--- title: The Stem-Cell Ruling: Scientists Alarmed at 'Step Backward' description: A year and a half after President Obama loosened restrictions on government funding of human-embryonic-stem-cell research, a federal judge on Monday, Aug. 23, declared all... canonical: https://time.com/archive/6934612/the-stem-cell-ruling-scientists-alarmed-at-step-backward/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2010-08-24T04:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-23T04:39:39.436Z article:section: Health og:title: The Stem-Cell Ruling: Scientists Alarmed at 'Step Backward' og:description: A year and a half after President Obama loosened restrictions on government funding of human-embryonic-stem-cell research, a federal judge on Monday, Aug. 23, declared all... og:url: https://time.com/archive/6934612/the-stem-cell-ruling-scientists-alarmed-at-step-backward/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltceee4a0e07302641/698a4e2edb2987add326ad4d/360_stem_cell_0823.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 360 og:image:height: 203 og:image:alt: 360_stem_cell_0823.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Stem-Cell Ruling: Scientists Alarmed at 'Step Backward' twitter:description: A year and a half after President Obama loosened restrictions on government funding of human-embryonic-stem-cell research, a federal judge on Monday, Aug. 23, declared all... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltceee4a0e07302641/698a4e2edb2987add326ad4d/360_stem_cell_0823.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Health](/section/health/) # The Stem-Cell Ruling: Scientists Alarmed at 'Step Backward' > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=554c9000-cd73-4ce1-a5ce-c6d5284ac89e&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/) Aug 24, 2010 4:00 AM UTC  Kejin Hu, a research associate, removes a colony of stem cells from an incubator to look at them under a microscope at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison on March 10, 2009 Kejin Hu, a research associate, removes a colony of stem cells from an incubator to look at them under a microscope at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison on March 10, 2009 Darren Hauck / Getty Images by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/) Aug 24, 2010 4:00 AM UTC A year and a half after President Obama loosened restrictions on government funding of human-embryonic-stem-cell research, a federal judge on Monday, Aug. 23, declared all such studies temporarily off-limits for taxpayer dollars, on the grounds that they violate a 1996 law. The decision could be a devastating step backward for a promising new science that has the potential to generate new treatments and possibly even cures for diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson’s — and the reaction from scientists was swift and blistering. “The court decision threatens to impede progress in regenerative medicine in our country,” says Dr. Elaine Fuchs, a professor at Rockefeller University and president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research. “It must be challenged as quickly as possible.” [(See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2009.)](http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1945379%5F1944416,00.html) A statement by Dr. Alan Trounson, president of the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, which directs $3 billion in state taxpayer funds in the field, was more succinct: “The decision is a deplorable brake on all stem-cell research.” Even in labs in which the decision does not represent an absolute brake, it’s surely a sharp turn. After reading the judge’s opinion, Dr. George Daley, director of the stem-cell-transplantation program at Children’s Hospital in Boston, instructed his team to assume that no federal money is permitted for studying human embryonic stem cells and to use only privately funded equipment for its work. “I read the injunction, and it seems pretty clear to me that we can’t use any federal money for any of our human-embryonic-stem-cell work,” he says. Ruling on a lawsuit filed against the National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth declared that research on human embryonic stem cells violates the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, a 1996 law that prohibits federal dollars from being used to support any studies “in which human embryos are created, destroyed, discarded or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.” In order to obtain stem cells, the four-to-five-day-old embryos from which they emerge are sacrificed. [(See more about stem cells.)](http://www.time.com/time/searchresults?Ntt=stem+cell) The NIH currently lists 75 human-embryonic-stem-cell lines that are eligible for study with federal funds. These lines originated from excess IVF embryos that were donated for research with consent from the couples who created them. Experts believe that these cells, which can develop into any of the body’s more than 200 different cell types, could become an important source of healthy new cells to replace diseased ones, as well as a window into the processes by which diseases occur. The registry, along with Obama’s decision in March 2009 to allow taxpayer dollars to be used to study any existing embryonic-stem-cell lines that meet NIH ethical guidelines, is allowed even in the face of Dickey-Wicker because of a 1999 ruling by Harriet Rabb, then counsel for the Department of Health and Human Services. Rabb determined that human embryonic stem cells, which are derived from embryos, are not the same as embryos and therefore are exempt from the funding prohibitions of Dickey-Wicker. As long as labs used private funds to derive the stem cells from the embryos, they could then use federal funds to work with the stem cells. Separating the creation of embryonic stem cells from their study was a solution that scientists saw as a logical and reasonable interpretation of the law — but that religious conservatives and pro-life groups viewed as merely semantics, untenable on legal grounds. That was the impetus behind the suit, filed by, among others, scientists who support the study of adult stem cells, which do not require destruction of embryos. Also backing the suit were the Christian Medical Association and Nightlife Adoptions, a group that helps couples adopt embryos donated by those undergoing in vitro fertilization. The pro-life groups cited concerns over how embryonic stem cells are obtained. If embryonic stem cells are the product of the death of an embryo, they maintain, then federal funds cannot and should not be used to study them, even if the actual act of obtaining them did not involve taxpayer dollars. The scientists working with adult stem cells took a somewhat surprising position — one that was more economic than ethical. Continued government support