US court blocks federal funding for stem cell research (Roundup)

By Anindita Ramaswamy Aug 24, 2010, 1:58 GMT

Washington - A US federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked expanded federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research, which was part of a new policy outlined by the Obama administration last year.

US District Judge Royce Lamberth issued an order barring the Health and Human Services Department and the National Institutes for Health (NIH) from conducting studies on new human embryonic cell lines.

In his 15-page order, Lamberth cited the 1996 Dickey Wicker Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds for 'the creation of a human embryo for research purposes,' or 'research in which a human embryo is destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.'

The judge noted that Congress has included this amendment in every appropriations bill for the Health and Human Services Department since 1996.

'The language of the statute reflects the unambiguous intent of Congress to enact a broad prohibition of funding research in which a human embryo is destroyed,' Lamberth said.

The suit was brought by researchers from several Christian groups who said that human embryonic stem cell research involves the destruction of human embryos, and that the new NIH guidelines for stem cell research were 'contrary to law.'

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), co-counsel in the lawsuit, said in a statement that 'the American people should not be forced to pay for experiments - prohibited by federal law - that destroy human life.'

ADF senior legal counsel Steven Aden said, 'No one should be allowed to decide that an innocent life is worthless. Experimentation on embryonic stem cells isn't even necessary because adult stem cell research has been enormously successful.'

But Dr Leonard Zon, director of the stem cell programme at Children's Hospital in Boston, said the ruling surprised him. 'The Obama administration's permission to use federal funds is critical for embryonic stem cell research to move forward and has set a great standard for the United States,' he told the New York Times.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said: 'Today's ruling is a stinging rebuke to the Obama administration and its attempt to circumvent sound science and federal law ... Embryonic stem cell research is irresponsible and scientifically unworthy.'

Last March, President Barack Obama reversed an eight-year government block on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research, signing an executive order that overturned former president George W Bush's policy limiting research on then-existing cells.

Bush had, on August 9, 2001, restricted the use of government money to research on existing colonies of stem cells and barred the use of such money to create new colonies.

Private funding has been used for years to create embryonic stem cell lines, which is mainly done through discarded embryos from fertility clinics. While the Obama administration's policy still required the stem cells to be obtained through private funds, it said that federal funds could be used to conduct research on the stem cell lines, as long as the embryo donors signed consent forms.

Always controversial, embryonic stem cells have been available for research since 1998 when Dr James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin discovered the process for deriving stem cells from an embryo. The stem cell lines can be kept alive indefinitely in solution and are capable of transforming into an estimated 200 cell types in the body.

Proponents of embryonic stem cell research believe it could lead to cures for a variety of diseases, including cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes and spinal cord injuries. But conservatives consider the destruction of human embryos involved in the process to be immoral.