2010-08-30
Members of the U.S. Senate have begun to consider a
legislative fix to lift a temporary injunction
granted last week by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth that bans using federal
funds for the practice.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP)
Committee has indicated it is looking to lift the funding freeze by modifying
the language of a 1995 law known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment, which
prohibits the use of federal funds for research that destroys human
embryos. The Senate HELP Committee has scheduled a hearing on the stem
cell decision for Sepember 16 to hear from scientists whose research has been
stopped as a result of the injunction.
Previously, the Department of Health and Human Services
(HHS) had concluded that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) support of
human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research did not violate the amendment if the
funds were used only for research involving the cells – not to procure them.
The court ruling, however, rejected that distinction, citing the “unambiguous
intent of Congress to enact a broad prohibition of funding...all research
in which an embryo is destroyed, not just the piece of research in which the
embryo is destroyed.”
Amending the Dickey-Wicker amendment will be challenging, as
the new legislation will have to be very specific to satisfy Judge Lamberth’s
concerns about its interpretation. Congress can also overrule the
injunction, but finding the political will to pass legislation before the
upcoming mid-term elections could prove politically difficult.
Meanwhile, the injunction is wreaking havoc across the
scientific community with new grants put on hold indefinitely and research brought to a
standstill. The NIH responded to last week’s
injunction by discontinuing review of all new grant applications and renewals
of grants funding stem cell research. Based on the Department of
Justice’s guidance to NIH, grantees that have already been awarded federal
funds and who are currently conducting research will be allowed to continue their
research.
Today, the NIH announced it has halted all intramural human embryonic stem
cell research. This unprecedented action marks the first immediate halt
in stem cell research based on the injunction.
In an e-mail message to the NIH staff, NIH Intramural Research Chief Michael
Gottesman states: "HHS has determined that the recent preliminary
injunction...is applicable to the use of human embryonic stem cells (ES) in
intramural research projects. In light of this determination, effective today,
intramural scientists who use human ES cell lines should initiate procedures to
terminate these projects. Procedures that will conserve and protect the research
resources should be followed."
The NIH currently has eight research projects that use human embryonic stem
cells, most if not all of which use lines approved under the Bush
Administration, according NIH officials. It also has a unit that characterizes
lines added to the NIH registry of approved hESC lines.
The Department of Justice is expected to ask the
courts to stay the injunction as soon as today.
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