Wtf? Obama Signs Law Banning Federal Embryo Research Two Days After Signing Executive Order to OK It

[Union Label]

Please Barack don't bend on this needed research.

(CNSNews.com) - On Wednesday, only two days after he lifted President Bush’s executive order banning federal funding of stem cell research that requires the destruction of human embryos, President Barack Obama signed a law that explicilty bans federal funding of any "research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death."

The provision was buried in the 465-page omnibus appropriations bill that Obama signed Wednesday. Known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment, it has been included in the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services every fiscal year since 1996.

The amendment says, in part: "None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for—(1) the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes; or (2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death."


http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=44943

[Howardx]

1. i'll bet

the executive order supersedes this clause in the omnibus

[michreject]

37. I bet it don't

Laws passed by Congress and signed by the President cannot be overturned by EO.

[Posteritatis]

2. Isn't "embryo" defined as a specific stage, and the stem cells are harvested before that?

This is probably an instance of an amendment that slipped through the cracks if the guy's been trying to stick in for twelve years, but just wondering if that's the reason.

Also, does this apply specifically to HHS funds?

[tblue]

5. Yeah, there's gotta be more to this.

If I find anything more on it, I'll post it.

[salin]

3. Isn't this the news source that is tied to Pat Robertson?

or some other similarly religious right affiliated source? I would need to read this from a more reliable and less slanted source before I put stock in it.

[rvablue]

6. Yes it is. n/t

[Union Label]

18. Oh shit

I didn't realize it was them, I'll have to try to find a real source.

[Ichingcarpenter]

21. And they are anti union label too! - why did you link to them don't tell me google

Its too obvious.

[snowbear]

26. Then why not DELETE your thread in the meantime ???????

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Your source is a flaming piece of shit rightwing tabloid.

[FLAprogressive]

4. here he goes again trying to suck up to the conservatives

[snowbear]

7. CNS News ????? ARE YOU CRAZY ???????

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I haven't pulled up the article.. but OMFG, you read that piece of shit website ???????

Seriously???????

[marmar]

8. Delete, I just realized this story is from CNS News

a total whackjob "news" service.

[madrchsod]

9. you have to read this real close to understand what it means

i do not know what the research protocols are but i doubt that he unsigned what he just signed

[Tangerine LaBamba]

17. He didn't..........

I posted elsewhere in this thread about what really happened.

People get all outraged, just showing their ignorance...............

[Tangerine LaBamba]

10. No No No!!!!

The original stem cell research bill that President Obama signed the other day did nothing except lift the Federal ban on stem-cell research. The bill specifically left the issue of funding to be decided by Congress.

Private funding was forbidden under Chimpy Fucknuts. It's no longer forbidden, thanks to President Obama.

But, if the researchers want Federal funds, they'll have to lobby Congress.

So, that article is accurate, but you do have to know exactly what President Obama signed.

Read the articles, folks, not just the headlines.......................

[marmar]

14. Thanks for the clarification.....As is often the case, ill-informed outrage.....

n/t

[Tangerine LaBamba]

16. I get so bored with it.........

The first reaction is to go all nuclear about what is perceived to be an absolute BETRAYAL by Obama.

What it is, in fact, is an appalling display of simple ignorance.

As I said, people should actually read the articles, not just the headlines...........

[Cant trust em]

28. Funny how some people would rather be outraged

than to give OUR president the benefit of the doubt.

Hmmm, this doesn't seem like something Obama would do. Why don't I look further?

[Tangerine LaBamba]

31. Indeed........

A very good point.

We won. So why is outrage so often the standard reaction to anything that doesn't seem to conform to their ill-informed expectations?

[snowbear]

20. Thank You Tangerine LaBamba - this foolish thread should be LOCKED !!!

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For its sheer stupidity, and for quoting CNS of all freakin' places !!!!!!!!!!

[Tangerine LaBamba]

22. Can you believe the ignorance?

I'm appalled that people don't know what Obama signed the other day. Stem cell research was a huge issue for me, and for lots of Democrats, but when the bill was finally signed, it's obvious from these responses that people never even read about what the bill contained.

Appalling.

[snowbear]

24. It's sad that some DU'ers read thread titles, and don't actually look at where the story came from..

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Really sad.

WTF happened to the OP anyway?

Post and run?

[Tangerine LaBamba]

33. I think

Union Label's last post read "Oh, shit".

Enlightened?

[Union Label]

41. The op is right here

so if you could please pull your head out of your butt, if you would notice I said I would look for an acceptable reference.

[moundsview]

36. Private funding wasn't forbidden,

only Federal funds. Some States, notably California, were doing some funding on their own. However because of funding problems in those states much of that money is drying up.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

40. That's right

That's what I tried to explain. Read the bill Obama signed the other day - it left the issue of Federal funding to be decided by Congress.

[Ichingcarpenter]

11. I get my news from the Conservative news network too!

Michelle Maglalang Malkin is my favorite Columnist over there, plus
they have Pat Buchanan too!


You sure know how to pick your news service for DU stories
what next? World Nut Daily?????.............LOL!!!

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cybercast_News_Service

[lunatica]

12. I'm pretty sure this means the living embryos must be protected

It also says that no embryos should be created for the specific purpose of using them for stem cell research.

