Stem Cells: US Controversy and UK Commitment

The debate over stem cells has produced a complex web of rules and regulations on both sides of the Atlantic. In the UK, the UK Stem Cell Foundation was established with the goal of attracting investors willing to support clinical research using stem cells, and to help translate basic research findings into clinically and commercially viable products. In the US, private firms have stepped into the gap created by a lack of federal research funding.

In August of 2001, President Bush announced that federal funding of research on human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) would be limited to those cell lines created before his speech. No new federal money would be available for research involving any lines created thereafter, even if the cells had been generated using private funds. The President reiterated this position almost exactly five years later, when, this past July, he vetoed a Congressional bill that would have lifted some of the federal restrictions on hESC research.

These pronouncements have intensified an already heated debate among scientists and philosophers about the ethics of hESC research. Since Bush’s...

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