OK, so I’ve been back for a week and really busy. I mean REALLY busy, hammering away at some big assignments and trying to get caught up and forget that just 8 days ago, I was here:
Calgon, take me away...
I really don’t have time to blog, but then I stumbled on something of dazzling stupidity – a singularity of offensive pseudo-scientific blather on CNN.com, and I just have to stop what I’m doing. I almost don’t want to link to it, but it’s by Matt Bowman, an attorney with the evangelical legal organization Alliance Defense Fund (co-launched by the estimable Dr. James Dobson!), and co-counsel for the plaintiffs in the ongoing debacle regarding Dickey-Wicker prohibition of embryonic stem cell research, entitled: “Embryonic stem cells: Outmoded science”
Well, say! Surely we can look forward to some top-notch scientific analysis with a not-at-all hyperbolic (or ludicrous) title like that! But please, Mr. Bowman – proceed.
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So it looks like some Democrats are recognizing that they better get their butts in gear after the Sherley v. Sebelius fiasco. According to Talking Points Memo, Congresswoman Diana Degette (D-CO) – whose pro-stem cell advocacy bona fides seem well-established and who co-authored the twice-vetoed (in ’05 and ’07) Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act – is trying to rally her colleagues in the House to pass a bill that would reinforce the standards first established by Obama’s now-overridden executive order. She claims that “she believes legislation could be passed as early as next month,” which sounds just lovely but completely unrealistic given the breed of conservatives that have emerged in this election season. In parallel, TPM also reports that Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) aims to kick off hearings on 16 September.
In the meantime, the administration has made it clear they will appeal, and it seems likely they will ask for a stay of Judge Lamberth’s injunction. ScienceInsider has a nice brief overview of where things stand until then (and for the foreseeable future, should the stay be denied). Time to cross fingers…
The New York Times has reported on a nasty setback for embryonic stem cell research – apparently, DC District Court judge Royce Lamberth has ruled that Obama’s 2009 executive order, which reversed Bush-era constraints and allowed researchers to gain access to federal funding for human ESC work, is in violation of the Dickey-Wicker amendment.
And just what is that? Well, it’s a nasty little leech that’s been clinging tenaciously as a rider to the federal budget year after year since 1995 (roughly three years before James Thomson published his seminal human ESC cultivation article in Science), and stipulates that “None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for… research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater than that allowed for research on fetuses in utero.” That’s right, for 15 years now that sucker’s been hanging on, draining a steady stream of blood out of what should be a vital area of American life science research. And each and every time the budget gets passed, the amendment is renewed essentially without debate.
So who filed the challenge against Obama’s policy?
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