Does the Senate vote on stem-cell research matter?
By Richard Hayes,
San Francisco Chronicle
| 07. 19. 2006
YES: It's a step toward needed oversight and regulation
After years of rancorous debate, Tuesday's vote by the U.S. Senate on a package of stem-cell research bills suggests that responsible bipartisan action actually may be possible.
Nineteen Republican senators broke with the anti-abortion base of their party and with President Bush, by voting to lift the restrictions imposed five years ago by the president on federal funding for stem-cell research.
On the other side of the aisle, pro-choice Democrats voted to support a companion bill banning the intentional creation and abortion of fetuses in order to use their tissues for experimental purposes. Although no one, as far as anyone knows, has proposed doing this at this time, the vote affirms that liberals and conservatives can agree that some forms of biomedical research are ethically unacceptable and should be prohibited.
Also encouraging was what was left out of the package, notably, any move to authorize federal funding for research cloning, a procedure fraught with risks. At one time, cloning was thought to be necessary for stem-cell therapy to work, but many scientists increasingly believe that this is not the case...
Related Articles
By Eric Schmidt, TIME | 04.16.2024
Imagine a world where everything from plastics to concrete is produced from biomass. Personalized cell and gene therapies prevent pandemics and treat previously incurable genetic diseases. Meat is lab-grown; enhanced nutrient grains are climate-resistant. This is what the future could...
By Harold Brubaker, The Philadelphia Inquirer | 04.04.2024
Acompany started by University of Pennsylvania scientist Jim Wilson has received FDA approval to test a form of gene editing in infants for the first time in the United States, the company said Thursday.
The Plymouth Meeting company, iECURE, is...
By Carey Gillan, UnSpun | 03.18.2024
A Mexican standoff with the United States turned into a Mexican smack-down this month with the release of Mexico’s formal rebuttal to US efforts to overturn limits Mexico has ordered on the use of genetically modified (GM) corn and the...
By Billy Perrigo, TIME | 03.11.2024
The U.S. government must move “quickly and decisively” to avert substantial national security risks stemming from artificial intelligence (AI) which could, in the worst case, cause an “extinction-level threat to the human species,” says a report commissioned by the U.S...