A devastating spinal cord injury has spurred an Irish woman to create a new group dedicated to promoting stem cell research. The first person who needs convincing, she feels? President Bush. FRANK SHOULDICE reports.

ON October 4, a letter will arrive at the White House that President George W. Bush may not care to open. The letter, circulated to government leaders around the world, will begin,

“Serving People with Disabilities Following Disaster” focuses on Red Cross policies and best practices for meeting the needs of people with disabilities, based on the organization’s commitment to relieve the suffering of all people, guided solely by their needs.

In developing the course, the Red Cross partnered with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and organizations such as the National Organization on Disability (NOD) and the National Spinal Cord Injury Association. The course expands upon a Red Cross prerequisite, “Fulfilling Our Mission: Translating Your Compassion into Community Action.”

Rugby union players are four times more likely to wind up as quadriplegics than their rugby league counterparts, new research shows.

A study by Adelaide's Flinders University Research Centre for Injury Studies analysed severe spinal cord injuries among players of both codes in NSW between 1986 and 2005.

Researchers found 61 cases of quadriplegia as a result of catastrophic neck injuries - 36 from union and 25 from league.

Campbell resident Cody Bader recently visited a meeting of the Dunklin County Democratic Women to address the amendment.

Stem cells could provide cures for diseases and injuries that afflict hundreds of thousands of Missouri children and adults and millions of other Americans including diabetes, Parkinson's, cancer, heart disease, ALS, sickle cell disease and spinal cord injury.

With a Pontiac Silverdome crowd watching in concerned silence -- and with players from two teams on their knees -- some of the longest minutes of a National Football League broadcast ticked off as Utley lay still on the artificial turf while he was treated by medical personnel.

Utley, a former Washington State University football player, was on the offensive line for the Detroit Lions that day. He was hit by a routine blow that would ultimately leave him in a wheelchair.

Yet the accident, which robbed him of his many athletic gifts, has transformed Utley into one of the most compelling figures in sports today.

PATIENTS with spinal cord injuries may be unable to maintain body temperature and heat while exercising in a cold or a warm environment, Dutch doctors warn in the International Journal of Sports Medicine.

Patients with spinal cord injuries have a disrupted nervous system "and may experience difficulties in temperature control during exercise at different ambient temperatures," said the researchers, from University Medical Center Nijmegen, based on the results of a study in which they had 11 spinal cord injury patients and 10 able-bodied controls perform arm-cranking exercises for 45 minutes in warm and cold air temperatures.

Just a few years ago, helping a stroke patient regain the ability to swallow was unheard of. It's just one way technology has taken rehabilitation to new heights.

Leslie Cunningham of Kansas Rehabilitation Hospital says technology has made a huge difference in the everyday living skills patients are able to develop. She says advances in medicine are now leading to advances in helping patients regain skills lost or keep them from further deteriorating.