Stem Cell Rsch-This August in CongressFollow

The first embryonic stem cells were isolated in 1998. The National Institute of Health took until mid 2000 to develop federal guidelines for funding (which Clinton approved). The guidelines stipulated that federal funding could only be used on "cells obtained from frozen embryos that would be discarded anyway, such as remaining embryos from in-vitro fertilisation" and that the actual harvesting of the cells had to be privately funded. However, once harvested, federal funds could be used for study.

In Feb 2001, almost immediately after entering office, Bush requested a review of the NIH guidelines and put the freeze on federal funding. In August of 2001, he allowed federal funding of only some existing lines.

In other words, the "Bush was the first to fund this!" claim is disingenious. Bush was first to fund it because it wasn't a science to be funded until the late 1990's and the board in charge of determining how to fund it wasn't done until Bush was practically in office. At which time he weakened the NIH guidelines that Clinton has approved. How impressive.

Incidentally, the "any kind of stem cell research" line is wrong as well. According to the US State Department (PDF warning):...with a footnote to the effect that...

Edited, Jul 20th 2006 at 12:33am EDT by Jophiel

Maybe bush is just worried that someone wants to study his stem cells?

Clinton would never have vetoed a bill funding internet ****!

Yeah, I did read that.

Did you miss the part in 2000 when Clinton approved the guidelines? What Clinton did in 1994 is neither here nor there to the question of who was the first president to approve funding for embryonic stem cell research. Hint: It wasn't Bush.

For what it's worth, Clinton actually supported the research but backed down to Congress at the time. Shame on Clinton, don't get me wrong, but I don't think the problem was all him and it was the Republican controlled Congress that passed through the bans in the 90's. Bush's veto, however, was the decision of one man.(bolding mine)Link with cite

In any event, Clinton isn't the issue here and if he had done what Bush did, you'd hear me just as upset about it. Again, the point is that Bush isn't some white knight in this saga, bravely funding what no one ever wanted to fund before. Yes, Bush has allowed some funding but in a much more limited fashion than Clinton has attempted to gain both in 1995 and in 2000.

Hrm? If he was morally offended by the idea, why would he support it even as a lame duck? I mean, it'd make sense if he supported an unpopular ban as a lame duck when the public wanted funding and thought "***** them, it's not like I'm up for election" but your statement just doesn't work to dismiss it.Until 2000. Prior to the election. Which was my point.*Shrug* Beats me. I already said shame on him for it. But Clinton isn't the president now and Bush is. While it's interesting history, the fact remains that it's still history and Clinton hasn't been in office for years. I do know that the ban was attached as a rider to other legislation -- perhaps the other legislation was important enough not to veto? It was apparently attached to the 1996 Appropriations Bill. Really, I'm not even concerned enough to look up the vote records because it's completely irrelevent to today's debate except to try to say "But Clinton didn't do this either!!" Hell, the only reason I even brought him up was to correct you on your "Bush was the first" line.

None of it has anything to do with Bush's decision and veto.

Edited, Jul 22nd 2006 at 12:26pm EDT by Jophiel

The moral majority, working for shadowrelm...

Using Flea's link, you'll find that the great bulk of research grants and aid given by the government to medical research are to universities and colleges, not to pharmacutical and biotech companies. That's not to say that the latter won't profit off the knowledge but it's not a question of "they won't do it themselves".

Either I'm reading this incorrectly(which might very well be the case), or there is no point in that sentence. I'm just saying I don't see the gist of it all.

Government >> $ for medical research >> Universities and Colleges
/
X
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Pharmaceutical and biotech companies

When the pharmaceutical companies can support the means to the end themselves, it seems kind of a worthless thing to say "It's not that they WON'T do it themselves..."

In any other case I'd say "You know, cash might be a problem if they wanted to support this." But it happens we're not talking about a small business here. Nor are we talking about a medium sized business. We're talking about a global business, whose sole responsibility is to (seemingly) protect, ensure, and care about its millions, upon millions of costumers. This is a corporation, not a Mom & Pops Monkey Research Facility.

But I'm not saying there's this limitless fund that pharmacies can just pump out wily-nily. There's a limit to what they can (if not will) do. I realize that they can't just say "You know, we need to stop everything we're doing and start funding something that will earn us absolutely nothing until, oh I don’t know, maybe 10-15 years into the future!" That's far too unrealistic. But what they COULD contribute WOULD get them started in the right direction.

Honestly, this seems more like a game of darts. People are picking the easiest, biggest target, who just so happens to be Bush at the moment, and hurling the biggest spears they can find at the subject.

Big businesses and politics like to point out everything other people do wrong to hide that they aren't contributing anything worth while themselves. We should start holding EVERYBODY accountable for the situation. Not just who we WANT to be accountable for it. Sure Bush may be an easy target with his religious bible educed sense of morality, but where will saying "Bush is a bad president for not wanting to support (which isn't the case) stem cell research!" other than pointing out an opinion?

I say, push the companies to do something. Once they start producing experiments with promising results, the government will gradually give way under the sheer weight of stem cell researches usefulness. Until then, we're just blindly saying "IT'S GONNA WORK! JUST YOU WAIT AND SEE!!!"

*added =Jophiel to quote

Edited, Jul 24th 2006 at 1:29pm EDT by Sorcath

So it's ok for the government to spend our money on the same theory instead of the companies that are supposed to be helping develope them?

Ah, big differnce.

Also, when universities and the like make a major discovery or breakthrough, they patent it and license it out as the appropriate board sees fit and spins the proceeds back into additional research (as well as bonuses for the researchers, etc).

Telling MegaMedTech Inc to go research it themselves guarantess that, if and when a cure is found, MegaMedTech will be the sole controller of the rights to it.

Well, this is exactly why we're falling behind in scientific research, not just in stem cells but in many areas. It results in a massive brain drain as well, as scientists and mathematicians emigrate to other countries where they can get funding.

I'm not sure you understand how funding allocations to research/teaching universities works. Or maybe you do, and just find the piddling amounts we do spend to be outrageous, I have no way to know.

So, when we get done taxing the people more to reach the final product, how will they afford it?