New York State - Advocacy efforts

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. 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 former was experienced by Declan this evening (a first in over two years). The fact that we don’t have pitches any more is particularly serious for me, because I am facing possible prosecution for begging.

In the previous blog “New York State home page” in respect of our website in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning, I presented, as well as the content of the New York State home page, the navigation menu of New York State under Law and Policy in the USA, which includes Advocacy efforts, a snag of which is presented below in a page from the Greenpeace International website. As soon as I have the few New York State snags done, I will quickly build a website loosely based on Greenpeace International and Greenpeace UK which I will then upload to a free hosting service. This snag cannot be read so below it I have transcribed the content. (The blog of 18 November, “Our sleeping pitch is soaked”, includes a snag of a page from the NAC website suspended on 8 March.)



The caption of the picture reads: University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. The University of Rochester played major roles in the events leading up to the 2007 stem cell research legislation, both in advocacy and in crafting the provisions and scientific language contained in the bill.

The navigation menu of Advocacy Efforts: NYAMR Member Organisations; University of Rochester White Paper.

And the main text:

Advocacy efforts

In the spring of 2007, the New York State Legislature committed $600 million over 11 years to be spent on stem cell research, an initiative that could potentially become the greatest scientific undertaking in the history of New York State. This initiative, administered by the Department of Health through the New York State Stem Cell Science (NYSTEM) program under the direction of the Empire State Stem Cell Board, could not have occurred without the support of the medical, scientific, voluntary health and patient advocacy communities who urged the state to embrace this promising field of science.

New Yorkers for the Advancement of Medical Research (NYAMR)

In August 2007, Dr Maria Mitchell, President of the Academic Medicine Development Company (AMDeC), a consortium of 30 of New York State’s medical schools, academic health centers and major medical research institutions, announced that AMDeC would become the host organisation for New Yorkers for the Advancement of Medical Research (NYAMR), a statewide coalition of 46 organisations advocating for state funding in support of regenerative medicine, including stem cell research. NYAMR was previously housed at the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation.

NYAMR grew out of AMDeC’s successful 2003 genomics-related conference in Albany, where the late actor and stem cell research advocate Christopher Reeve joined New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Reeve gave an impassioned speech in favour of stem cell research, while Speaker Silver announced passage by the Assembly of legislation expressly endorsing stem cell research. Speaker Silver, a strong proponent of biomedical research in New York, championed the bill which passed with an overwhelming majority in the Assembly, but, failed to get through the Senate.

However, out of the ashes of New York’s stalled effort to pass this bill, arose something promising – NYAMR. What began as a small like minded group including AMDeC, the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and Hadassah, grew to several dozen diverse research, patient disease, economic development and citizen advocacy organisations.

From its inception, NYAMR took on a leadership role in advising and educating state legislators and policymakers about the importance – from a scientific and economic perspective – of state support for stem cell research. NYAMR consulted directly with Albany lawmakers to help design the Empire State Stem Cell Funding Program.

NYAMR continues to monitor closely the funding program to ensure its effective implementation.

University of Rochester

The University of Rochester played major roles in the events leading up to the 2007 legislation, both in advocacy and in crafting the provisions and scientific language contained in the bill. UR President Joel Seligman spearheaded the advocacy efforts of University Presidents and Chancellors, working with UR scientists and governmental relations staff to write a key White Paper entitled “New York and Stem Cell Research: A Scientific, Therapeutic, Economic, and Policy Analysis”, released on 6 February 2006.

This document, signed by the Presidents and Chancellors of 17 New York State universities and other institutions with substantial biomedical and life sciences research programs, details the competitive research environment that had emerged in the previous several years and its implications for the state’s biomedical research community and economy.

The Rochester White Paper makes the following case in support of NYS funding of stem cell research: Federal funding restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research have prompted several states to establish state-based research funds aimed at capturing the scientific and commercial potential of this new field of medicine. While New York’s research institutions are widely acknowledged to possess the scientific talent that would enable the state to be a major leader internationally in stem cell research, there is significant risk that researchers in New York will be recruited away to institutions in other states where they would have access to more resources to pursue their research. The loss of these scientists will have a significant negative ripple effect on a university’s entire research enterprise as research grants, junior scientists, biotech companies, and venture capital will similarly migrate to those institutions that are perceived to be on the cutting edge of biomedical research. A decline in the fortunes of New York’s biomedical research community in turn would have significant economic consequences for the entire state. New York’s State universities, teaching hospitals, and research laboratories contribute significantly to the state’s economy through employment, through spending and through the development of innovative products and concepts for the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.

