By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
Citizens wishing to express their opinion about the new guidelines for embryonic stem cell research published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are being asked to make those comments on or before May 26, 2009.
The new guidelines are in response to President Barack Obama’s decision to rescind an executive order put in place by President George Bush that restricted government funding of embryonic stem cell research to 22 existing stem cell lines. This law prevented researchers from receiving funding for experimentation that involved the wholesale killing of human embryos for their stem cells.
However, on March 9, 2009, when President Obama rescinded the order, it opened the door to taxpayer funding for research on a much broader scale. The (NIH) was charged with drafting guidelines for distributing funds for this research, which were posted last week.
“What these guidelines do is send your tax dollars to experiment on stem cells taken from human embryos that supposedly are ‘leftover’ from in vitro fertilization,” says Family Research Council president Tony Perkins. “Instead of promoting the adoption of these human embryos, these draft guidelines would require their death.”
The public comment period on the draft regulations is 30 days. Comments must be received on or before May 26, 2009.
The comments submission form can be found at: http://nihoerextra.nih.gov/stem_cells/add.htm.
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