In other words the mad scientists who want to create human clones to create armies or zombies can't.

If you don't specify what the ethical rules are then it's as if there aren't any and everything goes.

[and-justice-for-all]

13. CNS (vomit)

:puke:CNS news is trite garbage, I made the mistake of posting something from them sometime back.

[Cerridwen]

15. "thus relegating all human embryo research to the private sector."

From PBS, Nova, April, 2005

The Dickey-Wicker Amendment

President Clinton rejected part of these recommendations and directed the NIH not to allocate funds to experiments that would create new embryos specifically for research. But for the Gingrich-era Congress that took up the matter in 1995, funding any work with human embryos was going too far, and the recommendations created an uproar. Within a year, Congress had banned the use of federal funds for any experiment in which a human embryo is either created or destroyed. Known as the Dickey-Wicker Amendment for its authors, Representative Jay Dickey, Republican of Arkansas, and Representative Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi, the ban passed as a rider attached to the appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services. Congress has actively renewed that ban each year since, thus relegating all human embryo research to the private sector.

Such was the state of affairs when, in 1998, using—by necessity—private funds, James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin successfully created the first human embryonic stem cell lines. Clinton's NIH knew the historic nature of that achievement. "This research has the potential to revolutionize the practice of medicine," Harold Varmus, director of the NIH, testified at a Senate hearing that year. New treatments for conditions like Parkinson's, heart disease, diabetes, and spinal cord injury now appeared possible. But the research needed years of federal support in order to flourish—and the Dickey-Wicker Amendment stood squarely in the way.

Or did it? In January of 1999, Harriet Rabb, the top lawyer at the Department of Health and Human Services, released a legal opinion that would set the course for Clinton Administration policy. Federal funds, obviously, could not be used to derive stem cell lines (because derivation involves embryo destruction). However, she concluded that because human embryonic stem cells "are not a human embryo within the statutory definition," the Dickey-Wicker Amendment does not apply to them. The NIH was therefore free to give federal funding to experiments involving the cells themselves (what Republican Senator Sam Brownback, of Kansas, called a bit of "legal sophistry.")

The NIH, with input from the National Bioethics Advisory Commission and others, went on to develop guidelines outlining the types of human embryonic stem cell research that would be eligible for federal funding. These Clinton Administration guidelines, published in August of 2000, forbid the use of federal funds to destroy human embryos to derive stem cells (because of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment), but permitted research with stem cells that other, privately funded scientists had already derived from spare embryos slated for destruction at fertility clinics. Link to article

Of course, then there's the minor obstacle of patent licensing...

[stray cat]

19. It sounds like he doesn't want human embryos created for the purpose of research

As a scientist I agree. It also continues to forbid human cloning. He is simply settting limits on creation of embryos. There are plenty of discarded embryos from fertility clinics to perform research

[Tangerine LaBamba]

23. As a scientist,

you probably should read the bill President Obama signed the other day, allowing stem cell research to proceed.

Clearly, you didn't.

[Joe Fields]

25. This seems very disingenuous. Is he, in effect saying....

that the federal govt. will only fund existing embryos? What, maybe three or four that are left to research from?

[appleannie1]

27. Another twisting of facts. He won't include it in the stim bill is what it means.

Funding for stem cell research will come from some other bill.

[snowbear]

29. The OP still has 18 minutes to delete this complete TWISTING of FACTS..

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I hope they will.

[redqueen]

32. Yeah... I'll just be over here holding my breath. (nt)

[moundsview]

30. Obama Is Leaving Some Stem Cell Issues to Congress

WASHINGTON — While lifting the Bush administration’s restrictions on federally financed human embryonic stem cell research, President Obama intends to avoid the thorniest question in the debate: whether taxpayer dollars should be used to experiment on embryos themselves, two senior administration officials said Sunday.

The officials, who provided details of the announcement Mr. Obama will make Monday at the White House, said the president would leave it to Congress to determine whether the long-standing legislative ban on federal financing for human embryo experiments should also be overturned.

Yet, people on both sides of the stem cell debate say Mr. Obama’s announcement could lead to a reconsideration of the ban on Capitol Hill, an idea so controversial and fraught with ethical implications that the mere discussion of it would have been unthinkable just a few months ago, when President George W. Bush was in office.

The ban, known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment, first became law in 1996, and has been renewed by Congress every year since. It specifically bans the use of tax dollars to create human embryos — a practice that is routine in private fertility clinics — or for research in which embryos are destroyed, discarded or knowingly subjected to risk of injury.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/us/politics/09stem.html?ref=us

I don't know if the NY Times is any better for a source, but this article seems to confirm the CNs story.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

34. Welcome to DU

Wow - someone who actually READS!!!

:toast:

[snowbear]

35. It reads nothing like the OP's rightwing tabloid site... I can't believe anyone here would quote CNS

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I honestly can't even remember the last person I've seen quote them here.

Probably because they're history?

[TheDebbieDee]

38. Consider the source...........

Is CNS credible/reputable?

[Tangerine LaBamba]

39. No

Old rightwing rag.

I think maybe the OP didn't know that, or else we all got suckered.