Digital News Report – Biomedical and stem cell research can be difficult to start and stop, and for this reason a district court judge said that government funding of embryonic stem cell (ESC) research can continue for now.
An appeals court temporarily lifted a ban on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding. Two weeks ago U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth issued a ruling halting the research.
After Lamberth issued the injection, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) appealed the ruling. Now a three-member U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a ruling the lifts the ban.
Lamberth had said the government funding violates the Dickey-Wicker amendment. This was a rider attached to a bill that passed Congress and was signed by Bill Clinton in 1995. It prohibited the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from funding the creation of human embryos for research where the embryos are destroyed.
The ban will hold until Monday, September 20, 2010 when both sides of the debate will provide their argument briefs.
By: Mark Williams