Card no. D000355837

First Human Trial of Embryo-Derived Treatment

The violence and economic strangulation against us continues unabated (see blog of 21 January “Violence and economic strangulation”). As I stated in the previous blog, on Saturday Declan thought it best if we left the Catholic Manna Centre, without even a bite to eat - the second time in a week that we have felt the need to do so. In the blog of 17 November, I wrote that our Big Issue pitches - The Big Issue is a magazine sold by homeless people on registered pitches throughout the UK - have been terminated (see blog of 11 November “Letter of complaint to the chair of The Big Issue Foundation Charity”). We can still sell the magazine on the pitches we had for two years but we have no priority whatsoever: we have to leave the pitches if the vendors to whom they have been allocated come along, and not stand in on them at all if a vendor is already there. This is an extremely serious situation for me in particular, in that I am facing possible prosecution for begging.



The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared to proceed the first human trial of a therapy based on human embryonic stem cells, in a study that promises to open a new era for medicine, The Times reported last Friday. Paralysed patients will this summer become the first people in the world to receive the therapy, which has huge potential to cure disease yet is considered unethical by “pro-life” groups because it involves destroying embryos.

The decision marks a sea-change in US government attitudes to stem cells, as President Obama prepares to lift restrictions imposed by President Bush that hampered progress in the field. Mr Obama pledged in his inaugural address to “restore science to its rightful place”, and to end White House obstruction of stem-cell research.

The new FDA ruling will allow doctors to inject specialised spinal cells grown from embryonic tissue into patients who have just become paralysed from the chest down. It is hoped that the cell transplants will prompt regrowth of damaged nerves, restoring sensation and movement to people who would otherwise have been paralysed for life. The treatment will be used on people a week or two after they suffer their spinal injury; it cannot help those already paralysed.

A successful trial would transform the prospects of thousands of people for whom few treatment options currently exist, said The Times, adding that if the results are positive, the therapy could be approved for wider use within three to five years.

Thomas Okarma, chief executive of the Geron, which developed the treatment, is quoted by the paper as saying: “This marks the beginning of what is potentially a new chapter in medical therapeutics - one that reaches beyond pills to a new level of healing: the restoration of organ and tissue function by the injection of healthy replacement cells. The ultimate goal is to achieve restoration of spinal cord function.”

In a recent paper published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Professor Ronald Green, Faculty Director of Dartmouth’s Ethics Institute, writes:

At present, opposition to hES cell research is a relatively cost-free stance that permits those adopting it to reap many symbolic and organisational rewards. This could change if hES cell research fulfils its therapeutic promise. For the past few years, I have been predicting that our stem cell debates will end abruptly the day after the first diabetic child walks out of a stem cell clinic cured of the disease. If families must choose between embryos and treatments for sick loved ones, the full gravity of these commitments will become clearer. Then, the family-values component of the anti-hES cell position will be internally challenged, as people will ask how they best can express their commitment to the welfare of families and children. Is it by opposing the destruction of human embryos, or by turning spare, and otherwise doomed, embryos to human benefit? If that happens, I believe, many of the opponents will look anew at their real valuation of the early embryo, and most will opt for cures.

Geron’s trial will soon appear as the second lead item on the homepage of our new website in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning (launched last Monday); Professor Green’s article will appear as a link. They would be there now if it wasn’t for the fact that my first computer at our local council’s Idea Store Whitechapel is at 1.15pm and I am restricted to a maximum of three hours – we frequently run into difficulties at this library (see, for example, Friday’s blog “Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council”; on Thursday I was unable to access either our website or the web host). Our fight to raise £450 for a laptop to build the site continues. Today we received a first donation of £20. It was a momentous occasion for us both, actually.

Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council

For the record, below is the letter that Declan sent this afternoon by email and registered post to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, Councillor Lutfur Rahman, who is also the Leader of the Labour Group, concerning the Council’s Idea Store Whitechapel, the borough’s flagship library, learning and information service. We frequently run into trouble in the library, especially with internet access and computer bookings (see, for example, the previous blog: all day yesterday I couldn’t access the new NAC website at
http://network.obxhost.net/index.html from the Idea Store; in fact, I couldn’t even access the web host OBXHost.net to upload my work).

In response to Declan’s last email of 9 January to Cllr Rahman, a senior management support officer replied within minutes as follows:

from: Sharon Ball
to: Declan Heavey
date: Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 2:21 PM
subject RE: Idea Store Whitechapel

Hi Sergio
Please could you have a look at the email below, I am unsure who/how it should be actioned.

Sharon Ball
Senior Management Support Officer
020 7364 5965

Declan hasn’t heard further from this support officer but as the word ‘actioned’ is somewhat ambiguous, he has included the full contents of his email letter of 9 January to Cllr Rahman in the email he sent earlier this afternoon:

from: Declan Heavey
to: cllr.lutfur.rahman@towerhamlets.gov.uk
date: Fri, Jan 23, 2008 at 4:08 PM
subject: Idea Store Whitechapel
mailed-by: gmail.com

Dear Cllr Rahman

I am writing to you in your capacity as Leader of Tower Hamlets Council to refer further to the attached copy of my most recent correspondence with the Head of Idea Stores, Mr Ian McNicol, to whom the former Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, Cllr Denise Jones, referred my original complaint of 21 January 2008 regarding Idea Store Whitechapel and the repeated loss of computer bookings and internet access on both my wife's card (card no. D000350314) and my card (card no. D000355837) since 14 November 2007.

