Does the grousing never end? Here the Big Biotech/Government Complex worked years to get the minor Bush funding restrictions removed, and still they are not happy. From the story:
Critics charged that the existing lines had many limitations and that the funding restrictions severely hindered the field. So, in the ensuing eight years, scientists created hundreds of new lines using money from private sources or state governments. When Obama dropped Bush’s restrictions, he asked NIH to work out the details. On April 17, NIH proposed guidelines for what research would be eligible.
Opponents of embryonic stem cell research criticized the proposal for allowing any expansion of federal funding for the work, arguing that adult stem cells and other types of cells offer more promising and more morally acceptable alternatives. But they were relieved that the NIH proposal did not go further by, for example, allowing the funding for stem cells obtained from embryos created specifically for research or by using cloning techniques.
Some proponents of stem cell research, meanwhile, were disappointed that the guidelines limited funding to lines created from unused embryos that otherwise would be discarded by infertility clinics. Initially, however, proponents were pleased that the proposal would allow funding of studies on the hundreds of new lines already in existence.
After studying the guidelines further, however, they concluded that, in their current form, the guidelines would severely restrict funding for the existing lines.
“They take 2009 standards and attempt to apply them retroactively, which isn’t really a standard that would allow most of the preexisting lines to be acceptable for NIH funding,” said George Q. Daley of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. “This is essentially moving the goal post.”
Note that “the scientists” want funding for use of embryos created solely for research or made via human cloning, demonstrating that the “we only want leftover embryos” was always a ruse. And, by the way, so is the claim that all they want to use in research are early embryos.
Put this in the “We are never satisfied” file.
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