Democrats push for stem cell research in US
Janice Hopkins Tanne
1 New York
The US House of Representatives, controlled since the November elections by the Democrats, has passed a bill allowing embryonic stem cell research using unwanted, donated frozen embryos from fertility clinics. The Senate is expected to pass the bill in the next few weeks.
Democrats and Republicans voted to pass the bill. Polls have shown that most Americans favour stem cell research, which may hold cures for Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injuries, Alzheimer's disease, and other disorders.
"The Administration strongly opposes House passage of HR3 [the bill], which would use federal taxpayer dollars to support and encourage the destruction of human life for research . . . If HR3 were presented to the president, he would veto the bill," said a statement of administration policy from the White House issued before last week's vote (www.whitehouse.gov/omb/legislative/sap/110-1/hr3sap-h.pdf). President George Bush used the first veto of his presidency to kill an identical bill last year (BMJ 2006; 333:216).
A presidential veto can be overturned by a two thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Last week's vote in the House fell short of the 290 votes needed for a two thirds majority, being 253 to 174. In the Senate 66 or 67 senators (of 100 senators) are in favour of the bill.
President Bush restricted federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to 21 cell lines that were created before 9 August 2001. Many are thought to be too contaminated for use in humans (BMJ 2005;330:214).
President Bush opposes the destruction of unwanted embryos donated from fertility clinics to produce stem cells. Last year his spokesman Tony Snow said, "The simple answer is he thinks murder's wrong" (The Register, www.theregister.co.uk, 11 Jan, "Stem cells face second Bush veto").
Just before the vote in the House the White House's Domestic Policy Council issued a paper called "Advancing stem cell science without destroying human life" (www.whitehouse.gov/stemcell). The report says, "Life begins at conception and . . . an embryo is a nascent human being."
The paper said the president's policy "promotes scientific progress while respecting ethical boundaries."
The National Right to Life Committee praised "researchers who continue to look for ethical stem cell research alternatives that do not require destroying human life" and called on Congress to support them.
But the Republican Majority for Choice issued a statement saying that the nation was calling for "this essential research" and asking President Bush to re-evaluate his position.
The Center for American Progress, a liberal group, said that the White House paper "exaggerates the potential of adult cell reprogramming and other alternative methods of obtaining pluripotent stem cells" and "erroneously suggests that the recently discovered amniotic stem cells could replace embryonic stem cells."