In the absence of a response from Mr McNichol with respect to the aforementioned complaint, I wish to draw to your attention that yesterday at Idea Store Whitechapel between 1.15pm and 7.15pm I was unable to access either my website at http://network.obxhost.net/index.html or the associated web host OBXHost.net (see second attachment for a copy of a snag of a MIMEsweeper notice stating: "DNS look-up failed for 'network.obxhost.net'"). According to their website, OBXHost.net is "a leading Free Web Site Hosting Provider" whose "service is highly reliable". They add that they only use "quality high end servers that are constantly monitored 24 hours a day to ensure your site is always online".

As I mentioned in my previous email to you of 9 January, a member of staff at Idea Store Whitechapel on 8 January could not offer an explanation as to why the computer I had booked was the only computer out of a network of 24 computers on the floor to have slowed down to a virtual standstill when no other computer on the floor had a complaint of any description against it. I reconfirm that since my complaint of 21 January 2008 to Cllr Jones, my wife and I not only have experienced repeated loss of computer bookings and internet access, but several other problems to boot. For example:

(i) 1 February 2008: the Principal Idea Store Manager, Mr Sergio Dogliani, wrote to me advising that the restriction by Idea Store Whitechapel of both my wife and I to a 3-hour maximum free computer use per day as from 29 January stands, despite that for several previous months we were given "additional time" subject to computer availability and in accordance with the Council's then and current "Idea Stores PC Usage Policy";

(ii) 24 June 2008: at approximately 12.30pm, a member of staff threatened my wife with "security" if she did not give her computer up to another card holder, despite that thirty minutes earlier a member of staff had confirmed in writing that my wife had booked the computer from 11.30am to 2.30pm;

(iii) 3 August 2008: both of the computers my wife and I had booked the previous day contained an identical virus which spread to the two USB drives we were using. This rendered my wife's portable programs inoperable. It also corrupted some of my most valuable data: a database containing the names, email addresses and contact information for over 3,000 scientists and academics from around the world, and a related Word document containing a categorised list of over 150 British signatories of a petition of mine to the United Nations on therapeutic cloning;

(iv) 6 August 2008: at approximately 2.45pm, MIMEsweeper blocked access to my Google Mail account due to "Porn Detected". At 3.10pm, following the restoration of my access to the account, the IT technician informed me without explanation that "it may happen again for any length of time".

As I explained in my original complaint to you of 4 August 2008 following (iii) above, since 22 October 2007 my wife and I have been using as much of our computer time in Idea Store Whitechapel as possible to contact scientists and academics to invite them to sign my petition to the United Nations on therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). To date, this petition has been signed by 589 scientists and academics, who include recognised authorities from the world's leading universities and research institutes, as well as 24 Nobel Laureates.

I once again acknowledge receipt of an email of 7 August 2008 from your Personal Assistant, Ms Rachel Bielby, stating: "Cllr Rahman is now on leave until the end of August. I have asked the office of the Director of Communities, Localities and Culture's office to deal with your correspondence." I confirm that on 9 January, minutes after my previous email to you, I received an email from Senior Management Support Officer, Ms Sharon Ball, questioning only whether any of the reconfirmed information above is 'actionable' by Tower Hamlets Council.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey

No access to new NAC website

With respect to the new NAC website in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning (see blog of 19 January “NAC website launched”), I was hoping to upload more New York State documents today, minus a “Take action” on payment for egg donation which the ethics committee of the Empire State Stem Cell Board is currently discussing. Alas, after spending an hour putting the finishing touches to a new banner, I found out that I couldn’t access the site at http://network.obxhost.net/index.html from our local council’s Idea Store Whitechapel. In fact, I can’t even access the web host OBXHost.net to upload the work.



According to their website, OBXHost.net is “a leading Free Web Site Hosting Provider” whose “service is highly reliable”. They add that they only use “quality high end servers that are constantly monitored 24 hours a day to ensure your site is always online”. I find it a bit difficult to believe that OBXHost.net has been down for over five hours now.

Perhaps I am just unlucky with the websites I build. On 8 March 2008, the original NAC website was suspended due to what turned out to be spam as reported via SpamCop on 6 March (see blog of 14 March “SpamCop reports Declan as a spammer”); only the day before SpamCop’s report to our web host branding us as spammers, the Home Office emailed Declan on behalf of Home Secretary Jacqueline Smith to confirm that no warrant to intercept his communications had been issued - since 22 October 2007, I have been contacting scientists and academics to invite them to sign Declan’s petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning; to date this petition has been signed by 588 scientists and academics, who - despite excessive spamming (see, for example, blog of 5 December “On red alert”) - include recognised authorities from the world’s leading universities and research institutes, as well as 24 Nobel Laureates.

This is the new NAC banner:



With no access to the new NAC website to upload more NYS documents, tomorrow I will turn to a “Take action” in respect of payment for egg donation which will make the case that donors should not be paid for their eggs, but rather they should be compensated for the burdens of egg retrieval (reference: Steinbock B. Payment for egg donation and surrogacy. Mt Sinai J Med 2004;71:255-265). This take action - for the NYS subsection entitled “Empire State Stem Cell Board” - will be uploaded here as some previous NYS documents have been.

Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council

For the record, below is the email letter that Declan sent this afternoon to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, Councillor Lutfur Rahman, who is also the Leader of the Labour Group, concerning the Council's Idea Store Whitechapel, the borough's flagship library, learning and information service. We frequently run into trouble in the library, especially with internet access and computer bookings (see, for example, blog of 5 January "New York State home page"; while at a computer in the library, I was pushed quite hard by a guy after I refused to let him borrow my USB drive).

The email was copied to Sharon Ball, with whom the former Manager of Idea Store Whitechapel Zoinul Abidin advised Declan yesterday to communicate. She replied to Declan within minutes as follows:

from: Sharon Ball
to: Declan Heavey
date: Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 2:21 PM
subject RE: Idea Store Whitechapel

Hi Sergio

Please could you have a look at the email below, I am unsure who/how it should be actioned.

