Stem-cell policy detanglers
A patchwork of stem-cell funders are stepping up to fill the void left by the US NIH, which cannot fund research on new embryonic stem cell lines.
Efforts to cope with this fragmented group are analyzed in a feature by Nature Reports Stem Cells and an analysis by Stanford lawyer Susan Stayn on Chris Scott’s Stem Cell Blog .
Federal policy has forced NIH to recuse itself from the centralizing, organizing force it could be in embryonic stem cell research. Instead, government scientists have been ordered to set criteria for a scientific property for which the definitive tests are neither ethical nor feasible. (See Scientific Definition by Political Request )
While I believe that American stem-cell research is suffering from lack of federal leadership, there is a silver lining. Private citizens and citizens’ groups are getting more active in demanding to know how their funds are being spent. After a long chronicling of efforts for more public disclosure, the head of an interstate alliance for stem-cell research has told the California Stem Cell Report that the group’s meetings will now be open to the public. (Scroll to the Oct 31 entry “No Interstate Stem Cell Cookbook”)
Within the silver lining, there’s a wrinkle. Citizen activism (or even democracy) requires well-educated individuals.
Before leaving teaching for a higher paycheck and an easier life, I taught high-school science in a low-income community of color. An earnest young man once told me something had been puzzling him. Was there a distinction between an atom, a molecule, and a cell, or were they just different words for something very, very small? Citizen activists, I fear, have more than one void to fill.