The Empire State Stem Cell Board Funding Committee held a meeting on 27 June 2008 at the NYS Department of Health offices – State Health Commissioner Richard Daines presided as chairperson. Robin Elliott, NYAMR’s former chairperson, appointed to serve as one of thirteen members on the funding committee, suggested that in assessing the economic and other benefits of the NYSTEM initiative the ESSC Board and staff refer to the Rochester White Paper, according to the minutes of the meeting.

Why Embryonic Stem Cell Research?

UCSF Foundation panel discussion held on Thursday

As I wrote in the previous blog “Bishop: Oppose embryonic stem cell research”, applications of human embryonic stem (hES) cell research will be central to the website that I will build for our campaign in support of hES cell research and therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) – together with the institutes, labs and people involved. According to a recent report by the nonpatisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan, many scientists believe that hES cells have the potential to benefit medicine in many ways, including helping scientists understand the complex events that occur during early human development, testing and screening new medications, and providing therapies for previously incurable diseases. Albeit there is much to learn about how to grow and control ES cells and prevent them being rejected, before they are likely to be widely used.

Potential Benefits. Studying ES cells may give scientists a better understanding of early human cell development and the role that genes play in that development. This is an area of research where adult stem cells cannot replace the potential of ES cells. Studying early cell development may help scientists understand how genetic mutations affect normal cell development; how infectious agents invade and attack human cells; how genetic and environmental factors are involved in the development of birth defects, cancer, and other diseases; and what happens to cells during normal aging. A better understanding of these processes may suggest new strategies for therapy.

ES cells may be useful in testing new medications much in the same way that cancer cell lines are currently used to screen potential anti-tumor drugs. ES cells may provide a valuable source of human cells for drug testing without risking the health of animal or human test subjects. Further research may allow scientists to produce cell lines with certain genetic qualities in order to test potential treatments. ES cells could also help scientists to identify and understand the effects of toxic substances found in drugs, food, and the environment. ES cells are viewed as important to testing medications and toxins because they are easier to grow and maintain in the laboratory than adult stem cells. If realised, this potential benefit would likely make drug discovery more efficient and cost effective.

ES cells have potential for use in cell-based therapies. ES cells are believed to have more potential than adult stem cells because of their pluripotency, their capacity to become virtually any other kind of cell. ES cells can be controlled and differentiated into specific cell types and offer the possibility of a renewable source of replacement cells and tissues to treat diseases and injuries, including neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, Multiple Sclerosis, cerebrovascular accidents, spinal cord injuries, as well as heart failure, diabetes mellitus, and others. For example, in patients with Type I Diabetes, the cells of the pancreas that normally produce insulin are destroyed by the patient’s immune system. Scientists have made progress transforming ES cells into insulin-producing cells. Geron reported in 2007 that hES cells could be transformed into the pancreatic cells that produce insulin, offering the potential to treat diabetes. On 23 October, Cellartis, which specialises in hES cells, announced a collaboration with Danish drug maker Novo Nordisk to program stem cells to turn into insulin-producing beta cells that can be used for the treatment of diabetes.

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 I have had to adapt my blogs because we are 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. 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 our campaign website.

The blog of 1 November “Can a cell have a soul?” includes a brief description of what this website will contain: the subsection “Embryonic stem cell research”, for example, will be broken up into the associated subsections “Science”, “Law and Policy”, “Ethics” and “Applications”. “Applications” will lay out the range of research possibilities created by ES cells, so it will be divided into the three areas of potential benefit cited above: provisionally named “Early cell development”, “Drug discovery and toxicity studies”, and “Treatments and cures”.

“Treatments and cures”, for example, will include “Heart disease”, “Neurodegenerative disease”, “Diabetes” and “Cancer”. For a way to develop the navigation menu I have Greenpeace International – see here; also the homepage will be loosely based on theirs. We are hopeful that stem cell scientists, researchers and physicians in the field of biomedical research, as well as bioethicists and law professors who study issues surrounding embryonic and other stem cell research, may be willing to advise us – the ultimate aim in this regard would be to have a scientific advisory board that would be supplementary to our Board of Trustees and Honorary Associates.

The role of ES cell research in economic development will also be addressed in “Applications”. For example, drugs giant Pfizer is to spend $100m to research stem cells, reports Pharmalot. Over the next five years, Pfizer Regenerative Medicine will be co-located in the biotech hubs of Cambridge, Massachusetts in the United States and Cambridge, UK. It will work with both ES cells and adult stem cells to treat heart disease, diabetes, cancer and vision loss common among the elderly (see Pfizer statement). According to the website for the 2008 World Stem Cell Summit, regenerative medicine and stem cell technologies are projected to become a $500 billion industry over the next 20 years.

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).

Stem cell research tops Obama agenda

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 (or to cyberspace, see blog of 4 September “Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding”). On Monday I sent 198 emails - mainly to Scotland and California because in Sunday’s blog I referred to the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine of Edinburgh University and the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine in San Diego – but only received ten out-of-office autoreplies, and not unsurprisingly just one signature. Yesterday I sent 128 emails, mainly to California, which yielded two autoreplies, and no signatures.

