Tennessean: Tennessee enmeshed in embryonic stem cell fight

Sunday's Tennessean featured this article on ESCR . Vanderbilt is on one side wanting federal money for their research. No mention of the fact that private funding is allowed. It is federal money they really want because once you turn on that facet, it never seems to get turned off.

 The article did mention in Dickey Wicker Amendment that originated in 1995 under Clinton but failed to mention that Obama signed the annual appropriations bill  including the Dickey Amendment two days after his much heralded Executive Order allowing for federal funding. It is almost comical that two days after the infamous EO he signed a bill that upheld the provision that federal funding NOT be used to destroy embryos for research. No one argues that the embryo is destroyed to get the stem cells but the govt. and those who seek to profit from it like Vanderbilt want to argue that the amendment does not apply to research on embryonic stem cells because they are not embryos. The good judge sees it differently.

"After filing a federal lawsuit 18 months ago, the Tennessee-based Christian Medical and Dental Association and others involved in the suit are cheering the recent court injunction as a victory on moral ground. "It's not a matter of if we should be doing regenerative medicine research; it is a question of where we get the stem cells," said Dr. David Stevens, chief executive officer of the representative group for 17,000 medical professionals, headquartered in Bristol in the northeast corner of Tennessee. "We crossed the line of ethical medicine." Opponents believe destroying an embryo to harvest its stem cells is the equivalent of taking a human life. They point to adult stem cells, taken from a living donor, as a more ethical alternative."

"Many opponents of embryonic stem cell research, including the National Embryo Donation Center in Knoxville, believe scientists should focus on developing cures from adult stem cells. They also support studying induced pluripotent cells, which are adult stem cells modified to behave like embryonic ones."Adult and induced pluripotent stem cells are now being used to treat or investigate more than 70 disease conditions, compared to only one clinical trial with embryonic stem cells," said Dr. Jeffrey Keenan, medical director of the National Embryo Donation Center. That clinical trial, involving therapy for spinal cord injuries, began last year."