Judge Leaves Stem Cell Ban in Place

Sept. 8, 2010— -- New federally funded research on human embryonic stem cells remains blocked after a federal judge left in place a temporary injunction he issued on Aug. 23. The ruling puts research projects from coast to coast in limbo.

In a three-page order issued Tuesday, Judge Royce C. Lamberth, chief U.S. District judge for the District of Columbia, rejected the Obama administration's Sept. 1 emergency request that he lift the order while the issue gets settled in court. The administration had warned that Lamberth's injunction could halt research projects and reverse advances in finding new treatments for many illnesses.

"Because federal funding of biomedical research is a major driver of progress in this country, the loss of this funding undeniably will slow progress," said Timothy Kamp, a University of Wisconsin researcher who has been focusing on embryonic stem cells in heart disease. "Patients suffering a broad spectrum of diseases from Parkinson's disease to forms of blindness, to spinal injury to diabetes will simply have to wait longer for potentially revolutionary new treatments fostered by human embryonic stem cell research."

Lamberth wrote that the administration was "incorrect about much of their 'parade of horribles' that will supposedly result" from his Aug. 23 ruling. Lifting it would "flout the will of Congress," as the Court understands what Congress has enacted in the Dickey-Wicker Amendment," a 1996 law prohibiting the use of taxpayer funds for research in which embryos are destroyed. Lamberth added that Congress "remains perfectly free to amend or revise the statute," but the Court isn't free to do so.

But researchers who depend upon federal grants expressed frustration at the latest development.

Eric Bouhassira, principal investigator of the National Institutes of Health-funded Center for Embryonic Stem Cell Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, said Wednesday that Lamberth had issued "a very negative ruling" that will stop "exciting, important research projects, if it is not reversed rapidly." Bouihassira said two of his NIH grants were affected, and added: "I do not know what will happen to the projects yet."