Heinz Kerry raps Bush on Hutch visit

By Beth Kaiman
Seattle Times staff reporter

HARLEY SOLTES / THE SEATTLE TIMES Teresa Heinz Kerry visits patients yesterday at the Cancer Care Alliance at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Heinz Kerry, right, greets Carla Maulden, 56, from Pasco, who is undergoing cancer therapy. At left is her doctor, Janis Abkowitz.

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Heinz Kerry, wife of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., visited the center as part of a two-day campaign swing that included a private fund-raiser last night and an event today, hosted by Gov. Gary Locke, to raise money for Washington's Democratic nominee for governor.

Heinz Kerry said the Bush White House has been the "least scientific administration in history," criticizing its positions on global warming and medical research. At a brief news conference at the cancer center, she said there should, of course, be controls on stem-cell research to help prevent abuses, but added it was "disrespectful of the ethics of medicine" not to embrace the potential for treatment and cure.

In his first year in office, President Bush said he would permit federal funding for stem-cell research only for studies involving stem-cell lines already in existence. Scientists have said that order limits research and the outlook for treating illness such as Parkinson's and perhaps Alzheimer's disease, which afflicted the late President Reagan.

Kerry has said he would remove those limits if elected president. The issue is certain to get renewed attention this month when Reagan's son Ron speaks at the Democratic National Convention to urge stepped-up stem-cell research.

Meeting with cancer patients and their doctors in examination rooms, Heinz Kerry mentioned several times that health-care issues resonate with her, in part, because her father was an oncologist, her daughter-in-law is a doctor, a niece is a professor of medicine and a stepdaughter, Vanessa Kerry, is in medical school.

In more intimate detail, Heinz Kerry told the patients about two of her campaign traveling companions: Peggy Grossman, who survived lung cancer; and Melinda Blinken, wife of a former U.S. ambassador to Belgium, who beat ovarian cancer. She also mentioned the care her husband had received as a prostate-cancer patient at Johns Hopkins University.

Mostly, though, Heinz Kerry asked questions, softly and specifically. She wondered if Claudette Mallon, 67, a lymphoma patient from Ocean Shores, had experienced symptoms before being diagnosed. She asked if Mary Hermans' multiple sclerosis was making her tired in her fight against acute leukemia.

When she walked into Hermans' room, Heinz Kerry immediately insisted that Hermans and her husband, Colin Hermans, who live on San Juan Island, sit in the room's two chairs. She squatted nearly to the floor, finding a perch on the low footrest of the examination table.

"If I may say so, you don't look sick," Heinz Kerry told Hermans after hearing about her case.

"I hope you're right," said Hermans.
 
Heinz Kerry, widow of Sen. John Heinz, is chairwoman of the $1.6 billion Heinz Family Philanthropies and The Heinz Endowments. She also has spent considerable time on women's health issues and talked often yesterday of the need for women to be empowered to make good decisions about their health.

Beth Kaiman: 206-464-2441 or bkaiman@seattletimes.com