Feds Expand Embryo Destructive Research

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Feds Expand Embryo Destructive Research

Special Report - December 9, 2009
On December 2, the National Institute of Health (NIH) authorized 13 new human embryonic stem cell (ESC) lines for use in government-funded NIH research for the first time since President George Bush’ executive order eight years ago that prohibited government funding for such research. Eleven of the lines were produced by scientists at the Children’s Hospital in Boston, while researchers at Rockefeller University created the other two lines. All of the lines were created using embryos considered “left over” from fertility treatments.

A NIH press release stated that over $20 million has been earmarked for research grants in 2009 for work using human ESCs. Those funds were restricted until NIH approved lines of ESCs for research purposes. The first approval was given to the above-mentioned 13 lines. More than 30 NIH grants were awarded for research using these lines and any other lines approved by NIH in the future. These 30 grants will fund research that seeks to use ESCs for therapeutic regeneration of diseased or damaged heart muscle cells, to produce neural stem cells and neurons in culture, and for the large-scale production and self-renewal of ESCs. The research must fall under the new NIH Guidelines for Human Stem Cell Research published on July 7, 2009, after President Obama issued an Executive Order opening ESCs to federal funding sources. See our previous story on the new NIH guidelines here.

“More than 70 diseases can now be treated through the use of adult stem cells, which are not morally objectionable because they do not involve the destruction of nascent human life,” said Bill Brooks, president of the North Carolina Family Policy Council. “From numerous cancers to Parkinson’s to sickle cell anemia, the value of adult stem cells grows daily as the technology surrounding their use is refined and expanded. It is a public policy failure when we as a nation will sacrifice human life, at whatever stage, for unproven scientific experimentation, and will force every taxpaying American to subsidize the practice.”