Slashdot Mirror
NIH Orders Halt To Embryonic Stem Cell Research
sciencehabit writes "Responding to a court order issued a week ago, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Friday ordered intramural researchers studying human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) to shut down their experiments. NIH's action — probably unprecedented in its history — is a response to a preliminary injunction on 23 August from US District Judge Royce Lamberth. The judge ruled that the Obama policy allowing NIH funding to be used to study hESC lines violates a law prohibiting the use of federal funds to destroy embryos."
The judge ruled that the Obama policy allowing NIH funding to be used to study hESC lines violates a law prohibiting the use of federal funds to destroy embryos."
What if the scientists just charge for the research, but present an itemized bill that throws in the embryo destruction for free?
I'm mostly kidding, but isn't there some decent way to weasel around this?
... Backwards ...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Everyone who is against stem cell research should be unable to ever benefit from the results of said research.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Things always go smoothly. But seriously - the "debate" (can't believe there even is one) over creationism is harmful intellectually, but I doubt it is actively inhibiting research on anything. Stem cell research, on the other hand, IS being held back by religious groups that believe any fertilized embryo is a human. And I for one truly detest the role religion is playing in actively inhibiting research on diseases that are currently killing people. My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins - I can't find a clever way to say it, but why must this still not apply to religion?
"Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without your accordion." ~General Norman Schwarzkopf
Well, it might suck, but presuming the legal basis of the court ruling is valid, I'm appreciative that they shut the experiments down.
Before you flame me into a crispy marshmallow, answer me this: Is the NIH the sort of institution you want playing fast and loose with any law or court ruling that isn't blatantly, obviously unconstitutional or an instantaneous danger to human lives? I want NIH crossing their T's and dotting the shit of out their I's, for my own safety and peace of mind, and while I hope they fight this ruling (because stem cells will save lives in the long run) I'm grimly satisfied they obeyed it while it's legally binding.
to adult stem cells - you know, the ones that have actually led to productive therapies.
Embryonic stem cells are said to have a lot of "potential". Strange, by this time I would think they would have come up with something for all the hype made over them.
"As always, not mentioned..."
Unless you RTFA....
The ruling applies to cell lines derived from more recent embryos -- they're already destroyed and would have been anyway, but the cell lines are already harvested. It's a strange ruling since it doesn't prevent any new embryo destruction (and wouldn't anyway, since they're excess IVF embryos and are headed for the biowaste system either way.)
Nope. The Court has ruled. Unless and until a higher court reverses the ruling, it's binding.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I'm pretty sure it applies to all of them; IIRC, the judge found that not only the Obama-era but also the Bush-era research violated the law. TFA seems to indicate that all hESC research under the auspices of NIH is covered by the order.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
That one person's (or group of people's) belief in fairy tales should hold back progress that could save countless lives and easy the suffering of millions.
We used to criticize the USSR because they politicized science.
Warning: This sig is not thread safe. For more information see Slashdot's sig policy.
That's not exactly the problem. It what happens after the Egg + Sperm stage. The some magic occurs and you have a proto human that various and sundry groups are trying to give full human rights to. Exactly when the embryo becomes legally human is the issue. Not whether or not you can pretend that your travels to the darker side of the Internet is somehow helping the human condition.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
That's missing the point entirely.
This is more or less the same debate as over early abortions and chemical contraceptives, it's about when your genetic material becomes an independent and legally protected person. Unless you're suggesting that the libertarian approach is to let people sell their children thus making the question irrelevant, you need to set some defined boundaries of personhood and embryohood.
Given the wording of the law and the clear legislative intent, the decision seems to be legally correct. The solution here requires congress to act. An additional unfortunate detail is that the Democrats are completely spineless and so getting them to deal with this problem is going to be tough even though this majority of Americans support embryonic stem cell research (source- http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/poll010626.html).
Why is everyone making a big stink about embryonic stell research anyways? Adult stem cell research appears to show a lot more promise and doesn't have all the abortion political baggage tied to it. I don't understand the Obama Administration's stance on this; they spend a lot of political capital on a science that is decades away from producing anything real when a comparable science, Adult Stem Cell research, could be supported without expending almost any political capital.
Consider the other side of the question:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
Where do we draw the line? It is not an easy question, and is not easily answered.
The doctors who did these experiments thought that they knew where to draw the line. Humanity decided that they were wrong.
Your two implications are inherently self contradicting. If, as you imply in your oh so clever "Osama, Obama" inference, Obama is a closet conservative Muslim, then he would object to your second inference. Since conservatives Muslims, like conservative Christians, are generally anti-abortion.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Very soon--perhaps even already--China will be the premier center of stem cell research in the world. They are making enormous advances, due to their strong economic position and their lack of being hindered by religious conservatives or a two-party system. Researchers will go there, all the intellectual work will flock to China because they can get their funding and have the collaboration they need. And the US will become a short-lived historical footnote, an intellectual backwater led by a corrupt plutocracy, filled with ignorant evangelical nutjobs and greedy corporatists. Americans are stupid, greedy, short-sighted, superstitious, easily cowed, lazy, obsessed with violence and sex, and fiscally irresponsible.
Make no mistake: I do not condone China's abhorrent record on human rights, politics, foreign policy, censorship, or the environment. I especially despise the way they have so brilliantly manipulated the US into conflicts with other countries and have essentially commandeered the global economy. But they have only done this because, again, Americans are too stupid and played right into the trap.
Ideology-testing for anything and everything is really, really stupid. It is mean-spirited and spiteful, as well as impossible to enforce. Let's suppose, just for fun, that the law is changed (as it will be) and federal funding for embryonic stem cell research is allowed. The people whom you wish to deny treatment are now having their tax dollars taken from them to do research they disagree with. Will you still deny them treatment? What if someone is opposed to war. Would you deny them any medical treatment that was advanced or created during wartime for the purpose of treating soldiers? That might include you, or a loved one. Suppose you are on the brink of foreclosure and a millage increase is proposed for schools or the fire department. You vote it down because any tiny increase in your tax burden would push you over the edge into foreclosure. Should your kids be denied access to the schools? Should the fire department pass you by in case of an emergency?
Grow the hell up. We live in a democracy. Some times things will go your way, some times they won't. Deciding to punish people who disagree with you is a really good way to lead to civil strife and violence.
I heard you like "Candy" and "Ice Cream". Just substitute "Penis" for "Ice Cream" and you will see why substituting something only tangentially similar to something else in a sentence is a bad idea.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Comment removed based on user account deletion