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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SiouxPal who wrote (156)	7/31/2004 9:01:04 PM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 360900

Swerves on stem cells The Democrats will use the speech by Ron Reagan, the son of the great late president, to bash President Bush on stem cells — since they have regularly accused the president of pandering to his base by allowing federal funding for only a limited number of stem-cell lines. Yet their criticism ignores the history of another prominent policy-maker, who regularly swerved on stem cells for seemingly political reasons. Bill Clinton changed course several times during his eight years in the White House. There was a de facto moratorium on research involving human embryogenesis from 1978 to 1993, according to Mr. Clinton's director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Harold Varmus. Dr. Varmus is a prominent critic of the current president and a donor to Democratic causes, yet he acknowledged Mr. Clinton's mixed record on stem cells during a May 2000 symposium at MIT. In 1993, the Democratic-controlled Congress opened the door to the possibility of using federal funds, so much so that NIH established a panel to determine how to proceed, and how federal funds should be used. Then came the 1994 election. "In December of 1994," Dr. Varmus said, "the White House, which was still reeling from the Republican victory in congressional elections in November, issued an executive order about embryo research." That order essentially put a stop to any federal funding of research involving human embryos. Despite the 1999 opinion of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission that the use of federal funds for the derivation of, and research on, embryonic stem cells was ethically permissible, the White House refused to alter its policy. According to Dr. Varmus, "The White House explained that no legal action was necessary because human embryonic stem cells would be available from the private sector." Click to learn more... Mr. Clinton's final flip-flop on stem cells came in August 2000, just days after the Democratic convention, when Mr. Clinton announced his support of new government guidelines allowing federal funding of stem-cell research. Whatever one's opinion of Mr. Bush's record on stem cells, he has incontestably shown leadership on the issue. After agonizing over the issue, Mr. Bush enunciated his choice in August 2001 and has since stuck with it. Unlike Mr. Clinton, Mr. Bush actually funded stem-cell research — becoming the first president to do so. Admittedly, there are many concerns that the number of federally stem-cell lines may be too limited for the seemingly limitless potential of stem cells. But that does not make the critiques of Ron Reagan or John Kerry — who has promised to "lift the ideologically driven restrictions on stem cell research" — correct. It is a challenging area, both scientifically and ethically. If voters are looking for leadership on stem cells, the record suggests that they can do better than Mr. Clinton and his sycophants.