In fact, federal funding for research involving adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells in mice is available and unrestricted. Moreover, there are no restrictions on conducting embryonic cell research with private funds. The debate in Congress is whether it’s appropriate for the federal government to spend more money to destroy more human embryos for research.
Think Bush really cares if embryos are destroyed? Bush as the head the the Executive, can issue orders to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the National Science Foundation (NSF), the 2 major funding institutes for Academic research.
Each has rules and guidelines, and each has special sheets for use of ESC.
All Bush would have to do is issue an order like this:
“No federal funding will be given to ANY scientist that works with unapproved embryonic stems cells, whether their funding is public/private. Individuals using private monies for ESC research MAY NOT apply for US government Federal grants, until such work is verifiably suspended.”
Heres how it works: A scientist applies for Federal funding, and gets an R01 grant, that covers University costs, electricity, waste. ect, and also their actual research. The same scientist then gets a PRIVATE grant to work with ESC, when in fact, his lab costs are already subsidized by the Federal Gov’t. The private grant is pure research money.
If Bush REALLY wanted to stop ESC research, he could just order NIH and NSF to stop funding ANY person who uses unapproved lines, or destroys embryos. But big business makes huge sums of money based on patents, which if kept out of the Academic sector, stands them to make billions.