Sharon Ball
Senior Management Support Officer
020 7364 5965

And this is Declan's email this afternoon to Cllr Rahman, to which Ball referred:

from: Declan Heavey
to: cllr.lutfur.rahman@towerhamlets.gov.uk
date: Fri, Jan 9, 2008 at 2:16 PM
subject: Idea Store Whitechapel
mailed-by: gmail.com

Dear Cllr Rahman

I am writing to you in your capacity as Leader of Tower Hamlets Council to refer further to the attached copy of my most recent correspondence with the Head of Idea Stores, Mr Ian McNicol, to whom the former Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, Cllr Denise Jones, referred my original complaint of 21 January 2008 regarding Idea Store Whitechapel and the repeated loss of computer bookings and internet access on both my wife's card (card no. D000350314) and my card (card no. D000355837) since 14 November 2007.

In the absence of a response from Mr McNichol with respect to the aforementioned complaint, I wish to confirm that yesterday afternoon at approximately 2.15pm the computer I had booked from 2.00pm to 3.00pm slowed down to a virtual stand-still. According to the staff member on floor duty, in the absence of the IT technician (who was "not at work") he could not offer an explanation as to why the computer I had booked was the only computer out of a network of 24 computers on the floor 1 to have a complaint of any description against it.

I reconfirm that since my complaint of 21 January 2008 to Cllr Jones, my wife and I have not only experienced repeated loss of computer bookings and internet access, but several other problems to boot. For example:

(i) 1 February 2008: the Principal Idea Store Manager, Mr Sergio Dogliani, wrote to me advising that the restriction by Idea Store Whitechapel of my wife and I to a 3-hour maximum free computer use per day as from 29 January stands, despite that for several previous months we were given "additional time" subject to computer availability and in accordance with the Council's then and current "Idea Stores PC Usage Policy";

(ii) 24 June 2008: at approximately 12.30pm, a member of staff threatened my wife with "security" if she did not give her computer up to another card holder, despite that thirty minutes earlier a member of staff had confirmed in writing that my wife had booked the computer from 11.30am to 2.30pm;

(iii) 3 August 2008: both of the computers my wife and I had booked the previous day contained an identical virus which spread to the two USB drives we were using - rendering not only my wife's portable programs inoperable, but corrupting some of my most valuable data: a Word document of a categorised list of British signatories of my petition to the United Nations on therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT); and an associated database containing the names, email addresses and contact information relating to over 3,000 scientists and academics from around the world;

(iv) 6 August 2008: at approximately 2.45pm, MIMEsweeper, the filter software used by the Idea Store network, blocked access to my Google Mail account due to "Porn Detected". At 3.10pm, following my access to the account, the IT technician informed me (without explanation) that "it may happen again for any length of time".

As I explained in my original complaint to you of 4 August 2008 following (iii) above, since 22 October 2007 my wife and I have been using as much of our computer time in Idea Store Whitechapel as possible to contact scientists and academics to invite them to sign my petition to the United Nations on SCNT and the use of stem cells for research and for the treatment of disease. To date, this petition has been signed by 588 scientists and academics, who include recognised authorities from the world's leading universities and research institutes, as well as 24 Nobel Laureates.

I again acknowledge receipt of an email of 7 August 2008 from your Personal Assistant, Ms Rachel Bielby, stating: "Cllr Rahman is now on leave until the end of August. I have asked the office of the Director of Communities, Localities and Culture's office to deal with your correspondence." I can confirm that I have not heard from this office, nor indeed from anyone for and on behalf of Tower Hamlets Council, or, for that matter, Idea Store Whitechapel. (On 21 January 2008, the same date as my original complaint to Cllr Jones, the former Manager of Idea Store Whitechapel, Mr Zoinul Abidin, emailed me to advise that I should direct any complaints I might have to the Council's corporate complaints section. He added: "In future please approach them for any queries, as opposed to sending e-mails to me." Mr Abidin's last day of service with Idea Stores/Tower Hamlets Council was on 7 November 2008.)

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey

cc Ms Sharon Ball, Manager, Idea Store Whitechapel (by email)

Therapeutic cloning offers hope of treatment for Parkinson’s

I am repeating in almost every blog that the vast majority of personalised emails I send to scientists and academics inviting them to sign Declan’s petition to the UN on research cloning of embryos and stem cells are being dumped to spam boxes (or to cyberspace, see blog of 4 September “Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding”). The issue of spam was recently dealt with in the blog of 18 November “Our sleeping pitch is soaked”, including that on 29 February Declan emailed the Home Secretary, Jacqueline Smith; and that the NAC website was suspended on 8 March, three days after the Home Office denied there was a warrant to intercept his communications.

Anyway, yesterday I sent 246 emails to University of California San Diego (UCSD), University of Cambridge and the British Society for Cell Biology but only received five out-of-office autoreplies – 153 emails to UCSD yielded two – and, not surprisingly, only one signature. Monday was similar: 176 emails, two autoreplies – from the 99th and 100th emails – and no one signed. In fact, when I accumulate some figures from the past four weeks, we have had five signatures from the 2,553 personalised emails sent (last week it was one signature from 419 emails; two weeks ago, two signatories from 640 emails; and four weeks ago, one signature from 1,072 emails), or one signature per 510 emails – the petition to date has been signed by 585 scientists and academics, including 24 Nobel Laureates.

