Stem Cell Research Ban Overturned By U.S. Appeals Court

WASHINGTON -- A divided federal appeals court has ruled that opponents of taxpayer-funded stem cell research are not likely to succeed in a lawsuit to stop it.

In a 2-1 decision Friday, the panel of the U.S. court of appeals in Washington overturned a judge's order that would have blocked taxpayer funding for stem cell research.

The panel reversed an opinion last August by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who said the research likely violates the law against federal funding of embryo destruction.

The 1996 law prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars in work that harms an embryo, so private money has been used to cull batches of the cells. Those batches can reproduce in lab dishes indefinitely, and the Obama administration issued rules permitting taxpayer dollars to be used in work on them.

Comments

[Zag woo Tooey]

11:01 AM on 04/30/2011

Oh wow, it looks like the Kangaroo courts finally got it right.
real-privacy.eu.tc

[HawaiiSteve]

03:42 PM on 05/02/2011

Attention: Ignore this guy and any others posting a link to real-privacy website. It's and advertisement for a website privacy site that's looks suspiciously like a phishing site. Please flag!

Moderators, please do you job!

[jjkmack]

10:42 AM on 04/30/2011

One more way to divide and conquer the bottom 90% of Americans by billionaires while they steal us blind.

The list includes:
stem cell research
race
gays
abortion
guns
immigrations
religion
evolution
global warming
and many, many more!

[A Rahman Ford]

10:03 AM on 04/30/2011

great news. we need these therapies as soon as possible. but we should also be aware of the litigation over autologous stem cells in the federal district court in d.c. it's not an either or proposition when it comes to embryonic or autologous stem cells. huffingtonpost, it would be great if you covered the legal issues surrounding autologous stem cells so that your readers could know that for several health conditions, the body's own stem cells may be able to help. i have some information, including the complaint and the answer, at my website, www.rockysfight.com. this is a fight we can win.

[LucreziaBorgia]

09:46 AM on 04/30/2011

Science cannot be stopped. Period.

[Zugpoo Jones]

09:13 AM on 04/30/2011

So, the Kangaroo Courts have spoken lol.
www.real-privacy.eu.tc

[Finagonow]

08:58 AM on 04/30/2011

I have many health issues. 1/2 of them qualified me for full lifetime disability. If stem. Cells would cure one or all I would decline :-)

[jjkmack]

10:43 AM on 04/30/2011

oh...cruel but funny....lol!!!! Thanks for the laugh!

[oldgrendel]

10:38 AM on 04/30/2011

Good!

[Joey McDonald]

02:37 AM on 04/30/2011

One last time for the people who are dull.
1. President Bush authorized federal funding for research on the 15 embryonic stem cell lines available in August 2001. Other stem cell lines are also available for research but without the coveted assistance of federal funding. Yes, he was the first and only president to authorize embryonic stem cell lines. He banned future lines for federal funding only.
2. Work has not been stopped or slowed because of the temporary ban on government funded money.
3. The majority of funding for research does not come from the government.
4. Work in cord cells( which produces many more stem cells) and adult stem cells have produce new findings that would have been otherwise unnoticed.

Although each type of stem cell have their own pros and cons it is completely false to say that the temporary ban has thwarted stem cell research. In fact, it has expanded our knowledge is this promising field.

Yet, person after person cites "no evidence" to support their feelings. Don't let facts get in the way of your liberalism.

Please send me your copy of the constitution with the Separation of Church and State clause. I will give you $100,000. Not one of you can argue your position.

[HawaiiSteve]

05:07 AM on 04/30/2011

Sorry Joey, you don't get to re-write history, especially when its only 10 hours old. YOU STATED that "...There are many places (better and cheaper) to get stem cells so why use embryos??" When provided with multiple citations disproving this point, you conveniently change to a discussion about how Bush's ban on NEW cell lines really didn't impact research. We could get into a debate about how most of the world's stem cell researchers would not agree with you, but that would be futile since you are obviously incapable of admitting when you've made an error. It's much easier to simply change the topic. You just keep making up new 'facts' that have no support and no citations to back them up. I learned a long time that you cannot engage in ration discourse with blind faith.

You are consistent however Joe, you don't let facts get in the way of you beliefs!

[ForsakenAmercian]

01:04 AM on 05/04/2011

Horsecrap, I have heard several researchers complain about the lack of stem cells due to limited supply during Bush years. Go over to Fox or Townhall wingnut if you just come here to be the Superior Fundie. I do not troll wingnut sites looking for a fight. And please, no more David Barton revisionist history garbage. Yes, some founding Fathers believed inGod, duh, the church was the center of society back then. They left England to escape a State sponsored church. They knew theocracy is bad. Look at all prior theocracies,bad times. When Jesus comes that is different. Try being nice, helping the poor, don't be a smug,arrogant Christian, they are so annoying and I see them everyday.

