Federal funding of embryonic stem cell research okayed
Last week, a US Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in favor of using federal money for funding human embryonic stem cell research (hESC) – overturning a ban proposed in August.
"This is a momentous day,” says National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins, “not only for science, but for the hopes of thousands of patients and their families who are relying on NIH-funded scientists to pursue life-saving discoveries and therapies that could come from stem cell research."
This decision slashes the chances that opponents of the controversial research will succeed in cutting off federal funding through the courts.
In most cases, research with hESC (pictured) involves destroying embryos after removing stem cells – which can then go on to develop into many different cell types.
Last August, a judge called for the halting of funds for current research, arguing that current guidelines for obtaining stem cells (from unused embryos of fertility clinics) violate US law. The 1996 Dickey–Wicker Amendment, according to the lower court, prohibits federal funding for research when embryos are destroyed or discarded.
NIH-supported researchers had to suspend experiments and freeze cell lines. Nature reports:
Seventeen days later, the appeals court placed a hold on the injunction while it considered the validity of the lower court's action. That restored the status of NIH funding, but left its long-term viability in doubt. This has been eased by the 29 April ruling, in which the appeals court legally formalizes its earlier decision to block the injunction.
With this, federal funding will continue while the matter is further settled.
It’s still possible that Judge Royce Lamberth of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, who issued the original injunction [pdf], will ultimately decide in favor of the plaintiffs, James Sherley and Theresa Deisher, who both study adult stem cells. Nature explains:
But it will be difficult now for Lamberth to contravene the finding of the higher court that Dickey–Wicker does not ban NIH funding of research involving human embryonic stem cells, so long as they are not derived using federal funds. The three-judge panel of the appeals court concluded, by a two-to-one majority, that the weakness of the plaintiffs' central argument means they are unlikely to prevail when the case is heard on its merits – a key legal standard for granting a preliminary injunction.
In a 21-page brief [pdf], the majority write:
We conclude the plaintiffs are unlikely to prevail because Dickey-Wicker is ambiguous and the NIH seems reasonably to have concluded that, although Dickey-Wicker bars funding for the destructive act of deriving an ESC [embryonic stem cell] from an embryo, it does not prohibit funding a research project in which an ESC will be used.
In a dissenting opinion, the third judge called her colleagues’ separation of the derivation of hESCs and research on the cells themselves "linguistic jujitsu."
Image: human embryonic stem cells / NIH
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com