Stem-cell research resumes

A federal appeals court recently lifted a ban on federally funded embryonic stem-cell research, according to The New York Times.

The injunction was issued last year by Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., after researchers Theresa Deisher and James Sherley filed a case claming the Obama administration was violating the Dickey-Wicker Amendment by giving the go-ahead to resume embryonic stem-cell research. The 1996 amendment bans government-funded research in which a human embryo is destroyed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturned the injunction on technical grounds, saying the law uses the present tense and does not include the study of already-destroyed embryos.

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said the decision would enable researchers to find cures, while David Prentice of the Family Research Council maintained he finds the research to be unethical. The case will now return to Judge Lamberth.