Actor Fox requests Bush support

Michael J Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in 1991

Actor Michael J Fox has called on the US President George Bush to support further stem cell research.

The US Senate is due to vote on stem cell legislation this month, but the president has said he will veto it over ethical concerns.

The bill would lift limits he imposed in 2001 to allow research using 400,000 embryos leftover from IVF treatments.

Fox - who suffers from Parkinson's Disease - said it was an opportunity for Bush to "do something fantastic".

Degenerative disease

The Spin City and Back to the Future star called the legislation a "pro-living bill".

Embryonic stem cells are derived from human embryos, which are destroyed in the process.

Most of the 400,000 leftover IVF embryos would be destroyed anyway and advocates of the legislation say they believe it would be more ethical to use them to try to cure disease.

But critics of the bill say efforts should made to find alternative legislation that would fund research to find ways of deriving stem cells without destroying the embryo.

Fox went public with his illness in 1998, but had been diagnosed with the degenerative disease in 1991.