This is in response to criticism of Mary Tyler Moore in your Nov./Dec. letters to the editor.

I don't believe Ms. Moore was wrong on any count. I think her research has been excellent, and I think that as a wonderful spokesperson she is for juvenile diabetes, she deserves to be defended on her stand for stem cells.

Who wouldn't want this research if faced with the facts about diabetes, shorter life, eye problems?

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My mother and father are both blind from macular degeneration. They can't drive; they can't read; their quality of life was shattered when they had to give up their cars, their golf, and other sport activities with their friends in Sun Valley.

Is there hope that stem cell therapy could prevent or cure macular degeneration by growing new cells in the retina?

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Editor's note: I asked glaucoma researcher Dr. Darrell Wu Dunn from Indiana University School of Medicine if the United States is falling behind foreign researchers due to current federal stem cell restrictions. Because Dr. Wu Dunn is of Asian ethnic origin, I asked whether hopeful stem cell research is coming from South Korea. He said that stem cell work is under way in South Korea because the government permits the research to continue and that we are losing U.S. research scientists who might be working but can't because our government has restricted them.