Stem Cell Research

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued an opinion late last week in Sherley v. Sebelius allowing the Obama administration to continue funding destructive embryo research. 

At issue was President Obama’s March 9, 2009 executive order directing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to issue new stem cell guidelines to include the funding of research on stem cell lines derived from human embryos. 

The plaintiffs in the case—researchers who perform ethical adult stem cell research—argued that the funding violates the Dickey-Wicker Amendment (renewed annually since 1996).  Specifically, the Dickey-Wicker Amendment expressly prohibits NIH from funding research in which human embryos “are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.”  The researchers argued that because performing research on stem cell lines from human embryos means that human embryos must first be destroyed to obtain the stem cell lines, funding research on stem cell lines violates the Dickey-Wicker Amendment.

Unfortunately, the Court rejected this logical argument.  On its face the Court’s decision is technical in nature; the Court simply states that it had already concluded in a previous appeal that funding research on stem cell lines from destroyed human embryos does not violate the Dickey-Wicker Amendment.

But the reasoning used in that previous appeal was flawed.  The Court made the atrocious distinction that research on stem cell lines does not actually kill or harm embryos because the stem cell lines are no longer embryos.  Of course, that is because the embryos have already been destroyed in order to obtain the stem cell lines.  The Court stated, “Dickey-Wicker permits federal funding of research projects that utilize already-derived [embryonic stem cells]—which are not themselves embryos—because no ‘human embryos or embryos are destroyed’ in such projects” (emphasis in original).

In other words, the government will fund any research using human embryos, as long as the researchers kill or harm the embryos before getting the money.  This is a clear distortion of the intent and spirit of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment.

The plaintiff researchers also argued that NIH violated the federal Administrative Procedure Act (APA).  Section 553 of the APA requires government agencies to provide the public with notice of a proposed rulemaking, an opportunity to comment, and a concise general statement of the rule’s basis and purposes after considering the relevant comments.

When NIH opened comment on its proposed funding guidelines, the plaintiff researchers and many other individuals and organizations—including AUL—filed comments demonstrating that funding research on embryonic stem cell lines violates Dickey-Wicker and is unnecessary in light of the significant breakthroughs in adult stem cell research. 

The plaintiff researchers filed comments advocating that the government not fund research on embryonic stem cell lines.  But the Court declared that the plaintiffs’ comments “did not address any factor relevant to implementing” Obama’s executive order, and thus NIH did not have to respond to them and the APA was not violated.

As such, explaining that there are better, more ethical, and more successful avenues of research was deemed irrelevant information.  The government does not have to consider such “irrelevant” things as whether there are more promising forms of research when deciding which research to fund.  This makes no sense from either an economic or medical perspective—and it is not at all comforting that such information does not factor into budgetary decision-making.

This means that funds are diverted away from adult stem cell research—which has yielded successful treatments and cures of over 70 diseases and conditions—and toward embryonic stem cell research, which has never helped a single human patient.  In fact, in 2011, Geron—the company that received the first government approval for human clinical trials using human embryo stem cells—announced it is discontinuing “further stem cell work.”

Of course, this seems to be a theme with the current administration.  Disregard the sanctity of human life.  Ignore the pro-life community.  And just throw American’s money away.

USA Today is reporting today that Geron—the company that received the first government approval for human clinical trials using human embryo stem cells—is discontinuing “further stem cell work.”

This decision hardly comes as a surprise.  There simply is no money in research that yields no results.

Geron says that the decision came “after a strategic review of the costs… timelines and clinical, manufacturing and regulatory complexities associated with the company’s research and clinical-stage assets.”  Reportedly, Geron has been trying to find financial partners, “and people have said, ‘Show us later-stage results.’”

Clearly, investors don’t want to put money into research that will not pay off.  There are no “later-stage results” showing any real-life positive uses of embryonic stem cells.

USA Today editorializes that Geron’s decision is “a move with stark implications for a field offering hope of future medications for conditions with inadequate or no current treatments.”

We can hope it is the bell toll for unethical and unproductive embryo stem cell research.  But it will not have a devastating impact on the field of “stem cell research” as a whole.

As AUL has stated repeatedly, stem cells from human embryos have never successfully treated human patients.  On the other hand, treatments from adult stem cells (which do not result in the destruction of human life) have yielded treatments or cures for over 70 conditions. 

Apparently, Geron’s investors (or potential investors) understand this basic fact.  Investing in a failed research strategy does not pay—either financially or medically.  Unfortunately, the Obama Administration lacks this basic understanding, as it continues to push for government funding of embryo research to the detriment of research rendering true medical advances.

AUL’s news release on this decision can be found here.

Today, a U.S. District Court halted the Obama Administration’s illegal and unethical policy of funding research that necessarily entails the destruction of human embryos.  Judge Royce Lamberth issued a preliminary injunction against the Administration’s policy in the case Sherley v. Sebelius.

On March 9 2009, President Obama, by executive order, directed the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to issue new stem cell guidelines to include the funding of human embryonic stem cell research.

Since 1996, the Dickey-Wicker Amendment has expressly banned NIH from funding research in which human embryos “are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.”[1] The amendment has been renewed every year by Congress.

Attorneys defending the Obama Administration’s policy argued that since the federal government is only funding research on stem cells after being extracted from the embryos, and not the actual destruction of the embryos, the NIH guidelines are not violating the law.

However, that interpretation would require a strained reading of the Dickey-Wicker amendment.  The Obama Administration policy of funding human embryonic stem cell research incentivizes the destruction of human embryos.  Further, it is common sense that destroying embryos and using them in research are part of a common project.

Judge Lamberth held the policy violated the clear language of the law.  “The Dickey-Wicker Amendment unambiguously prohibits the use of federal funds for all research in which a human embryo is destroyed.  It is not limited to prohibit federal funding of only the ‘piece of research’ in which an embryo is destroyed. … Despite defendants’ attempt to separate the derivation of [embryonic stem cells] from research on [embryonic stem cells], the two cannot be separated.  Derivation of [embryonic stem cells] from an embryo is an integral step in conducting [embryonic stem cell] research.”

Since the Obama Administration policy violates the law, Judge Lamberth issued a preliminary injunction to stop funding of human embryonic stem cell research.

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[1]Public Law 104-99, sec. 128, U.S. Statutes at Large 110 (January 26, 1996): 34, http://history.nih.gov/research/downloads/PL104.99.pdf.