Also yesterday, The Big Issue Head Office – The Big Issue is a magazine sold by homeless people throughout the UK on registered street pitches – advised Declan that our pitches are in effect terminated (as soon as it has been confirmed by Office staff that we did not purchase a minimum of 40 magazines each week for the four weeks commenced 6 October, we will no longer be able to have a registered pitch), despite his complaint the previous day to the chair of The Big Issue Foundation (see previous blog). This is an extremely serious situation for me in particular, in that I am facing possible prosecution for begging.

Then last night, as we were bedding down, just to add insult to injury, I suppose, two guys entertained themselves on their skateboards above us for some twenty minutes – since 7 September we have been sleeping tucked away, about twenty paces from the side entrance of a building, down some twelve steps (prior to that we slept for almost two years in a porch). The last time some guys partied in the enclosure, on 9 September, we decided to sleep somewhere else the following night and I was arrested because I refused to be moved on as result of having nowhere else to sleep (see blog of 11 September “I am arrested for breach of the peace”). The road is described as a “quiet thoroughfare” by the company that owns the building. Oh, well.



Barely a week since his election victory, US President-elect Barack Obama is bringing joy to long-suffering stem cell researchers. For years, US progress has been crippled by restrictions introduced in August 2001 by President George W Bush, preventing federally funded researchers from working on all but a few sources of embryonic stem cells - the cells from embryos with huge medical potential for repairing organs and tissues. Now, those restrictions will be among the first of Bush’s executive orders to be swept away, probably within the next 100 days, said New Scientist. The news emerged on Sunday from an interview on Fox News featuring John Podesta, the head of Obama’s “transition team”, which is managing the switch to power.

“There’s a lot that the president can do using his executive authority without waiting for congressional action, and I think we’ll see the president do that,” said Podesta, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton. According to New Scientist, the aim is to quickly dismantle the legacies of the Bush era that Obama sees as holding back progress, particularly those motivated by ideology or religion. Bush’s resistance to stem cell research, for example, is a concession to evangelical conservatives who oppose all research on embryos. “I think across the board, on stem cell research, on a number of areas, you see the Bush administration even today moving aggressively to do things that I think are probably not in the interest of the country,” said Podesta.

The news was greeted with delight by researchers who have long criticised the Bush restrictions. “Hallelujah - at last,” Robert Lanza, chief scientist at Advanced Cell Technology in Massachusetts (and a signatory of Declan’s petition), told New Scientist. He added: “This represents the end of a sad chapter in American scientific history. Under an Obama administration, money will hopefully flow to all promising avenues of research based on scientific merit, and not skewed to fit a conservative agenda. We’ve been operating for the past decade with one hand tied behind our back” (Coghlan, New Scientist, 12/11).

The Union-Tribune quotes Joe Panetta, executive director of San Diego’s Biocom, an association representing the local biotech industry. “I’m feeling very positive about some of the things we’ve seen and heard about Obama’s plans to increase funding for basic research,” Panetta said. He added that a number of local biotech firms depend on federal funds for research, largely distributed through the National Institutes of Health. Federal support of stem cell research would also aid the Burnham, Scripps and Salk research institutes (of the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine). Although California has enacted its own $3 billion stem cell research program, under current federal regulations, embryonic research must be conducted separately from federally funded research. “That’s an incredible nightmare in logistics and operations,” Panetta said. “It would be great to see the rules loosening” (Calbreath, The Union-Tribune, 9/11).

According to Reuters, a reversal of President Bush’s long-standing policy would give a boost to companies seeking to develop therapies based on stem cell research. Several stem cell focused companies reported positive developments on Monday. Geron Corp said its potential HIV treatment, TAT2, had promising preclinical data, while biotech giant Celgene Corp got a regulatory nod to go ahead with human trials of its experimental stem cell therapy for the treatment of Crohn’s disease. “We will see more and more of these events just given the fact that there is more and more path for the commercialisation of stem cells – adult, placental, umbilical and now, more embryonic,” WBB Securities analyst Steve Brozak said. Shares of Geron were up as much as 16 percent, while StemCells’ shares soared 42 percent. Both stocks have risen significantly over the last one month. Other smaller players in the field also benefited (Dey, Reuters, 10/11).

Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan of Mexico, who acts as the Vatican health minister, said that stem cells taken from human embryos and involving the destruction of the embryos “serve no purpose”, reports The Times yesterday under the headline “Vatican fires off warning to Barack Obama over stem cell research”. Asked whether the Vatican was concerned about reports that Mr Obama might reverse the Bush Administration’s ban, the cardinal said that embryonic stem cell research had not resulted in any significant health cure so far and was “good for nothing”. Research on adult stem cells and umbilical cords had been shown to have “positive value”, by contrast, although even that was not “a panacea for everything”. He said the Vatican would seek clarification of the new administration’s position on stem cells, and he himself was not “fully aware” what it was (Owen, The Times, 11/11).

Our campaign in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), will argue that stem cell research, including human embryonic stem (hES) cell research, is vital to advancing regenerative medicine. According to a 2006 US Department of Health & Human Services report, a conservative estimate of the worldwide market for regenerative medicine by 2010 is $500 billion (the projected US market is $100 billion). We will also argue that advancements in hES cell research have the potential to be an economic boon for countries throughout the world and to lower overall domestic health care costs, which in the US alone are in excess of $2 trillion annually (16 percent of US Gross Domestic Product). With reference to the United States, we will further argue that ill-considered interventions at a state level that replace rational regulation with restrictions based on ideology undercut a peer-governed competitive national system for funding biomedical research that has been a fundamental policy and programmatic triumph for the United States (see blog of 3 November “State Stem Cell Policies Deserve National Attention”).

In fact, we believe that NAC will be in a position to be a leading Vatican watchdog regarding ES cell research and SCNT. We are well aware of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE), for example, which has a permanent Secretariat in Brussels. The COMECE secretariat monitors and analyses current developments in research policy, biotechnology and bioethics at the European Union level, according to its website.

Letter of complaint to the chair of The Big Issue Foundation Charity

The Big Issue is a magazine sold by homeless people throughout the UK on registered street pitches. This afternoon The Big Issue Head Office advised Declan that as soon as it has been confirmed by Office staff that we did not purchase a minimum of 40 magazines each week for the four weeks commenced 6 October, we will no longer be able to have a registered pitch - we will be allowed to carry on selling but not have priority on any pitch. This of course means that our pitches will most probably be terminated within the next few days, 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 letter of complaint yesterday to the Chair of The Big Issue Foundation Steven Round (see below).

Issue Foundation is the registered charity arm of The Big Issue organisation. According to the Foundation website, The Big Issue Company Ltd publishes the weekly magazine and sells it to Big Issue vendors (wholesale) “for the purpose of giving them the opportunity to earn a legitimate income, rather than having to resort to criminal activity such as begging and theft”. This is an extremely serious situation for me in particular, in that I am facing possible prosecution for begging. So this letter of complaint to Round was emailed yesterday very much with my defense in mind, and even on appeal, if necessay:

Subject: The Big Issue

Dear Mr Round

I am writing further to the email l received from you on 4 November in your capacity as chair of The Big Issue Foundation regarding my complaint that if my wife and I have not purchased a minimum of 40 magazines each week for the four weeks commenced 6 October, from 10 November we will no longer be able to have a registered pitch - we “will be allowed to carry on selling but not have priority on any pitch”.

I re-present below a copy of my email letter of 7 October to the founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Big Issue, Mr John Bird MBE, to which I did not receive a reply.

In your email of 4 November you stated that you copied the aforementioned complaint to the chief executive of the Foundation and that you would make sure that I get a response. I can confirm that I have not received a response and that this morning at Head Office I was advised by outreach worker Sanjiv Ahuja that our pitch authorisation slips were validated until the end of Tuesday of next week because no one knew the situation with respect to our pitches.

I reconfirm that on 13, 14, 15 and 16 October I emailed The Big Issue regarding my wife's new badge (1170), which, being unavailable for collection at Head Office on Monday, 13 October, did not become available for her to pick up until 1.00pm on Thursday, 16 October. The same Monday at Head Office - following my own rebadging to the end of February 2009 and the validation of our pitch authorisation slips until the end of Tuesday of the following week - I was advised by Office staff that my wife could not purchase or sell The Big Issue without her new badge.

I also reconfirm that the first two working weeks of October culminated in the so-called "Black Friday" financial crash; for two weeks thereafter shares around the world continued their downward trend, especially in London; and our pitches are located in the heart of London's financial district. As you were aware, the week before last temperatures plummeted – the first time London has seen snow in October for 70 years.

Last week the Met Office issued several severe weather warnings for London. This morning we were only able to afford to buy two Big Issues for resale.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey
Badge no. 1163

cc Mr Stephen Robertson, Chief Executive of The Big Issue Foundation

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

Subject: The Big Issue

Dear Mr Bird

As the founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Big Issue, please find enclosed copy of an email I received yesterday, 6 October, from your Outreach Manager for London, Mr Paul Joseph. On 10 September 2007 you wrote to me, stating:

I have employed many people over the years to do jobs related to the running of The Big Issue. I have never employed them to do my job; likewise I do not do their job. Please bear this in mind when you are composing your letters. You do not need to address your letters to me, as it is not my job. I would only get involved if you were utterly and totally let down by those whose job it is in The Big Issue. I hope this assists in your deliberations in pursuit of your claims.

