It was interesting to watch the Panel on Brit's show yesterday discuss stem cell research. Mort chose his words very carefully because Dr. Krauthamer was there and he knows a bit about stem cell research and paralysis as he has been wheelchair bound for 30 years. He (Dr. K.) called Edwards a demagogue for his remarks yesterday insinuating that Reeve might have been able to walk as the result of stem cell research-says that is ions away.
Mort came back with well Bush promised $100 million for stem cell research and he has only funded $25 million. Dr. K came back with the fact that science had run out of ideas and were not funded more because they had not presented credible proposals for more. Grant proposals are judged by peer review so it is hard to argue with Dr. K. If science could come up with more worthy proposals, they WOULD be funded up to $100 million as W promised.
Edwards is so slimy. He was on CNN on Sunday and Wolf asked him if he had brought up the fact that Mary Cheney is gay just to make sure that the Far Right know this and Edwards was appalled that people would think that (he is so nice, doncha know)..he said his statement was heartfelt...yeah, right.
The peer-review issue only specifically applies to federally funded embryonic stem cell research on existing embryonic stem cell lines. If you or your private foundation decided to fund Dr. "X's" embryonic stem cell research, that would be up to you and your foundation's processes governing how your money is awarded.