2009-08-18
President Barack Obama issued a memorandum on
July 30 directing the heads of all federal departments and agencies that
support and conduct stem cell research to adopt the final National Institutes
of Health (NIH) Guidelines for Human Stem Cell Research "to the
fullest extent practicable in light of legal authorities and obligations."
The guidelines, which were finalized and
made effective on July 7, apply directly to the expenditure of NIH funds for
research using human embryonic stem cells. Earlier this year, in comments
on the proposed guidelines, ASH recommended that “the final guidelines should
clarify the NIH’s expectation that other federal agencies that fund human
embryonic stem cell research will adopt the same principles.”
The
memorandum issued by President Obama will help to ensure that all
federally funded human stem cell research is conducted according to these same
principles and that duplicate regulatory processes will not be created by other
research funding agencies.
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