For two years we survived on the streets of London by selling The Big Issue, a magazine sold by homeless people on registered pitches throughout the UK. However, since the termination of our Big Issue pitches two weeks ago (see blog of 11 November “Letter of complaint to the chair of The Big Issue Foundation Charity”), we are now restricted to the 3-hour maximum computer use per day at Idea Store Whitechapel library that our local council imposed on each of our membership cards on 1 February (notwithstanding that we frequently experience difficulties with internet access and computer bookings in this library; see, for example, blog of 13 October “Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council”). It means I have had to adapt my blogs: the emphasis now is on the product of my research in the field of human embryonic stem (hES) cell research and therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), so that as soon as I have a laptop I am in a position to build within two weeks a website for our campaign in support of hES cell research and SCNT.

Stemagen's Andrew French documented the cloning of an adult human cell

The blog of 1 November “Can a cell have a soul?” includes a brief description of what this website will contain: for example, the subsection “Embryonic stem cell research” will be broken up into the associated subsections “Science”, “Law and Policy”, “Ethics” and “Applications”. For a way to develop the navigation menu I have Greenpeace International – see here; also the homepage will be loosely based on theirs. In the previous blog, I detailed the navigation menu of “Applications” for hES cell research; this same associated subsection will be simpler with respect to SCNT since a human egg shortage has greatly hampered the possibility of nuclear transfer being successful (see blog of 16 July “Therapeutic cloning: Researchers back bid to pay egg donors”).

In therapeutic cloning or SCNT, the nucleus of a somatic cell from a donor subject is inserted into an egg from which the nucleus has been removed. This cell then develops into a blastocyst from which embryonic stem cells can be harvested and differentiated for therapeutic purposes. As the genetic information in the resulting stem cells comes from the donor subject, SCNT would yield subject-specific cells that are spared by the immune system after transplantation (ScienceDaily, 24/3).

Research led by investigators at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) has shown that SCNT can be used to treat Parkinson’s disease in mice, and could have future implications as this method may be an effective way to reduce transplant rejection and enhance recovery in other diseases and in other organ systems, said Medical News Today on 25 March. The work was led by Lorenz Studer, who is Head of the Stem Cell and Tumor Biology Laboratory of the Sloan-Kettering Institute of the MSKCC (and a signatory of Declan’s petition).

I am still researching the institutes, labs, and biotechnology companies that are doing SCNT, but the San Diego biotechnology company Stemagen will feature prominently in “Applications”. Stemagen, a privately held embryonic stem cell research company, announced 17 January it has become the first in the world to create, and meticulously document, a cloned human embryo by fusing a donated egg cell with the DNA from skin cell of an adult man. “No other scientific group has documented the cloning of an adult human cell, much less been able to grow it to the blastocyst stage, the stage at which the transferred adult donor cell is driving embryonic development and the stage that yields the cells from which embryonic stem cells are made,” lead researcher Andrew French (another signatory of Declan’s petition) told Reuters Health. The company’s work is a major step toward creating embryonic stem cell lines from cloned human embryos, or cells that are specific to one person and capable of evolving into the 200 different cell types in the body, said The San Diego Union-Tribune.

But six months after the company’s success, when the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine was handing out $23 million in research grants, Stemagen’s application was denied, said Voice of San Diego. Sam Wood, the company’s chief executive, said the main reason the agency cited for the denial was the lack of a guarantee that enough eggs would be available for the research. “I'm hoping there will be a rising up of public opinion here,” he said. “If there’s not a change, this research will move to New York”, where new guidelines for a $600 million stem cell research program may allow payment for eggs. “It’s clear that without having access to resources, in this case human oocytes [eggs], we cannot move forward,” Shoukhrat Mitalipov of the University of Oregon told the Union-Tribune. Mitalipov led the only team known to have successfully conducted therapeutic cloning using monkey cells.

A chief objective of our campaign in support of SCNT is to expose that egg-payment bans are stymieing this promising avenue of research, and consequently the issue of payment for eggs will feature prominently on the website’s homepage; specifically, we will propagate the call of leading experts for a relaxation of rules restricting the compensation of egg donors to boost the supply of human eggs needed for nuclear transfer.

Bishop: Oppose embryonic stem cell research

The Big Issue is a magazine sold by homeless people throughout the UK on registered street pitches. As I wrote in the blog of 17 November, our Big Issue pitches have been terminated (see blog of 11 November “Letter of complaint to the chair of The Big Issue Foundation Charity”); and although we can still sell the magazine on the pitches we had for two years, we have no priority whatsoever: we have to leave if the vendors to whom the pitches have been allocated come along, and not stand in on the pitches at all if a vendor is already there – the latter has been experienced by Declan for two days now. The fact that we don’t have pitches any more is particularly serious for me, because I am facing possible prosecution for begging.

The vast majority of emails I send to scientists and academics inviting them to sign Declan’s petition to the UN on research cloning of embryos and stem cells are still being dumped to spam boxes. In fact, as I explained in the blog of 18 November “Our sleeping pitch is soaked”, the spamming is quite severe. Yesterday, I only received six out-of-office autoreplies from 320 emails; on Wednesday, it was one from 99 emails. No surprise then that only one scientist signed from 419 emails - last week it was two signatories from 640 emails; three weeks ago, one signatory from 1,072 emails. The petition to date has been signed by 584 scientists and academics, including 24 Nobel Laureates.

James Thomson at Tuesday’s 10-year celebration of his hESC breakthrough

I have also written that since the termination of our Big Issue pitches, I have had to adapt my blogs because we are now restricted to the free 3-hour maximum computer use per day at Idea Store Whitechapel library that our local council imposed on each of our membership cards on 1 February. Emphasis now is on the product of my research so that as soon as I have a laptop I am in a position to build within two weeks a website for our campaign in support of embryonic stem (ES) cell research and therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). Applications will be central to this website; also the institutes, labs and people involved. For a way to develop the navigation menu I have Greenpeace International – see here; also the homepage will be loosely based on theirs (for more about the campaign website, see blog of 1 November “Can a cell have a soul?”).

