GOP hits Edwards on stem-cell talk

SANTA FE -- A leading Republican, speaking on behalf of President Bush's reelection campaign, yesterday accused Senator John F. Kerry's campaign of exploiting the death of actor Christopher Reeve for political gain by suggesting that a Kerry victory in November would lead to a burst of new stem-cell research and, eventually, wheelchair-bound people like Reeve walking again.

Senate majority leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican and a physician, characterized as ''cruel," ''crass," and ''opportunistic" a remark in Iowa Monday by the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina. According to published reports, Edwards marked Reeve's death on Sunday during a discussion of stem-cell research, a cause championed by the Democratic ticket as well as the late actor, who was paralyzed in a 1995 horse-riding accident.

''If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to get up out of that wheelchair and walk again," Edwards told the Iowa audience.

Frist, in a conference call with reporters organized by the Bush campaign, chiefly to talk about Kerry's health care plans, said the Democrats were overstating the promise of stem-cell science, as well as misrepresenting Bush's position on it. In 2001, Bush became the first president to allow federal financing of research on existing embryonic stem cells, although he barred the use of public funds to create new lines because it would involve destroying human embryos.

Kerry has said he would lift such limits if elected president, and support greater financing of the work.

''I find it opportunistic to use the death of someone like Christopher Reeve -- I think it is shameful -- in order to mislead the American people," Frist said. ''We should be offering people hope, just like physicians do; but neither physicians, scientists, public servants, or trial lawyers like John Edwards should be offering hype . . . It's giving false hope to people."

Kerry spokesman David Wade said yesterday that the ''crass" charge was better aimed at Bush's restrictions on stem-cell research.

''Can you imagine if a president of the United States told polio victims that they would never walk again because he was going to please his Republican base? That's shameful," Wade said.

Patrick Healy can be reached at phealy@globe.com.