Often those who are the most anxious are government officials, and they can demonstrate clearly their suspicions by building monumental barriers that include strict laws and regulations impeding the continuation of research, and declaring such research ineligible for public funding. Stem cell research was a victim of these constructed blockades.
According to a report issued by the National Institutes of Health in 1999 discussing their attempts to reform the existing policies of publicly funded embryonic research Congress in 1995 passed a bill that attached a clause that prohibited the funding of any research that included human embryos. The bill vanquished all opportunities for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to garner monetary subsidies to continue stem cell research. The bill stated:.
(a) None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for -.
(1) the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes; or.
(2) research in which human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater than that allowed for research on fetuses in utero under 45 CFR 46.208 (a)(2) and section 498(b) of the Public Health Service Act [42 U.S.C. 289g(b)].
(b) For purposes of this section, the term "human embryo or embryos" includes any organism, not protected as a human subject under 45 CFR 46 as of the date of the enactment of this Act, that is derived by fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means one or more human gametes or human diploid cells (www.nih.gov).
The report states that as a result of the Act prohibiting public funding, the NIH filed an appeal and a petition to reevaluate the conditions of embryonic stem cell research to assess whether stem cell research could be included or excluded from this prohibitive law governing embryonic research. In 1999, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) finally concluded, "public funds could be used for research on ES cells as long as funds were not used for the derivation of the cells, the process that results in the destruction of an embryo" (www.
