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NIH withholding $54 million in grants after judge's ruling halts US funding for embryonic stem cell research
Bloomberg.com
About 35 percent of the $200 million the U.S. government planned to award this year in grants for embryonic stem cell research won’t be distributed after a judge’s ruling banned the funding.
The National Institutes of Health will withhold $54 million in annual grants it expected to renew in September, plus $15 million to $20 million for new projects being considered in the next month, Francis Collins, the agency’s director, said yesterday.
The ruling temporarily halted U.S. funding for the research, based on a decision that a 1996 law couldn’t be overruled by a presidential order. The Justice Department said it will appeal.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth’s Aug. 23 decision in Washington has sparked researchers, biotechnology executives and lawmakers to call for permanent legislation that would allow the spending to resume. In 2009, President Barack Obama lifted restrictions on federal funding for the technology and allowed studies to be done on cells derived from embryos that would otherwise be disposed of after in-vitro fertilization.
“I thought our nation had settled this issue,” said Douglas Melton, co-director of Harvard University’s Stem Cell Institute. “The NIH had been waiting eight to 10 years to support this research, and it’s now going to have to backtrack and start all over again.”