I wish to complain that if my wife and I do not purchase a minimum of 40 magazines each week for the next four weeks, from 10 November we will no longer be able to have a registered pitch - we "will be allowed to carry on selling but not have priority on any pitch".

Yesterday we were only able to afford to buy two Big Issues for resale, and today will only be able to afford to buy another two magazines. Moreover, I wrote to the Registrar of the European Court of Human Rights on 21 August further to my second application for priority under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court, as follows:

As explained in previous applications, my wife and I survive on the streets of London by selling The Big Issue, a magazine sold by homeless people on registered street pitches, and I have lodged numerous written complaints with The Big Issue Head Office in respect of my wife and myself being walked off our respective pitch by other street traders, including, inter alia, Big Issue vendors. You will note from my email and attachments to the Court of 16 August that not only may my wife be forced into begging (a criminal offence in England), but faces debadging by The Big Issue for so doing.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey
Badge no. 1163

cc Mr Steven Round, Chair of The Big Issue Foundation

The University of Michigan Welcomes Passage of Proposal 2

Early yesterday morning, as Declan began selling The Big Issue - a magazine sold by homeless people on registered street pitches - a homeless begged alongside him; provocatively, I might add, like he wanted Declan to say something to him. After Declan left him to the pitch, we were not sure if the incident would prove the highlight of the day: Declan walks a round trip of two hours to the Catholic Manna Centre every weekday to be guaranteed a bite to eat for lunch, where he was assaulted on 19 June (see blog of 19 June “Declan assaulted in the Manna Centre”); and only the day before yesterday at 5.00am, as were about to leave the place we sleep in at night, a cleaner hosed where we bed down (see previous blog).

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 end up in spam boxes (or in cyberspace, see blog of 4 September “Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding”), so it doesn’t really count as a highlight. Still, the number of out-of-office autoreplies I received yesterday afternoon was amongst the lowest I have received in months: four from a total of 264 emails. For example, 86 emails to University College London Neuroscience yielded one autoreply; 60 to the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London, one - the first email; and 78 to the School of Medicine of University of Southern California, two. (On Monday, it was eight autoreplies from 109 emails to University College London Neuroscience and 118 emails to the School of Medicine of University of Southern California; and two signatures.)

University of Michigan executive officers and faculty issued statements this morning regarding the passage of Proposal 2, the amendment to the Michigan Constitution that allows new embryonic stem cell lines to be derived from embryos that have been created for fertility treatment purposes. The embryos affected by the amendment would otherwise be discarded, unless donated with informed consent.

Proposal 2, approved by voters in yesterday’s general election, overturns a 1978 Michigan law that prohibited creation of new stem cell lines from discarded embryos – the vote was 2,143,101 in favor to 1,945,035 against. Prior to passage of Proposal 2, Michigan has been one of the most restrictive states in the country with respect to embryonic stem cell research.

The proposal pitted the state’s powerful public and private biological research centers against large, conservative Catholic and evangelical populations who equated destroying fertilised eggs with murder (see previous blog). “This is a great night for the state of Michigan,” said Sean Morrison, director of the University of Michigan Center for Stem Cell Biology and a vocal supporter of the proposal. “Clearly the voters saw through the misinformation and fear that the opposition were spreading.

“I can tell you this: We’ll be meeting within the next week ... to expand our embryonic research program. We expect in the short-term millions of new dollars of grants to come from the federal government and private foundations to support the expanded research.”

Proposal 2’s strongest support came from college graduates and people who have done postgraduate work. High school graduates and dropouts were inclined to oppose it, said The Associated Press.

Elsewhere, voters in Colorado rejected a measure defining a person to “include any human being from the moment of fertilization”, which would have applied to sections of the Colorado Constitution that protect “natural and essential rights of persons”, said CNN.

Although, like most people, we expected Democratic candidate Barack Obama to win the general election, we were nonetheless quite pessimistic about Proposal 2 – according to pre-election polls, Michigan voters were split down the middle. All in all, it was a great night for Declan’s petition to the UN and our campaign in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT).

For the record, below is Declan’s email letter yesterday afternoon to the chair of The Big Issue Foundation, Steven Round. The Big Issue has informed us that from this coming Monday we will no longer be able to have a registered pitch, after almost two years surviving on the streets of London by selling the magazine from the same registered pitches; an extremely serious situation for me in particular, in that I am facing possible prosecution for begging, an illegal activity in England. In a reply email yesterday evening, Round informed Declan that he would make sure we receive a response.