of embryonic-stem-cell studies, they argued, would put them at a disadvantage in the competition for scarce grant dollars, especially because adult stem cells are less versatile than the embryonic variety, able to yield only a limited number of new cell types. The suit was dismissed last year, but a Court of Appeals decision revived the case, reversing the ruling. Lamberth agreed with the plaintiff’s case, noting that “the question before the court is whether \[embryonic-stem-cell\] research is research in which an human embryo is destroyed. The court concludes that it is.” [See the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2009.](http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1945379%5F1944376,00.html) [See TIME’s stem-cell covers.](http://search.time.com/results.html?N=46&Ntt=stem+cell&iid=covers) Rabb’s decision a decade earlier anticipated just such a questioning of the government’s role in supporting embryonic-stem-cell studies. Her ruling was apparently sound enough for former President George W. Bush to decide that he could not justify banning all government funding of work in the field based on Dickey-Wicker. In 2001, he decided instead to restrict government support of embryonic-stem-cell studies to the two dozen or so lines already in existence, while prohibiting the NIH from issuing research grants to create new embryonic-stem-cell lines that would require the destruction of more embryos. Lamberth’s injunction, which temporarily blocks the Obama Administration’s newly instituted guidelines for issuing grants to support stem-cell studies, could, if it holds, put an even tighter stranglehold on stem-cell research than Bush’s restrictive policy. Under Lamberth’s decision, no embryonic stem cells would be eligible for studies using federal funds, period. That includes stem-cell lines generated using private money. “There is no question this is a step backward,” says Dr. Arnold Kriegstein, director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at the University of California, San Francisco. “It turns back the clock even more than the presidential directive in 2001\. At that point, at least the 20 or so lines created prior to that date were viable for study.” Even more troubling, says Kriegstein, is the possibility that more scientists like Daley will have to return to the balkanized existence they endured under the Bush policy. Because nearly every scientist and academic institution receives some form of federal research support, those studying human-embryonic-stem-cell lines were forced into a painstaking — and sometimes absurd — practice of keeping their federally funded research activities carefully separated from their nonfederally financed ones. That included precise segregation of all equipment, personnel and time to ensure that no government money was used to pay for so much as a lightbulb in a room where unapproved embryonic stem cells were analyzed. “In my lab now, we have activities that are both federally and nonfederally funded,” says Kriegstein. “We may have to start changing the way we do research as of tomorrow if this change is to take effect immediately.” Kriegstein and Daley and the rest of the stem-cell-research community are awaiting guidance from the Department of Justice, which is reviewing the decision and will provide some interpretation of what the ruling means for ongoing experiments. Government grantees in the meantime are caught in a legal limbo that could prove scientifically devastating. “Many of us are midstream in what we consider important research, which now has an uncertain future,” says Kriegstein. “What will become of those projects now? There is a lot of time, resources and effort invested in them. Should they have to stop? There is a great deal of concern about that for all of us, because it would be extremely wasteful.” Even if the government were to shut down its support of embryonic stem cells, it would likely continue to back work on both adult stem cells and the newly discovered induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC), which resemble embryonic stem cells in their flexibility but are not generated from embryos; they can be grown from skin cells. The problem, says Daley, is that it’s not entirely clear yet how useful iPSC will be for understanding or treating disease. Early work suggests that there are differences between embryonic stem cells and iPSC, and scientists need to continue to grow the embryonic version in order to compare the two groups and better understand what these differences mean. While the research community is hopeful that the decision will be overturned, it is cautious about making any predictions. Daley sees the ruling as a reason to continue to pursue legislation supporting government involvement in embryonic-stem-cell research. Such bills passed both the House and Senate twice in the past decade but were vetoed by President Bush. As the scientists wait and wonder, they are familiar enough with the political and ethical controversies surrounding their work to know that it’s only the latest challenge in what will likely be an ongoing battle — in Washington, in the courts and in the labs. [See TIME’s Pictures of the Week.](http://www.time.com/time/picturesoftheweek) [See the Cartoons of the Week.](http://www.time.com/time/cartoonsoftheweek) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6934612/the-stem-cell-ruling-scientists-alarmed-at-step-backward/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6934612/the-stem-cell-ruling-scientists-alarmed-at-step-backward/"},"headline":"The Stem-Cell Ruling: Scientists Alarmed at 'Step Backward'","datePublished":"2010-08-24T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-23T04:39:39.436Z","description":"A year and a half after President Obama loosened restrictions on government funding of human-embryonic-stem-cell research, a federal judge on Monday, Aug. 23, declared all...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6934612/the-stem-cell-ruling-scientists-alarmed-at-step-backward/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltceee4a0e07302641/698a4e2edb2987add326ad4d/360_stem_cell_0823.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park","url":"https://time.com/author/alice-park/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltceee4a0e07302641/698a4e2edb2987add326ad4d/360_stem_cell_0823.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"360_stem_cell_0823.jpg","caption":"Kejin Hu, a research associate, removes a colony of stem cells from an incubator to look at them under a microscope at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison on March 10, 2009","creditText":"Darren Hauck / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6934612/the-stem-cell-ruling-scientists-alarmed-at-step-backward/","name":"The Stem-Cell Ruling: Scientists Alarmed at 'Step Backward'"}}]}] ```