Or so it seemed. But a funny thing has happened on the way to the counterrevolution: The National Institutes for Health, having just been granted its freedom, is threatening a partial return to Bush-era bondage. Instructed by the president to prepare new funding rules to replace the Bush policy, the NIH issued draft guidelines in April and is now considering public comments. Unless the draft is substantially altered, the final regulations, due out next month, will place several limits on federal support for stem cell research that undermine science and are reminiscent of the prior regime’s ideological commitments — a kind of “Bush policy light.”
First, the draft guidelines prohibit federal funding of the actual creation of embryonic stem cell lines — a process that requires destroying 5-day-old human embryos, known as blastocysts, in order to collect the necessary cells from their interiors — an obviously necessary prerequisite for studying the cell lines themselves in order to better understand diseases and seek cell-based cures. Practically, this restriction is not fatal: Creating stem cell lines is cheap enough that the scientific community can rely on alternative funding sources, including California’s stem cell agency and philanthropic foundations. But, like the rejected Bush policy, this limitation places the interests of blastocysts, which lack neurons and are thus incapable of experiencing pain or any other sensation, above those of fully sentient human beings suffering from the range of illnesses and disabilities that might one day be cured by stem cell research.
