Democrats Debate Methods to End Stem Cell Ban - NYTimes.com

News Type: Event — Seeded on Sun Jan 4, 2009 4:40 PM EST

Article Source: The New York Times

Both President-elect Barack Obama and Democratic Congressional leaders have made repealing Bush administration restrictions announced in 2001 a top priority. But they have yet to determine if Mr. Obama should quickly put his stamp on the issue by way of presidential directive, or if Congress should write a permanent policy into statute.

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JCAtom

Thwarted by President Bush in their efforts to expand federal spending on embryonic stem cell research, Democrats are now debating whether to overturn federal restrictions through executive order or by legislation when they assume full control of the government this month.

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2 votes

#1 - Sun Jan 4, 2009 7:55 PM EST

{"commentId":4664669,"authorDomain":"scientificblog"}

Cash

What debate? Just end it. And what ban? Both McCain and Obama said they would end Bush's restrictions on hESC research. It takes 5 minutes. The only debate is whether a Congress so bad it has approval ratings lower than Bush will be harmed or helped by being involved.

Science named iPS the breakthrough of the year so by the time these guys throw billions of dollars at hESC, it will be irrelevant. Another example of tax dollars being thrown away after the technology has been found useless (read:ethanol).

People (read: people who dislike Bush) make this out to be much bigger than it is. The guy was the first president to fund stem cell research at all and he restricted hESC (it is not banned, though the NYTimes continues its subtle war of deceit and no one outside the science community seems to mind) because the technique had only existed for 2 years when he took office.

Unless you want the EPA and the FDA and everyone else to implement every new thing that industry and science comes up with, some common sense hesitation is welcome.

P.S. iPS was created using hESC stem cell techniques, obviously impossible if hESC research was 'banned.' This is why I would trade a 3-day waiting period on guns for a 3-day waiting period before the NY Times is allowed to publish science articles. :)

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3 votes

#2 - Sun Jan 4, 2009 9:58 PM EST

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JCATOM

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Democrats Debate Methods to End Stem Cell Ban - NYTimes.com

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