By Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post
From SFGate.com
Hundreds of embryonic stem cell lines, whose use in the United States had been curtailed by the Bush administration, can be used to study disorders and develop cures if researchers can show the cells were derived using ethical procedures, according to new rules issued by the federal government Monday.
President Obama had promised during last year’s campaign to ease restrictions on the use of stem cells in research, and has cited the promise of stem cells in finding cures for disorders that have so far proved intractable.
The use of embryonic stem cells was not prohibited under the Bush administration, but federal funds were limited to a very small number of stem cell lines, which choked off most research. The new guidelines, issued by the National Institutes of Health, permit federal funding for research using many of the approximately 700 embryonic stem cell lines that are believed to be in existence.
In a move that drew praise from advocates of stem cell research and bitter criticism from opponents, the NIH said it will allow the use of any existing stem cell line that followed broad ethical principles. Acting NIH Director Raynard Kington said an NIH committee including scientists, ethicists and advocates will evaluate older stem cell lines to assess how each was derived.
He said all embryonic stem cell lines that qualified for federal funding would have to meet a series of ethical requirements: The embryo that was destroyed to create a stem cell line must have been discarded by couples following an in vitro fertilization procedure, and the donors must have been informed that the embryo would be destroyed for stem cell research and made fully cognizant of their choices, including donating the embryo to another couple who want a baby. No donors could have been paid for an embryo, and no threats or inducements could have been used to nudge couples toward donating an embryo.
Kington said the NIH would set up a Web site that would list all the approved stem cell lines.
Almost all of the stem cell lines developed in California are expected to meet the NIH ethics guidelines, said Geoffrey Lomax, senior officer for medical and ethical standards with the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. The institute was created by a voter initiative in 2004 to support stem cell research.
Lomax said the registry should be a boon to researchers in California by making it easier to use stem cell lines from other states. Previously, scientists would have spent valuable time and money determining whether an out-of-state line met California ethical criteria before they could begin their research. With a national database, they can skip that first step, Lomax said.
“This (registry) will speed things up a bit,” Lomax said. “It creates a level of standardization that is extraordinarily helpful and it removes a lot of uncertainty.”
The use of stem cells in research has become the subject of bitter national controversy, with advocates suggesting it is immoral for the federal government not to fund research that could save thousands of lives, and with opponents arguing it is immoral to fund research that involves destroying embryos.
Chronicle staff writer Erin Allday contributed to this report.