U.S. law prohibits the NIH from funding the creation of human embryos for research or research in which human embryos are destroyed, but leaves room for debate over whether that includes work with human embryonic stem cells.
Opponents of such
research, including many religio-wingnuts, have argued that it is
unacceptable because it destroys human embryos.
Scientists hope to
be able to use stem cells to find treatments for spinal cord injuries,
cancer, diabetes and diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Shortly after
taking office in 2009, President Barack Obama issued an executive order
that expanded federal funding for research involving human embryonic stem cells in hopes it would lead to cures for diseases.
Two researchers who work with adult stem cells, James Sherley, a biological engineer at Boston Biomedical Research Institute,
and Theresa Deisher, of Washington-based AVM Biotechnology, sued in
2009 to block such research. They argued that they were at risk of being
squeezed out of federal grants for their own work with adult stem
cells, which does not involve the destruction of embryos.
A federal judge in
2010 blocked the NIH from funding embryonic stem cell research, but a
three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit overturned that decision last year.
The appeals court
recognized that the law was ambiguous but deferred to NIH's
interpretation that it could fund research using stem cells from embryos
that were not actually destroyed in the course of that research.
Asking the Supreme
Court to review the case, the researchers said that the NIH had a duty
to respond to over 30,000 public comments on the proposed guidelines
before adopting them.
The case is Sherley v. Sebelius, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-454.
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