My thinking behind this website is that once the general public is exposed to the work of scientists and clinicians, the funding their work attracts and the potential for clinical cures and therapies for debilitating diseases and disorders, the misinformation and fear that the Catholic church and conservative evangelical groups continue to spread will be seen straight through. A recent statement written by Bishop Robert Carlson of Saginaw, Michigan to Catholic voters on Proposal 2, the amendment to the Michigan Constitution allowing research on embryos that were created for fertility treatments and would otherwise be discarded, serves as an example. “Because it is scientifically unnecessary, because it goes too far and because it is based on reprehensible moral principles, I call on all Catholics in the Diocese of Saginaw to oppose Proposal 2,” the Bishop wrote. His statement also asserted that the use of adult stem cells “has already played a role in the treatment and cure of over 70 types of diseases” (a claim that has been widely discredited), and that the use of embryonic stem cells “has resulted in zero treatments or cures.” Not only was Proposal 2 approved, but Detroit News exit polling showed 56 percent of voters who identified themselves as Catholic supported the measure – overall the measure passed by a 53-47 margin.

Scientists generally agree it’s crucial to push forward rapidly in all three key areas of stem cell research: embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells and induced pluripotent (or “reprogrammed”) stem cells. Around the world, these three kinds of stem cells are under intense study for possible treatments for conditions from spinal cord injuries to juvenile diabetes. Scientists argue that it would be shortsighted to pursue only one kind because each may hold particular promise for understanding and treating specific diseases. Results in one area of research will continue to shed light on work in the others. The capacity of embryonic stem cells to turn into virtually any other kind of cell obviously gives them the most potential for organ and tissue replacement (ScienceDaily, 14/10).

Our Big Issue pitches are terminated

This morning, The Big Issue Head Office – The Big Issue is a magazine sold by homeless people throughout the UK on registered street pitches – confirmed that our pitches have been terminated, after two years of us having survived on the streets of London by selling the magazine from the same registered pitches and despite Declan’s email letter of complaint to the chair of The Big Issue Foundation (see blog of 11 November “Letter of complaint to the chair of The Big Issue Foundation Charity”). This is an extremely serious situation for me in particular, in that I am facing possible prosecution for begging.

It also means that it is highly likely that Declan will be unable to keep our account in the local internet café (£3 for seven hours) going, so it seems we will be restricted to the 3-hour maximum computer use per day at Idea Store Whitechapel library that our local council imposed on each of our membership cards on 1 February, despite that for several months previous we were given “additional time” subject to computer availability and in accordance with the council’s then and current “Idea Stores PC Usage Policy”. Notwithstanding that, we frequently experience difficulties with internet access and computer bookings in this library (see, for example, blog of 13 October “Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council”).

With such restrictions, I now have to adapt my blog. Up to today I have been selecting themes in embryonic stem (ES) cell research and therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), and developing each with reference to news, articles, and/or opinion pieces from leading scientists and academics. From now on it will be about researching everything that is going on in the field in ES cell research – conferences, news, reports, discoveries and applications, major research institutions throughout world, joint international efforts, bloggers, etc – and producing blogs with links that will serve as an interesting source of material.

Declan tells me that the litmus test for a successful blog is one that I will revert to myself for information as soon as I have a laptop – to build within two weeks a website for our campaign in support of ES cell research and SCNT. The blog of 1 November “Can a cell have a soul?” includes a brief description of what this website will contain: for example, the subsection “Embryonic stem cell research” will be broken up into the associated subsections “Science”, “Law and Policy”, “Ethics” and “Applications”.

Criticising the restrictions introduced in August 2001 by President George W Bush that prevent federally funded researchers from working on all but a few sources of embryonic stem cells, Robert Lanza - chief scientist at Advanced Cell Technology, a stem cell company in Worcester, Massachusetts (and a signatory of Declan’s petition) – told New Scientist: “We’ve been operating for the past decade with one hand tied behind our back.” This is exactly the way Declan and I are being forced to operate. We believe though that we can work this situation to our advantage, and are quite excited at the prospect of doing so.

Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council

On Friday one scientist signed Declan’s petition to the UN on research cloning of embryos and stem cells despite me having emailed 242 scientists. And in keeping with the norm, I received an exceedingly low number of out-of-office autoreplies – six; for example, 57 emails to Newcastle Biomedicine Newcastle University yielded only one autoreply. Still, on Wednesday I received two autoreplies out of a total of 271 emails (see previous blog) so presumably this time a larger number of my emails were delivered to inboxes, and not spam boxes (or cyberspace, see blog of 4 September “Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding”). And yesterday afternoon Declan had to email the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council regarding Idea Store Whitechapel, the borough's flagship library, learning and information service, and our on-going difficulties with computer bookings and internet access (the email is presented below).

Since 7 September we have been sleeping tucked away, about twenty paces from the side entrance of a building, down some twelve steps. The company that owns the building works with charities, according to their website, but that didn’t stop a cleaner spraying us with a hose at 4.50am this morning as we were packing to leave. I mentioned in the blog of 7 October “Letter to the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Big Issue” that the loss of our Big Issue pitches from 10 November - The Big Issue is a magazine sold by homeless people throughout the UK on registered street pitches - speaks ominously of the weeks to come; well, it would appear things have only started.

Former president Bill Clinton stumps for stem cells in Michigan

According to a Detroit News editorial, Michigan voters should vote yes on Proposal 2 - amending the state constitution to lift the ban on embryonic stem cell research - on a November ballot because it would overturn “one of the most backward laws on human embryonic stem cell research in the nation”. Currently, it is against the law to destroy a human embryo in Michigan. In effect, this also bans embryonic stem cell research, since the research process entails embryo destruction.

