National Institutes of Health resumes stem cell funding

WASHINGTON - The government said Friday it's back in the business of funding embryonic stem cell research - at least for now - after an appeals court temporarily lifted a judge's ban.

The National Institutes of Health said it is resuming its own research and will again evaluate applications from scientists who are seeking taxpayer money to do the work, a process that has been frozen since late last month.

An appeals court on Thursday temporarily stayed a judge's preliminary order barring that funding until it could hear full arguments in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, the NIH said it is lifting its suspension of all grants and contracts involving use of the cells.

Scientists who already had gotten NIH grants had been told to continue working until their dollars ran out, but that 22 projects due to get yearly checks in September would have to find other money.

Steven H. Aden, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which is involved with the lawsuit that challenged the funding, said, "We believe it's a shame that they would rush to push funding of embryonic stem cell research, and a waste of taxpayer money."

Embryonic stem cells can turn into any tissue of the body, and researchers hope one day to harness that power to cure spinal cord injuries and other ailments.

Culling them from embryos left over after fertility treatment kills a days-old embryo. A 1996 law prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars in work that harms an embryo, so batches have been culled using private money. But those batches can reproduce in lab dishes indefinitely, and government policies say using taxpayer dollars to work with the already created batches is permissible.

Last month, a U.S. District Court judge, in a preliminary injunction, argued that the research violated the intent of the 1996 law. - AP