Subject: The Big Issue

Dear Mr Round

I am writing to you in your capacity as chair of The Big Issue Foundation. Please find below a copy of my email letter of 7 October to the founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Big Issue, Mr John Bird MBE, to which I have not received a reply. As a seller of The Big Issue magazine, I wish to complain that if my wife and I have not purchased a minimum of 40 magazines each week for four weeks commenced 6 October, from 10 November we will no longer be able to have a registered pitch - we “will be allowed to carry on selling but not have priority on any pitch”.

I can confirm that on 13, 14, 15 and 16 October I emailed The Big Issue with respect to my wife's new badge (1170), which, being unavailable for collection at Head Office on Monday, 13 October, did not become available for her to pick up until 1.00pm on Thursday, 16 October. The same Monday at Head Office - following my own rebadging to the end of February 2009 and the validation of our pitch authorisation slips until the end of Tuesday of the following week - I was advised by Office staff that my wife could not purchase or sell The Big Issue without her new badge.

I can also confirm that the first two working weeks of October culminated in the so-called "Black Friday" financial crash; shares around the world have continued their downward trend, particularly in London; and our pitches are located in the heart of London's financial district. Further, last week temperatures plummeted – the first time London has seen snow in October for 70 years.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey
Badge no. 1163

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

Subject: The Big Issue

Dear Mr Bird

As the founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Big Issue, please find enclosed copy of an email I received yesterday, 6 October, from your Outreach Manager for London, Mr Paul Joseph. On 10 September 2007 you wrote to me, stating:

I have employed many people over the years to do jobs related to the running of The Big Issue. I have never employed them to do my job; likewise I do not do their job. Please bear this in mind when you are composing your letters. You do not need to address your letters to me, as it is not my job. I would only get involved if you were utterly and totally let down by those whose job it is in The Big Issue. I hope this assists in your deliberations in pursuit of your claims.

I wish to complain that if my wife and I do not purchase a minimum of 40 magazines each week for the next four weeks, from 10 November we will no longer be able to have a registered pitch - we "will be allowed to carry on selling but not have priority on any pitch".

Yesterday we were only able to afford to buy two Big Issues for resale, and today will only be able to afford to buy another two magazines. Moreover, I wrote to the Registrar of the European Court of Human Rights on 21 August further to my second application for priority under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court, stating:

As explained in previous applications, my wife and I survive on the streets of London by selling The Big Issue, a magazine sold by homeless people on registered street pitches, and I have lodged numerous written complaints with The Big Issue Head Office in respect of my wife and myself being walked off our respective pitch by other street traders, including, inter alia, Big Issue vendors. You will note from my email and attachments to Court of 16 August that not only may my wife be forced into begging (a criminal offence in England), but she has been threatened by The Big Issue with debadging for so doing.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey
Badge no. 1163

cc Mr Steven Round, Chair of The Big Issue Foundation

Endgame

Last night in the porch we sleep in at night, we were treated to one of the most prolonged sleep deprivations yet – its pinnacle being some guy that decided to lie down on the top end of my sleeping bag at 4.00am, fifty minutes before we get up.

We knew something was up when we found over a dozen large bags of rubbish and a broken office chair inside the porch (last Friday it was eight bags of rubbish – a first) which Declan had to move to the pavement for collection. When at 9.30pm the bin lorry collected the rubbish from across the street – and ignored ours – I was totally resigned to the fact that the contents of one of the bags might end up on top of me during the night (last Saturday an open rubbish bag was left beside my head while I was asleep).

Luckily, at about 10.00pm the bin men came back and collected all the rubbish – leaving of course the broken chair, which Declan, always prudent, brought back into the porch. Then it was the usual procession of people (of late) going in and coming out of the office building through the porch door between 10.30pm and 11.15pm. (Declan now sleeps wearing runners inside his sleeping bag because on Tuesday night, well, somebody coming out of the building at 11.00pm narrowly missed stamping on his feet.)

Things got more bizarre at 4.00am when some guy decided to have a nap in the porch – without the slightest concern that he was going down on his back on top of the end of my sleeping bag and with his legs stretched out on the sidewalk. A few minutes later he is touched by a policeman: he doesn’t tell him the obvious, which is that it may be a bit unsafe for him to be sleeping in a porch which is already occupied by two rough sleepers, but informs him that he is “totally entitled” to remain where he is. When did this feisty character leave? At 4.40am, when two friends came around – one of them walked across our ground sheet while the other took some memento photos of his sleepy friend with his mobile phone.

Declan’s selling of The Big Issue on his pitch in Liverpool Street is becoming increasingly more difficult: on Thursday he actually had to walk off the pitch again, this time after a distributor of City AM (a free London daily business paper) moved from where she was handing papers to passers-by into Declan’s pitch. After Declan told the girl that two people can’t work the pitch at the same time, she just said “ok” and continued passing papers in front of him – meaning: you leave. (In the evenings, the distributor of London Lite has been permanently encroached on Declan’s pitch to his own detriment – I should add – because by moving in on Declan’s pitch, he has been missing most people coming out of the train station and many going into it, approximately 30% of his business.)