Proposal 2 is a constitutional amendment that allows embryonic stem cell research under certain conditions. These conditions, said the News, include that the embryos subject to research were created for the purpose of fertility treatment, the person seeking the treatment voluntarily opted to donate the embryos for research and that they would be discarded anyway if they were not going to be used for research. The amendment forbids the sale of embryos for stem cell research and keeps in place Michigan's ban on the cloning of a human embryo for both reproductive and research purposes.

The embryonic stem cell research ban, said the News, damages the ability of the University of Michigan, one of the leading stem cell research centers, to conduct cutting-edge embryonic stem cell research and recruit leading researchers to the center. Sean Morrison, head of the University of Michigan's Center for Stem Cell Biology, comments that “under current law it is legal in Michigan's fertility clinics to discard human embryos, but not to use them for medical research to try and help patients” (Detroit News, 2/10).

Right now Michigan is one of only five states to ban the use of discarded embryos for medical research (the others: South Dakota, North Dakota, Louisiana and Arkansas), but not everyone wants to see things change. Opposing the ballot question is Michigan Citizens Against Unrestricted Science and Experimentation, which had raised nearly $595,000 by mid-September, said The Ann Arbor News. It is principally supported by the Michigan Catholic Conference, which contributed $500,000, and Right to Life Michigan, which contributed $76,709. Endorsements include other pro-life and religious organisations, such as Democrats for Life of Michigan and the Family Research Council (Gershman, The Ann Arbor News, 6/10).

According to a new report by the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan (CRCM), opponents of embryonic stem cell research argue that life begins at the moment of conception or fertilisation, making research on ‘living’ embryos unethical. Abortion is often tied to embryonic stem cell research even though there is no direct link between the two. CRCM: “Embryonic stem cells are derived from pre-implantation embryos, not from aborted embryos or fetuses.”

Proposal 2 will feature prominently in our campaign in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning under the section “Science and the Law” – as it does in the blogs of 4 September “Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding” and of 10 July “Smithies explains his support for embryonic stem cell research”. Yet another application of embryonic stem cell research will also feature prominently in the campaign: scientists at Edinburgh University (from which we have several signatories) revealed on Wednesday that they have found a way to overcome “a major hurdle in creating pancreas and liver cells from human embryonic stem cells in the laboratory”, said The Scotsman. Additionally, the Los Angeles Times examines issues surrounding leftover embryos, which I would like to turn into a blog. Of course, that assumes I can get computer time!

This is Declan's email yesterday afternoon to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, Councillor Lutfur Rahman (at cllr.lutfur.rahman@towerhamlets.gov.uk), who is also the Leader of the Labour Group:

Subject: Idea Store Whitechapel

Dear Cllr Rahman

I refer further to the attached copy of my most recent correspondence with Mr Ian McNicol, Head of Idea Stores, to whom the former Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, Cllr Denise Jones, referred my original complaint of 21 January regarding Idea Store Whitechapel and the repeated loss of computer bookings and internet access on both my wife's card (card no. D000350314) and my card (card no. D000355837) since 14 November 2007.

In the absence of a response from Mr McNichol with respect to the aforementioned complaint, I wish to further confirm that this afternoon at approximately 2.15pm the computer I had booked from 2.00pm to 5.00pm cut out and, after it automatically came back in another card holder's name, I was told by a member of staff to give the computer up as there was no record of a booking in my name from 2.00pm to 3.00pm. (Computers cannot be accessed without a member's name appearing on the monitor at log-in time. Further, I am emailing this during my second one-hour booking on the same computer from 3.00pm to 4.00pm.)

I reconfirm that since my complaint of 21 January to Cllr Jones, my wife and I have not only experienced repeated loss of computer bookings and internet access, but several other problems to boot. For example:

(i) 1 February: the Principal Idea Store Manager, Mr Sergio Dogliani, wrote to me advising that the restriction by Idea Store Whitechapel of my wife and I to a 3-hour maximum free computer use per day as from 29 January stands, despite that for several previous months we were given "additional time" subject to computer availability and in accordance with the Council's then and current "Idea Stores PC Usage Policy";
(ii) 24 June: at approximately 12.30pm, a member of staff threatened my wife with "security" if she did not give her computer up to another card holder, despite that thirty minutes earlier a member of staff had confirmed in writing that my wife had booked the computer from 11.30am to 2.30pm;
(iii) 3 August: both of the computers my wife and I had booked the previous day contained an identical virus which spread to the two USB drives were are using, rendering my wife's portable programs inoperable and corrupting some of my most valuable data;
(iv) 6 August: at approximately 2.45pm, MIMEsweeper, the filter software used by the Idea Store network, blocked access to my Google Mail account due to "Porn Detected". At 3.10pm I was again able to access the account, after which I was informed by the IT technician that "it may happen again for any length of time".

As I explained in my email letters to you of 4 and 6 August, since 22 October 2007 my wife and I have been using as much of our computer time in Idea Store Whitechapel as possible to contact scientists and academics to invite them to sign my petition to the United Nations on therapeutic cloning and the use of stem cells for research and for the treatment of disease. To date, this petition has been signed by 559 scientists and academics, who include recognised authorities from the world's leading universities and research institutes, as well as 24 Nobel Laureates.

I acknowledge receipt of an email of 7 August 2008 from your Personal Assistant, Ms Rachel Bielby, stating: "Cllr Rahman is now on leave until the end of August. I have asked the office of the Director of Communities, Localities and Culture's office to deal with your correspondence." I can confirm that I have not heard from this office, nor indeed from Tower Hamlets Council.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey

cc Mr Zoinul Abidin, Manager of Idea Store Whitechapel (by email)

An exercise in damage limitation

World Health Organization

Yesterday evening I emailed "full members" of the European Network of Cancer Registries – the ENCR was established in 1989 within the framework of the Europe Against Cancer programme of the European Commission. And because the ENCR Secretariat is hosted at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which is part of the World Health Organization, I reckoned that perhaps there might be some chance that my emails to scientists and academics inviting them to sign Declan's petition to the UN would arrive in their proper place: in inbox and not in spam (see previous blog). But I was wrong: of the 80 emails I sent, I only received four out-of-office autoreplies (from 2nd, 26th, 68th and 79th emails).

