Superman actor 'angry' at Bush

Christopher Reeve, the American actor who once played 'Superman', has criticised the Roman Catholic Church and President Bush in an interview with the UK's Guardian newspaper.

Reeve, who was paralysed after a horse-riding accident seven years ago, claims the policies of the church and the president have 'obstructed research' - including embryonic stem cell (ES cell) research and therapeutic cloning - which might have helped him and others with spinal cord injuries to recover.

Reeve said that he was 'angry and disappointed' that the Bush administration failed to support a bill in the Senate earlier this year that would have allowed ES cell research and therapeutic cloning while banning reproductive cloning. He claimed that Bush 'caved' on the issue after the Catholic church spoke out against cloning for any purpose and the destruction of embryos in research.

Later speaking to the BBC, Reeve further stated that 'if we'd had full government support, full government funding for aggressive research using embryonic stem cells from the moment they were first isolated... I don't think it unreasonable to speculate that we might be in human trials by now.'