Appeals court allows federal funding of stem cell research to continue

Los Angeles Times : A US appeals court ruled last week that federal funding for stem cell research may continue, writes David G. Savage for the Los Angeles Times. Last year US District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered a temporary halt to new research grants because he believed the funding appeared to violate a 15-year-old congressional ban on using federal money for research in “which embryos are destroyed.” Since 1999 the National Institutes of Health had interpreted the ban more narrowly. Its lawyers said that stem cells are not “embryos” and, that while no federal funds may be used to destroy embryos in order to extract stem cells, the funds may be used for research on stem cells that already exist. Although some states have used their own money to fund embryonic stem cell research, “federal funding is still the engine that drives this train,” said Sidney Golub, an expert on stem cell research policy at the University of California, Irvine. “That’s why this decision is very important.”