Also yesterday, I kept emailing the University of Oxford Medical Sciences Division: 47 emails to the Department of Paediatrics (from where we have a very distinguished signatory) – it was when I was checking the email address of one of the group directors that I discovered the pdf containing the names and email addresses of the full members of the ENCR. But no luck either: of the 47 emails I sent, all I received were two autoreplies (31st and 39th emails). On Sunday, the computers in our local council's Idea Store Whitechapel library were down for the day (as they were on Saturday), so virtually no emailing: only 20 investigators from the Jenner Institute. I received six autoreplies; three in each batch of ten emails. And there was a bit of coincidence: four of the autoreplies came from the 1st and 2nd emails of each batch.

Surely what Declan and I are dealing with can only be described as an exercise in damage limitation: sending Declan’s emails into spam (or even cyberspace) rather than have scientists and academics sign his petition to the UN, which would take us off the street. An exercise in damage limitation is what British MPs were accused of only last weekend. The Mail of Sunday reveals in an article dated 17 August (“The great expenses cover-up: Now MPs quietly change the FOI act to keep details secret”) that MPs have been accused of mounting a shameless cover-up operation to prevent voters from discovering the full truth about their lavish expenses. Following a series of legal battles by Freedom of Information campaigners, MPs will this autumn be forced to disclose expenses claims dating back five years. But in a little-spotted move before the summer recess, Parliament passed a clause meaning the location of MPs’ taxpayer-funded second homes will be deleted, along with details of regular travel expenses and suppliers of goods and services, saving them from potential embarrassment.

Sex, Science and Stem Cells

Declan and I had a bit of a challenging weekend: on Friday night at 11.00pm, a homeless decided to nap in the porch in which we have been sleeping since 3 November 2006 despite us being there – a first; on Saturday morning, a half an hour after the Catholic Manna Centre opened Declan reckoned it was better we left, even though it meant going hungry for the day – also a first since we started going there back at Easter (I only go on weekends, while Declan makes the two-hour round-trip walk every weekday to be guaranteed a bite to eat for lunch).

With that background, it didn’t surprise me that out of the 201 emails I sent on Saturday afternoon to scientists and academics inviting them to sign Declan’s petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning, all I got was 14 out-of-office autoreplies (as I explained in the blog of 2 August “I am urinated on in the porch”, the number of out-of-office autoreplies is my best indication as to whether Declan's emails are going to inbox or spam: two or three autoreplies within a batch of 10 would be a good indicator of the former). For instance, I sent 69 emails to scientists of the University of California’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (from which we have a few signatories) and got 4 autoreplies – the last 48 emails yielded no autoreplies at all. I am afraid that the emails I sent to Oxford Brookes University didn’t fare any better: I sent 40 emails and got 4 autoreplies. I didn’t do any emailing on Sunday because the computers in the Idea Store Whitechapel library were down for the day. This morning we had no new signatories – can’t say I expected any.

Sex, Science and Stem Cells, by Congresswoman Diana DeGette

A new book "Sex, Science and Stem Cells: Inside the Right Wing Assault on Reason", exposing the politization of science by the right wing in the US Congress and the heavy influence of the religious right, hit store shelves in the US last week. Its author, Diana DeGette, six-term Democrat Congresswoman from Colorado and a chief architect of the stem cell research bill that was twice vetoed by President George W Bush, told DailyCamera.com: "The reason I did this book now is because as the fall elections approach I wanted to let the American public know how health policies must be based on sound science. The United States is based on separation of church and state, and federal, public health programs ought to be based on science, not on religion."

The Scientific American carries an interview with DeGette in an article dated 5 August titled “Congresswoman Slams Religious Right's Assault on Science's ‘Edgier’ Side”. When, on 19 July 2006, President Bush ceremoniously vetoed the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005 (he would veto the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007 on 19 June 2007), he was surrounded by children born from discarded IVF embryos that other couples had “adopted” through a Christian agency. Such publicity stunts, DeGette told the Scientific American, have helped kill a wide range of legislation on sex and reproduction: the plan B “morning after” birth control pill, the human papillomavirus vaccine (touted as the best method for preventing cervical cancer), and even sex education. With regard to stem cell research, she says: "I think President Bush was frankly unconcerned about what the public will was. He had a personal religious view and he felt strongly about that. So, he just stubbornly blazed ahead."

DeGette says she wanted to write a book to let the general public know what really goes on inside of Congress, from an insider's perspective. “When I started to write the book, I realized that all of the personal examples that I had and a lot of the issues that I had personally been fighting on all relate back to sex and reproduction. They're not all one thing: They're not abortion. It's stem cell research. It's international HIV/AIDS policy. It's birth control,” she says. Although there have been other issues that the Bush administration has politicized (global climate change, for example), for DeGette “if you want to look at an area that has been thoroughly politicized from top to bottom, it’s the area of sex and reproduction”.

DeGette, who currently co-chairs the bipartisan Congressional Diabetes Caucus (her daughter Francesca was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 1998 at the age of 4), charges that there has been a lot of hyperbole around the reprogramming of adult skin cells. “I’m pro-science, so I welcome all of those different types of stem cell research. I think we have moved, not away from embryonic stem cell research, but we have moved to a richer research environment, which was probably likely to happen anyway. The mistake that the press and politicians have made is characterizing this as either/or ... and the one who is the most compelling talking about this is [National Institutes of Health director Elias] Zerhouni, who says all of these types of research support each other and we need to not be making political decisions picking one over the other.”

