Christopher Reeve: you'll believe a man can walk

Until he soared with the role of Superman, Christopher Reeve was just another chisel-jawed American actor. Until he broke his neck in a riding accident, he was better known for Kryptonite than controversy. But his advocacy of embryonic stem cell research divided disabled people as much as it polarised US politics, as reactions to his recent death demonstrate.

The general public admired Reeve as a man who refused to give up, and who fought a personal and political battle to promote the research and access the treatment that he hoped might cure him. Scientists were delighted to have such a high profile advocate for their work. Many disabled people admired his guts and his determination. But not all.

Reeve's opponents make unlikely bedfellows: fundamentalist Christians who object to the use of human embryos in the development of stem cell therapies ... and radical disabled people who think that science gives false hopes, and that the search for medical cures is a distraction from the real priority of dismantling disabling barriers. Many disability activists were vocal critics of Reeve.

I don't oppose abortion, and find pro-life opposition to embryo research unconvincing. But I take the opposition from disability politics more seriously.

Scientists have been promising a cure for spinal cord injury since the 1950s. It makes it harder for people to come to terms with the trauma of a paralysing accident if they persist in having unrealistic expectations about the possibility of a cure.

Christopher Reeve could sometimes be dismissive of disabled people who did not share his obsession with walking again. When he talked about the need for motivation and perseverance, and celebrated his miniscule recovery of sensation, ordinary disabled people pointed to his huge financial resources, the team of personal assistants, and the elaborate rehabilitation equipment he had access to.

Many cures don't work. Some treatments have dangerous side-effects. Indeed, an obsession with cure stops some disabled people getting on with their lives. But none of us want our impairment to get any worse. And many disabled people would welcome medical intervention which restored function or reduced pain symptoms. To me, while a sceptical assessment of medical hype is necessary for balance, total rejection of the concept of cure seems self-defeating.

I see no reason why disabled people can't support medical research, as well as campaigning for civil rights and barrier removal. We should prevent impairment, as well as preventing disability.

Disabled people are not their impairments. And aiming to prevent or minimise impairment effects is not like trying to turn black people white, or gay people straight. It's not an attack on disability identity, it's a rational response to forms of embodiment that are often painful or limiting.

Many disabled people, particularly those with static or congenital impairments, are happy the way they are. That’s fine. But for people with degenerative impairments, or those who feel that their lives have been disrupted by acquired disability, the pursuit of cure will always be as important as the achievement of civil rights. Respect for the achievement and contribution of disabled people is not incompatible with a desire to reduce the impact of impairment.

Stem cell research enthusiasts believe that this technology will lead to therapies for many degenerative diseases like diabetes, Alzheimer's and heart disease. Research with rodents has provided tantalising evidence of spinal cord regeneration. Bone marrow transplants and umbilical cord blood transfusions have worked very successfully for years, and stem cell therapy uses exactly the same principles.

No wonder my scientific colleagues in Newcastle are excited. They were the first UK team to be licensed to develop somatic cell nuclear transfer research with human embryos, and the second to develop a successful stem cell line. And no wonder they have received letters from dozens of sick and impaired people supporting their work and offering help.

The reality is that the research may be promising, but it's at a very early stage. As the history of gene therapy shows, such early excitement can give way to later setbacks. Even if stem cell work does lead to clinical applications, it may be ten to fifteen years before any patient benefits from treatment.

One day, medical research will provide the effective treatment for paralysis which it has promised for so long, just as past breakthroughs have created the victories of hip replacement, organ transplantation and cochlear implants. However, even if the therapy is made to work in future, spinal cord injuries would need to be treated with stem cell grafts very soon after the trauma occurred, before scar tissue and other damage followed.

Reeve's determination to walk again was always a triumph of optimism over evidence. But his advocacy of hope and perseverance was both admirable and far-sighted. We need campaigners and fundraisers for medical research, as well as for equality and inclusion.

The disability community should celebrate Christopher Reeve, not disown him.