Obscurantism is still rampant in the United States. Please help fight it today.

The next week (until May 26th) is the second half of

the comment period for the new guidelines for stem cell research, which American scientists will have to live with if they want federal funding. This is the public’s only chance to shape those guidelines: which can be improved-or made worse.

Unfortunately, there are problems with the proposed guidelines!

Not only are the guidelines far more conservative than we had hoped, but opponents of the research are systematically flooding the comment process.

Conservative religious bodies, have launched a national campaign to attack early stem cell research by mass emails to the NIH.

*"The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) launched a new
“Oppose Destructive Stem Cell Research” campaign today, equipping citizens
to contact Congress and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to oppose
embryonic stem cell research ." — WASHINGTON, May 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/

Is their anti-research campaign having an effect?

Dr. Wise Young of Rutgers University , “… of the 6000 plus comments that NIH
has received concerning the draft guidelines, 99% were from people who opposed embryonic stem cell research.” – Carecure Forum

Imagine what the enemies of research will do with a statistic like that! Think of the State Senators and Representatives who have to fight for stem cell funding – they will be hammered – no politician ever wants to stand alone.

Supporters of stem cell research must be heard.

- As written by Don Reed, stem cell research advocate and whose text is available here with good advice on what do do about the situation .

Bishops, should you be reading this: Embryonic stem cell use “is ethically sound, harms no one, and is already helping suffering patients with dozens of conditions.” Just not in the United States.

You have until May 26th to comment at this link. NOT JUST FOR SCIENTISTS! FOR CITIZENS!

This is what I wrote in the text box:

I am a U.S. citizen who has been working for the INSERM (equivalent to the French NIH) since 2002, first as a postdoc, then as a full-time researcher. I study embryonic development and have conducted research on human stem cells derived from embryos since my Ph.D.. Restrictions and difficulties on conducting stem cell research in the recent past have encouraged me to do so from abroad.

I vigorously support the Draft NIH Human Stem Cell Guidelines. The U.S. via the NIH and the NSF is uniquely positioned to assume leadership in stem cell research, through the impressive financial resources with which we invest basic and translational research in our country, and we have squandered that role to date. It is a tremendous waste, even a crime, to incinerate human cellular material that the donors wish to make available to science for ethical use and certain future medical benefit for other citizens.

The guidelines appear to carefully integrate all ethical considerations that have been broached to date, and are highly similar to recommendations from the International Society for Stem Cell Research, which is a measure of consensus among rationally thinking scientists and ethicists.

Section IV states that “NIH funding for research using human embryonic stem cells derived from other sources, including somatic cell nuclear transfer, parthenogenesis, and/or IVF embryos created for research purposes, is not allowed under these Guidelines.” I would have liked to see addressed in this draft, a provision for pluripotent stem cells that could be potentially derived from embryos donated to research after voluntary abortion within the allowable legal period, cells such as those that may be derived from the embryonic gonad primordium. These, too, like in section III, are “human cells that are capable of dividing without differentiating for a prolonged period in culture, and are known to develop into cells and tissues of the three primary germ layers.”

Such embryos after a few weeks’ gestation, remain entities that are similar to non-implanted embryos from IVF techniques in that they are considered medical waste in one respect, and inviolable in another. As they are non-viable once detached from the uterine wall, pluripotent cells derived from human embryos after voluntary abortions and donated under the same consent conditions may be an additional source of stem cells for research, and should be included as eligible for NIH funding within this draft.

Of course, after I got carried away and wrote this, I found the ISSCR suggestion for other points to raise, that I ought to have taken into account. So, please take action and cut and paste the following simple text into the comment box:

I SUPPORT STEM CELL RESEARCH and wish the NIH to also fund research utilizing established hESC lines derived in accordance with the core principles that govern the derivation of new lines.

Thank you.