July 19, 2006 — President George W. Bush issued the first veto of his presidency by striking down a bill that would have allowed more federal funds for stem cell research.
Currently, federally funded researchers may only use embryonic stem cell lines developed before Aug. 9, 2001. A senate bill passed on Tuesday would have broadened available lines to those researchers.
The bill, HR810, was only four votes short of a two-thirds majority that could have overridden the president’s veto.
While leading researchers promise to forge ahead with their work using private or state funding for studies using newer embryonic stem cell lines, today’s veto, for many, marked a lost opportunity.
"Lack of federal funding is holding back stem cell research in this country," said Walt Low, a professor of neurosurgery and a researcher in the Stem Cell Institute at the University of Minnesota. "Without full federal support, it is difficult to move forward."
Embryonic stem cells form as a tiny cluster of cells in early embryos. Since the cells can give rise to any type of cell in the body, scientists believe they may hold the key to treating numerous diseases and conditions, including cancer, spinal cord injuries, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson's.
Some argue there are alternative means of gleaning the flexible cells. In fact, the president signed into law on Wednesday two Republican-backed companion bills emphasizing such alternatives.
One directs the federal government to seek out non-human sources for embryonic stem cells and another makes it criminal to initiate and terminate pregnancies specifically to produce the cells.
Old vs. New
The current administration argues that plenty of embryonic stem cells, created from the old lines, are available for research projects.
In a statement issued Monday, the White House said, "The NIH (National Institutes of Health) has sent more than 700 shipments of cells to researchers and has thousands more available upon request...85 percent of all the human embryonic stem cell science done in the world has been done with the lines now approved for funding by the NIH."
The University of California San Francisco and the University of Wisconsin are the only two U.S. universities that had derived human embryonic stem cell lines by the president’s 2001 cut-off date.
Arnold Kriegstein, director of the UCSF Institute for Regeneration Medicine, told Discovery News that studies indicate the older lines have acquired genetic mutations because the process previously required the use of mouse cells.
Mouse cells were used as a "feeder layer" to nourish the human cells. Since the mouse cells themselves produce molecules, the older stem cell lines may be contaminated, Kriegstein said.
Randy Schekman, professor of molecular and cell biology and director of the University of California at Berkeley's Stem Cell Institute, agrees.
"The federal government mandates the use of outdated technology even though newer technologies are available," Schekman told Discovery News. "This would never happen in the computing world. There is no question that lines developed in more recent years are preferable to the older stem cell lines."