So because we are trying to avoid becoming (illegal) beggars, Declan sent that very same morning another email to the Big Issue outreach manager Paul Joseph, which he also sent by registered post to the founder of the magazine, Dr John Bird. It reads:

Subject: City AM

Dear Paul

I refer to the telephone message I left for you this morning, wherein I graphically describe the unprecedented takeover of my McDonalds pitch on Liverpool Street (pitch no. 1408) by the above free daily business newspaper.

Having had to walk off the pitch to abide by the rule that a vendor shall not "argue or fight over pitches with … street traders", please advise how you can help me to maximise sales on this pitch, which I have had protected by pitch authorisation slip and pitch listings since the beginning of December 2006.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey
Badge no. 1163

cc Dr John Bird, Editor-In-Chief, The Big Issue (by registered post)

Things are so hot now that as well as washing in the street and in toilets – Declan and I were barred from the Methodist-run Whitechapel Mission on 18 June by the wife of the minister due to concerns about our safety after I was assaulted there that morning by a homeless woman – we are also doing our laundry in the launderette. We used to arrive every Monday at 7.00am at the gates of the Sisters of Mercy-run Dellow Centre so that when they would open at 9.15am we would be the first in the queue and therefore get a washing machine. Well, last Monday when we arrived at 6.55am there were already homeless queuing, which meant in all probability that we wouldn’t get a washing machine … so we kept walking.

Speaking of the Dellow Centre, last Friday I had to wash in one of their toilet cubicles with a wet towel and some shower gel after a homeless woman (the same homeless that two Thursdays ago stepped into the shower just seconds before I was going to step in myself) stormed past me into the women’s washroom as I was taking a couple of towels from the laundry room – it looked as well as if she had been waiting for me despite that this time I purposefully arrived at the place twenty-five minutes later than usual (they close at 11.30am and don't open during the weekend).

In an article in this week’s New Statesman titled “Am I a dwarf or a horseman?” Christopher Hitchens says that “he [Tony Blair] has been important to all of us who believe that peaceful coexistence with totalitarian and aggressive regimes (and ideologies) is neither possible nor desirable. It is this point of principle that ought to eclipse all others.”

Alas, he has also been important to the Christian church in Britain. Commenting on the departure of Blair – widely regarded as one of the most religious Prime Ministers since Gladstone – Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society said: “Tony Blair has done more to undermine the secular nature of British society than anyone in recent history.” For example, in 2003 he set up the Faith Communities Liaison Group to encourage partnership between government and religious communities – thus undermining the entrenched secularism of modern British politics, as religious communities have been encouraged to play an increasingly active role in civic and political life.

Wood goes on: “By consulting religious leaders about policy-making he has emboldened them. They now regularly use their new-found power to seek to thwart socially progressive legislation and make self-serving demands, including for the suppression of freedom of expression and the restriction of the human rights of others.” I would like to add here that Declan and I being homeless in the street is just a perfect example of the influence of religion on government.

So I found rather amusing Tony Blair's audience with Pope Benedict XVI on 23 June and the speculation that the former British leader will convert to Catholicism – Blair's wife Cherie is a Catholic, the couple's children have attended Catholic schools, and Blair habitually attends Catholic rather than Anglican services. The Act of Settlement of 1700 requires the monarch to be a member of the Church of England and to not marry a Catholic. However although it has been possible for a Catholic to head the government since 1829, when the Catholic Emancipation Act allowed members of the faith to be elected to Parliament, Britain has not had a Catholic prime minister.

Tony Blair – a Catholic? Well, I never.

Declan’s Big Issue pitch taken over by two free papers

Just when we thought the saga of the chipping away by the London Lite and The London Paper at Declan’s pitch on Liverpool Street – where he sells The Big Issue on weekdays – could get no worse, it has plumbed new depths of farce.

Not content with encroaching on the pitch (see previous blog), both free papers last night took over the pitch: the London Lite girl regularly passing papers in front of Declan and The London Paper guy almost by his side, blocking him out.

So because we are trying to avoid begging in the street (it’s illegal and can land you in a police station), Declan sent another email yesterday evening to the Big Issue outreach manager Paul Joseph, which he has also sent by registered post this morning to the founder of the magazine, Dr John Bird. It reads:

Subject: London Lite and The London Paper

Dear Paul

I refer to the telephone message I left for you this evening, wherein I graphically describe the unprecedented takeover of my McDonalds pitch on Liverpool Street (pitch no. 1408) by the above two free papers.

