Edge of the precipice

Science | Obama's new guidelines on stem-cell research will restrict federal funding of the destruction of embryos but won't end the practice | Emily Belz

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In Washington what's old is new again. Rahm Emanuel is in the White House, along with other Clintonites, and now government-funded researchers will be operating under Clinton-era rules governing embryonic stem-cell research.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), which administers most of the public funding for scientific research in the United States, issued in April new restrictions on the research.

Those restrictions prohibit scientists from receiving federal funds to create or destroy human embryos for research—restrictions that have already had the power of law under the 1995 Dickey-Wicker amendment. The restrictions have continuing support in Congress, for now. Under the Obama administration rules, researchers may only use embryos from fertility clinics that are set to be discarded—and parents must give consent to researchers to use those embryos. In other words, destruction of embryos will happen, but not by federally funded researchers' decisions.