[ot] Stem Cell Ruling Will Be Appealed

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BlankAugust 24, 2010

Stem Cell Ruling Will Be Appealed

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and GARDINER HARRIS

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Tuesday that it would appeal a court

ruling challenging the legality of President Obama’s rules governing human

embryonic stem cell research, as the head of the National Institutes of Health

said the decision would most likely force the cancellation of dozens of

experiments in diseases ranging from diabetes to Parkinson’s.

Officials said experiments already under way could continue. But if the ruling

is upheld, the government will be forced to suspend $54 million in financing for

22 scientific projects by the end of September. An additional 60 projects are

threatened, and the institutes were busy Tuesday e-mailing researchers to tell

them their money was in jeopardy.

“This decision has the potential to do serious damage to one of the most

promising areas of biomedical research, just at the time when we were really

gaining momentum,” said Dr. Francis S. , director of the National

Institutes of Health. The ruling, he added, “just pours sand into that engine of

discovery.”

The ruling, issued Monday, revived what had been a dormant moral and political

debate over the research just in time for the November midterm elections. At a

time when members of both parties are trying to focus on jobs and the economy,

thorny questions about the ethics of scientific experimentation were once again

percolating in Washington.

Full story

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/health/policy/25stem.html?_r=1 & th= & emc=th & page\

wanted=print

or http://nyti.ms/dmGQs3