State legislature considers “corrective” action to counter Romney’s move to limit stem cell research.
Adrianne Appel
The Massachusetts legislature plans to hold a special public hearing later this month on the restrictions added to the state’s stem cell law by the administration of Governor Mitt Romney.
State lawmakers are furious by what they say is Romney’s tampering with the law they passed last year in support of stem cell research in Massachusetts. They question the legality of the governor’s actions and are holding this hearing to ask administration officials for an explanation of their actions.
Following the hearing, the legislature may immediately file new legislation to restore the original law.
Last month, Romney’s Public Health Council released regulations that in effect changed the wording in the law so that it now appears to criminalize some aspects of human embryonic stem cell research.
Privately, a number of legislative aides said it is unprecedented for a Massachusetts governor to drastically change a law already on the books. They say a likely scenario is for all parties to wait until after January before taking action, when a new governor, possibly someone who supports stem cell research, will take office.
All three of the Democratic candidates support stem cell research. Republican candidate Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey says she is opposed to the Public Health Council’s action.
Stephen Mulloney, spokesperson for the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, says his organization wants action taken as soon as possible.
“We can’t let the political calendar dictate what we are going to do with our research,” he says.
The change in the regulations’ wording is subtle, but researchers at institutions where stem cell research is underway say its impact on future research could be significant.
The stem cell law as enacted last year bans the creation of fertilized human embryos by donors for the express purpose of donating them to researchers.
The regulations from the governor’s Public Health Council expand the restriction, banning the creation of fertilized embryos by anyone, including scientists, for the sole purpose of research.
Researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute announced in June plans to develop stem cell lines from cloned human embryos. Their goal is to create disease-specific cell lines to better study certain diseases. This technique doesn’t require scientists to fertilize eggs in the lab, so this work wouldn’t be affected by the new regulations, says B. D. Colen, Harvard spokesperson.
However, if the cloning technique, somatic cell nuclear transfer, doesn’t yield the desired stem cell lines, the next step would be to obtain eggs from women who suffer from certain diseases and fertilize the eggs in the lab to create embryos, says Colen. “This regulation would seem to make that impossible,” he says.
In a letter to the Public Health Council, representatives of Boston’s major research institutions wrote, “This possibility for criminal liability for scientists in Massachusetts may significantly disadvantage our researchers relative to scientific collaborators outside Massachusetts.”
Romney has said he opposes “stem cell farming,” in which embryos are created in a laboratory.