The Bush Administration ban on federal funding for research involving human embryonic stem cell lines created after Aug. 6, 2001 has presented scientists with practical problems, as well as moral and ethical dilemmas. According to the policy, no federal dollars can feed work on new lines of human embryonic stem cells. Such research could hold hope for patients with Alzheimer and Parkinson diseases, diabetes, spinal cord injuries, and other afflictions.
Now that private and state funds are arriving to fill the gap left by the federal ban, researchers are still faced with a quandary: how to work with new stem cell lines without endangering their access to federal funding.
In California, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York, and New Jersey, institutions have or are planning federally funded research on historical stem cells or on those from nonhuman or nonembryonic organisms. Such research would be taking place alongside the development of new ...