[hairydodger]

01:45 AM on 04/30/2011

WTF took so long? Is it because W's administration blocked any legal attempts to make this work? What fools. W may have been the straw that broke the camel's back. A hundred years from now they will be able to point at one president that tipped the scales. It'll be written that there was a threatening problem that he and his staff failed to recognize and took the USA into a downward spiral that it never recovered from.

[Non Sibi]

02:08 AM on 04/30/2011

Ronnie Reagan actually started it, but you are right W was the tipping point. And the republican congress that allowed him to do it.

[understandthis]

11:48 PM on 04/29/2011

Some sense finally!

[Demgirls]

12:58 AM on 04/30/2011

Agree!

[irochfpst]

10:47 PM on 04/29/2011

this is a welcome slap in the face of hypocritical right wingers who appose abortion then oppose stem cell research that literally saves lives. it's time they catch up on their science lessons to realize just how far the research has moved away from using a fetus to obtain stem cells.

[Finagonow]

08:55 AM on 04/30/2011

It's a baby a 3 Or 4 month old fetus if you will. That can feel pain

[RutherfordLaser]

10:09 AM on 04/30/2011

BS

[ElenaOfJersey]

10:38 PM on 04/29/2011

Seriously, Huffington Post desperately needs to find a better method of moderation.

[Anonymous17]

11:10 PM on 04/29/2011

Seriously... I agree with you... The momerators are 99% asleep at the wheel.

[JenniferMZeares]

11:25 PM on 04/29/2011

Very true!

[Non Sibi]

12:10 AM on 04/30/2011

Faved. I think it is pretty obvious this is their way of controlling the flow of comments. This is not an accident. When I see the most recent top post is an hour ago, it is obvious they think this thread is dead.

[Anonymous17]

09:54 PM on 04/29/2011

About time they allow this. It just strikes me as funny the right just can't stand this. They call it playing God. Yet they are more than happy to help out their big medicine and big pharmaceutical contributors.

[JenniferMZeares]

11:25 PM on 04/29/2011

Exactly.

[Anonymous17]

12:44 AM on 04/30/2011

They can play god when it comes to making sure someone stays on life support when they are legally brain dead.... They can extend lives with high priced pharmaceuticals (Magic Johnson is a prime example). Yet when it comes to something that could actually improve lives, much less save lives, and cure some of the most horrendous diseases they balk and complain about playing God.

Sorry this is one of my soap box issues. Annoys me to no end.

[Malcolm Hensley]

09:30 PM on 04/29/2011

Look it does not matter which side of the issue of embryonic research you are on.

This is a bad decision!

The Dickey Amendment (also known as the Dickey-Wicker Amendment) is the name of an appropriation bill rider attached to a bill passed by United States Congress in 1995, and signed by former President Bill Clinton, which prohibits the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from using appropriated funds for the creation of human embryos for research purposes or for research in which human embryos are destroyed. HHS funding includes the funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

It became the law of the land when President Bill Clinton signed the appropriations bill.

I think it was short sighted to limit federal spending this way but President Obama had 2 years to undo this law.

Two Appeals Court Justices saying the Federal Government has to spend federal dollars on medical research when there is a law expressly forbidding it is a misuse of their authority!

Remember there is a huge difference between forbidding research and the courts mandating the spending of federal money on research!

Imagine two Federal Appeals Judges deciding the Federal government has to spend federal money researching the best means of infanticide to control population growth? They would have an advantage because there is no current law forbidding it!

It's a bad precedent!

[wakeup804]

08:28 PM on 04/29/2011

Non Radical....where ever you are...people are probably deleting you. If you have private insurance....that will pay for abortion....most of them do........Medicaid does not cover abortions.......people with Medicaid have to come up with the money...how you may ask do I know this. I have worked in healthcare since the 80's many of those years for gynecologists........I have written paperwork for women with private insurance of which their companies cover the legal medical procedure known as abortion....our tax dollars which fund Medicaid do not pay for abortions. I have a question for you DUDE how many times have you had to wrestle with the issue of your unplanned pregnancy? What?? I can;r hear you?? Wait, did you say this is a decision you will never have to make......DUDE.....is that what you said......did I hear your correctly??

[Shawn P]

08:09 PM on 04/29/2011

How do you liberals live with yourselves?

NO ONE BANNED STEM CELL RESEARCH. That is a total fabrication by the Democrats and their media wing.

It is true that Bush did NOT agree with federal tax dollars going to support EMBRYONIC stem cell research; but private corporations could spend all they wanted to on it.

And in point of fact Bush INCREASED federal spending on ADULT stem cell research, beyond the levels that Clinton had supported.

STEM CELL RESEARCH ITSELF WAS NEVER BANNED.

Jeez. Grow up and stop the insanity.

[Thaigold]

07:42 AM on 04/30/2011

So, Shawn, are we to believe in the early days of the Manhattan Project Federal funding should have been banned? There were many in those days who would have protested atomic research - just as today, for the most part the argument is usually based on a Biblical / Moral mindset.
The Manhattan Projected saved lives; as will full federally cell funded research.
We are living in 2011, not in Galileo's times (1610).