She thinks that the vast majority of leaders behind “these antiscience arguments” are really making a political calculation, and “the political calculation they're making is: ‘I don't want to anger the religious right, so I'll just go along with this because I think my constituents think this anyway’”. She adds: “I say on page 21 of the introduction: ‘What in god’s name are these people doing? Why does the religious right try to limit scientific advances when they relate to human reproduction? I’ve come to believe that the most extreme (and, frequently, the most influential) right wing advocates seek a country that comports with their view of the Bible. If it was up to them, they would not only outlaw abortion altogether, but all forms of birth control except the rhythm method and abstinence’.” She can’t think of any other explanation why the religious right would so thoroughly polititicize every aspect of sex and reproduction. “I think they want to have a society where it’s really God’s will whatever happens. That’s all well and good within their own families: they can structure their family that way. But, when you're talking about public policy, it's a very big waste of money and it's very dangerous to public health. Teen pregnancy went up last year.”

DeGette admits that she thinks there are a lot of politicians that are afraid of science. “If you say in a vacuum, ‘Science should play a role,’ people get freaked out because a lot of people didn't do so well in high school science or whatever. But, if you say to them, ‘Congress passed a bill that allowed states to give health insurance coverage to fetuses but not the pregnant mother,’ people would say, ‘Well, that's insane.’ I think the devil is in the details.” In her view, scientists and people who care about sound science need to be willing to go on TV shows and radio shows and write op-eds “and talk in layperson's terms about how this politicization is hurting the public policies that affect their lives”. Needless to say, we intend running NAC’s international campaign in support of therapeutic cloning and human embryonic stem cell research with that firmly in mind.

Library blocks access to Google Mail account

This afternoon at about 2.45pm our local council’s Idea Store Whitechapel’s filter software blocked access to Declan’s Google Mail – the account we use to email scientists and academics around the world inviting them to sign Declan’s petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning. I had actually been on a computer since 12.00 noon and had already emailed 31 scientists; although perhaps I shouldn’t have bothered: I only got one autoreply. (As I explained in the blog of 2 August “I am urinated on in the porch”, the number of out-of-office autoreplies is my best indication as to whether Declan's emails are going to inbox or spam: two or three autoreplies within a batch of 10 would be a good indicator of the former).



Anyway, I had just pasted into Drafts a very long list containing the names, emails and phone numbers of the academic staff of the School of Law of The University of Manchester (from where we have a very distinguished signatory) when it happened. I should perhaps add that on Sunday both our booked computers in Idea Store Whitechapel had a virus which infected the two USB drives we were using (see previous blog). I got Google Mail back some twenty minutes later, after which the technician informed Declan that “it may happen again for any length of time”. So this is the email letter that Declan sent this evening to Councillor Lutfur Rahman, the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council at cllr.lutfur.rahman@towerhamlets.gov.uk (further to an email letter he sent him on Monday on the deletion of data):

Subject: Idea Store Whitechapel

Dear Cllr Rahman

I refer further to the attached copy of my most recent correspondence with Mr Ian McNicol, Head of Idea Stores, to whom the former Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, Cllr Denise Jones, referred my original complaint of 21 January regarding Idea Store Whitechapel and the repeated loss of computer bookings and internet access on both my wife's card (card no. D000350314) and my card (card no. D000355837) since 14 November 2007.

In the continued absence of a response from Mr McNichol in respect of the aforementioned complaint of 21 January, I wish to further confirm that this afternoon at approximately 2.45pm MIMEsweeper, the filter software used by the Idea Store network, blocked access to my Google Mail account due to "PornDetected" (see attachment "MIMEsweeper"). At 3.10pm I was again able to access the account, after which the technician informed me that "it may happen again for any length of time".

I reconfirm that since my complaint of 21 January to Cllr Jones, my wife and I have encountered the following sample problems while trying to access the internet in Idea Store Whitechapel:

(1) 1 February: the Principal Idea Store Manager, Mr Sergio Dogliani, sent me an email advising that the restriction by Idea Store Whitechapel of my wife and I to a 3-hour maximum free computer use per day as from 29 January was irretractable, despite that for several months previous both my wife and I had been given extra hours of free computer use, subject to computer availability;
(2) 10 February: my wife lost her booking to another card holder and had to spend 10 minutes dealing with a member of staff before the computer was re-booked in her name;
(3) 11 February: a member of staff had to move me from one computer to another because it was not possible for me to access the internet; no other computer user reported any such difficulty;
(4) 23 June: at approximately 3.30pm, my wife was asked by a member of staff to give her computer up to another card holder, despite that a member of staff had confirmed in writing that she had booked the computer for my wife from 2.30pm to 5.30pm;
(5) 24 June: at approximately 12.30pm, a member of staff threatened my wife with security if she did not give up her computer up to another card holder, despite that thirty minutes earlier a member of staff had confirmed in writing that my wife had booked the computer from 11.30am to 2.30pm;
(6) 3 August: both of the computers my wife and I had booked the previous day contained a virus which spread to the two USB drives we were using, rendering my wife's portable programs inoperable and corrupting some of my most valuable data.

As explained in my email letter to you of 4 August, since 22 October 2007 my wife and I have been using as much of our computer time in Idea Store Whitechapel as possible to contact distinguished scientists and academics to invite them to sign my petition to the United Nations on therapeutic cloning and the use of stem cells for research and for the treatment of disease. To date, this petition has been signed by 520 scientists and academics, including 22 Nobel laureates.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey

cc Mr Zoinul Abidin, Manager of Idea Store Whitechapel (by email)