Obama has lifted the Bush administrations ban on federally funding embryonic stem cell research. What this means is that scientists are now allowed to research on left over embryos from fertility clinics, whereas before federal funding could only be used on existing stem cell lines and not on extracting stem cells from embryos.
However, the Dickey-Wicker amendment (1996) still holds which bans the use of tax dollars to create human embryos. As a result, scientists will still be unable to create their own stem cell lines. Personally I'm not really sure why this is such a barrier to scientific research though...aren't all embryonic stem cells pretty much the same? What kind of special embryos would a scientist be making in looking for the cure for diabetes or multiple sclerosis? The fact that scientists now get to experiment on human embryos (albeit left over ones from private fertility clinics) is already a pretty big step. Hopefully, the clinics won't try to make a big profit from the embryos.
Obama has not power to overturn Dickey-Wicker...but Congress can if it so wishes. Obama has taken no official stance on the amendment and is leaving the final decision to Congress it seems. He is directing the NIH to come up with stem cell research guidelines to be published sometime in the near future.
Obama is Leaving Some Stem Cell Issues to Congress
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