Having had to walk off the pitch to abide by the rule that a vendor shall not "argue or fight over pitches with … street traders", please advise how you can help me to maximise sales on this pitch, which I have had protected by pitch authorisation slip and pitch listings since the beginning of December 2006.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey
Badge no. 1163

cc Dr John Bird, Editor-In-Chief, The Big Issue (by registered post)

As a final note, there must be some malfunction with my Idea Store Whitechapel library card because this afternoon I was unable to log on a computer due to there being a problem with my password or membership number. (A few days back, while working on a computer in the same library, I was logged out and when the screen appeared again my allocated hour had been given to somebody else.) Declan has emailed the manager of the library because we wouldn’t want this malfunction to happen again, especially since we frequently have to wait for over an hour for a computer.

Letter to the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Big Issue Foundation

Yesterday Declan sent a registered letter to who we thought was the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Big Issue Foundation (and Chief Executive of The Charity Bank), Malcolm Hayday. The Big Issue Foundation’s “Who’s Who” webpage is in need of an update: Hayday emailed Declan at 10.00am this morning stating: “I am no longer Chairman of the Foundation, having retired a couple of months ago but will ensure that your letter is brought to the attention of Ian MacArthur at the Company and my successor at the Foundation, Steve Round.“ (Ian MacArthur is the Managing Director of The Big Issue Company.)

This letter that Declan sent to Hayday (see below) was in relation to the pitch we lost in Covent Garden two Saturdays ago because an outreach worker found that neither Declan nor I had worked it for two and a half weeks, an allegation we have been refuting ever since. Anyway, today we learnt that we have our Convent Garden pitch back as before (to be worked by either of us on Tuesdays pm, Thursdays pm and weekends), but were informed that we have no security of tenure whatsoever in relation to our respective pitches at Liverpool Street Station, as they are in fact “training pitches”.

So all the work we have been putting into our Liverpool Street pitches since the beginning of December, thinking it would pay off in the coming months, may not actually pay off at all – or at least not for us. Mindful of The Big Issue’s code of conduct, and in particular the company’s responsibilities to vendors, Declan has sent another email this afternoon to the founder of the Big Issue, Dr John Bird (his fourth email to Bird to date, see titles), which I will publish in my next blog.

In the email Declan is seeking to determine whether the Liverpool Street pitches we have been developing as (self-employed) vendors are training pitches or not. We always understood that these pitches were ours, which is why we have been working them on full weekdays from 7.30am until 7.30pm (with breaks, of course). Frankly, I would like to know how many Big Issue vendors work with such dedication, and so personably.

The ramifications for us, should it be established that these two pitches are indeed training pitches, could not be more catastrophic, particularly as we have been additionally informed that our Convent Garden pitch may become a training pitch unavailable to permanent vendors should the volume of new vendors increase. It would mean that we could end up with either pitches that don’t work for us or pitches registered to other vendors.

Take what happened to us the last two weekends in Covent Garden (during the weekend our pitches in Liverpool Street just die): somehow we ended up losing money instead of making it: two weekends ago we had to return 41 magazines to co-ordinators (19 of which we are still waiting to be paid for), and last weekend we dumped 15 unsold magazines into a bin. The question is: could we end up dumping magazines every day of the week?

In relation to the Methodist-run Whitechapel Mission and the Sisters of Mercy-run Dellow Centre, these are the highlights: a homeless woman knocks loudly on the mirror I am using to wash myself, determined that I answer her question: do I have a spare cigarette (Tuesday at 6.15am, Whitechapel Mission); I am called a whore and a slut by some homeless guy that sat at our table after I told him that I didn’t have a light (Wednesday at 6.45am, Whitechapel Mission); the nun in charge of clothes gives me a pair of jeans that might have been fashionable 10 years ago: plenty of homeless go around the establishment wearing a fine pair of jeans, thank you very much (Wednesday at 10.30am, Dellow Centre).

Anyway, this is the letter Declan sent to Hayday yesterday:

Dear Mr Hayday

Re:  The Big Issue Company

As Chairman of The Big Issue Foundation, I enclose for your attention copy of my registered letter of 2 April to the founder of The Big Issue Company, Dr John Bird together with my email to Dr Bird of 31 March therein referred to.

In reference to the loss of our day-pitch in Covent Garden on 31 March, the finding that neither my wife nor I had worked the pitch for two and a half weeks is worrisome. As stated in my email of 31 March to Dr Bird, either my wife or I had been working this pitch for the period in question, as agreed with head office, on Tuesdays pm, Thursdays pm and weekends, bar Tuesday, 27 March (as I had informed head office) and Thursday, 29 March (it was raining).

I can confirm that I have yet to receive a reply from Dr Bird or anyone on his behalf.

Yours sincerely

Declan Heavey