Posts Tagged ‘Whitehead Institute’
Federal Funding for Embryonic Stem Cell Research – Part 2
by azmanam on Mar 30 2009 (2064 Views)Thought I’d revisit my previous post on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research (FFESCR).
When we last left the situation, President Obama had signed an executive order allowing scientists to apply for FFESCR for more than just the 21 lines grandfathered in by President Bush’s 2001 executive order. The NIH had 3 months to rewrite the rules governing FFESCR. That was 9 March 2009.
Two days later, on 11 March 2009, President Obama signed HR 1105, the Omnibus Appropriations Act for the rest of fiscal year 2009. Usually a non-newsworthy event. However, section 509 contains what is known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment – an ammendment that has been in every appropriations bill since FY1997 – which states, in part:
None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for … research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death…
So two days after President Obama opened up FFESCR, he promptly closed FFESCR for the rest of the fiscal year (FY2009 ends 30 September 2009). Oops. That’s development 1.
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