Stem Cell Ruling

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Tuesday that it would appeal a court ruling challenging the legality of President Obama’s rules
governing human embryonic stem cell research, as the head of the National
Institutes of Health said the decision would most likely force the
cancellation of dozens of experiments in diseases ranging from diabetes to
Parkinson's.

Officials said experiments already under way could continue. But if the
ruling is upheld, the government will be forced to suspend $54 million in
financing for 22 scientific projects by the end of September. An
additional 60 projects are threatened, and the institutes were busy
Tuesday e-mailing researchers to tell them their money was in jeopardy.

“This decision has the potential to do serious damage to one of the most
promising areas of biomedical research, just at the time when we were
really gaining momentum,” said Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. The ruling, he added, “just pours sand
into that engine of discovery.”

The ruling, issued Monday, revived what had been a dormant moral and
political debate over the research just in time for the November midterm
elections. At a time when members of both parties are trying to focus on
jobs and the economy, thorny questions about the ethics of scientific
experimentation were once again percolating in Washington.

Representative Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat who is a leading
proponent of stem cell science, said in an interview that she had briefed
fellow Democrats on Tuesday morning by conference call on the decision.
She urged them to quickly revive a measure — twice passed by Congress and
twice vetoed by President George W. Bush — that would legalize the
studies and codify the policy Mr. Obama announced in March 2009.

“This court opinion hit everybody by surprise,” Ms. DeGette said. “It
calls all of these policies of the last 10 years into question. I think
what it really underscores is the extreme urgency for Congress to act to
codify ethical embryonic stem cell research.”

In his decision, Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of Federal District Court
for the District of Columbia issued a temporary injunction blocking Mr.
Obama’s rules from going into effect. The Justice Department said it
would ask for the injunction to be lifted, pending its appeal.