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Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- When members of Congress return next week from their Memorial Day recess, Congress and President Bush will once again do battle over whether taxpayers should be forced to fund embryonic stem cell research that involves the destruction of human life. Both the House and Senate have passed measures overturning the presidents limits on funding the controversial science but the bills contain minor differences. The expectation most political observers have is that the House will adopt the Senate version of the bill, S. 5, and send that version to President Bush -- who has already promised to...

Madison, WI (LifeNews.com) -- The Wisconsin company that holds the patent on most embryonic stem cells is challenging the federal government's rejection of its patent. The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation holds the patents on researcher James Thompson's work and has called it a "landmark invention." Thompson is considered the first to isolate human embryonic stem cells in 1998, a controversial work because human embryos must be destroyed to obtain them. WARF currently holds three patents that it says essentially give it rights over all of the human embryonic stem cells in the U.S.The U.S Patent and Trademark Office issued a...

Tallahassee, FL (LifeNews.com) -- The Florida Supreme Court has paved the way for two state ballot amendments about stem cell research funding -- one that forces the state government to pay for embryonic stem cell research and another that prohibits it. Now all organizers of the competing proposals have to do is get enough signatures to qualify. Both sides have been working to collect enough signatures to get their measures on the ballot and they both surpassed the 10 percent mark that then required the state's high court to evaluate the language. The first amendment would force the state to...

Irvine, CA (LifeNews.com) -- After the California Supreme Court ruled that the state's stem cell research firm is following all of the state's public accountability laws, watchdog groups say the problems are continuing. Now they are having a hard time getting the National Academy of Sciences to open their meetings to the public. The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights says NAS recently barred the public from a meeting of representatives of state public stem cell research programs at the National Academies' Beckman Center in Irvine.John Simpson, a spokesman for the consumer group, arrived late in the day intending to...

Atlanta, GA (LifeNews.com) -- Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue tickled pro-life advocates in the Peach State for the second day in a row on Thursday when he signed a bill promoting adult stem cell research into law. His signature came just one day after he signed a bill on abortions allowing women to see ultrasounds of their unborn children. The measure, SB 148, is known as the Saving the Cure Act and it encourages ethical research involving stem cells from the umbilical cord, placental tissue and amniotic fluid.SB 148 also calls for the universal collection of postnatal tissue and fluid for...

JEFFERSON CITY — A $350 million spending plan that Gov. Matt Blunt originally trumpeted as a godsend for Missouri's life sciences industry was stripped on Thursday of anything relating to that research. One of those projects would have spent $5.5-million project to help young biotechnology companies build out costly wet lab space in Cortex, a biotech business corridor in midtown St. Louis. The University of Missouri-Columbia was hit hardest by the new plan, losing an $85 million research center that had once been touted as the centerpiece of Blunt's spending plan. Instead, Blunt is now requesting $31 million to reconstruct...

From seMissourian.com: JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Hundreds of opponents of embryonic stem-cell research crammed the Capitol halls Wednesday urging a statewide election on whether to overturn a voter-approved constitutional protection for such research.

BOSTON -- A black MIT professor began a hunger strike Monday to protest the university's decision to deny him tenure, which he claims was based on race. James Sherley, a stem cell scientist, said he tried for two years to persuade administrators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to reverse the department head's rejection of his tenure bid. "I'm not actually doing this to get tenured," Sherley said. "I'm doing this for the reason that I wasn't tenured -- which is racism -- and I want this institution to admit that that is the problem and make plans to do...

James Sherley, a biological engineer whose opposition to embryonic stem cell research has been controversial among his peers, charges he has been denied the same freedom to challenge scientific orthodoxy afforded his white colleagues.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A group of prominent Catholics is challenging church leaders' opposition to stem cell research and to the proposed Constitutional amendment that would protect such research in Missouri. The group, led by former Sen. Tom Eagleton, e-mailed a letter to fellow Catholics last week explaining its reasons for supporting Amendment 2, which Missourians will vote on Tuesday. The amendment would ensure that any federally approved stem cell research and treatments would be available in Missouri. The letter from Catholics for Amendment 2 said the group felt a moral obligation to respond to what it called misinformation, scare...

Ouch! I'm pretty confident that Michael Steele is going to beat Ben Cardin in Maryland's Senate race, in part because Cardin keeps shooting himself in the foot. He's now running one of those disgraceful Michael J. Fox embryonic stem cell research ads, which misrepresents Steele's position on the issue (as well as President Bush's). Here is Steele's devastating response, in his own ad: STEELE: I’m Michael Steele, and I approve this message. TURNER: I’m Dr. Monica Turner. Congressman Ben Cardin is attacking Michael Steele with deceptive, tasteless ads. He is using the victim of a terrible disease to frighten people...

Recently, I lost a great deal of respect for celebrity Michael J. Fox after watching a commercial where he criticizes Republicans for not supporting stem cell research. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, was either ill-informed or disingenuous while making this ad. What makes matters even worse is when conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh questioned Fox's sincerity in making the commercials, but was pilloried in the media. Limbaugh said Fox did not take his medication--thereby worsening his symptoms--in order to garner sympathy during the filming of the spot. The truth is Fox has admitted to using this technique...

This is a well written and informative article, Michael. I am 64 and have had PD for about two years. I shared emotions you expressed, especially denial. But now I have come to accept it and am tryiing to make the best of my life. I have avoided medications for as long as possible but started a newly approved medication yesterday, called Azilect. It presumably slows down the disease, but, as you indicated, everyone is different regarding how they are affected by Parkinson's. I have read the Michael J. Fox book too and found it interesting. He appeared recently in...

(CNSNews.com) - Almost five years after President George W. Bush announced his policy to restrict the number of embryonic stem cell lines available for federally funded research, and shortly after he vetoed a bill to increase funding, Democratic policy makers say the states must now take control of the issue. Stem cells are thought to be able to form various human tissues and potentially cure various diseases. Adult and umbilical cord blood stem cells can form many cells, while embryonic stem cells are thought to have the ability to form any human cell. However, because the embryos are destroyed in...

He is, however, correct in noting that "that if embryos are human beings with full human rights, fertility clinics are death camps -- with a side order of cold-blooded eugenics. No one who truly believes in the humanity of embryos could possibly think otherwise." This, of course, leads into the question of what human lives should be protected. The embryos destroyed for stem cell research or IVF are living members of the human species. Mr. Kinsley doesn't deny this, but rather than parsing the logic of which human beings are not worthy of human rights, he makes emotional appeals, writing...

At a very young age, I was diagnosed with a congenital eye disease. I was suffering from something called retinoschisis and in the late 1950's surgeons did all they could to provide me with limited vision in one eye. I was technically considered legally blind, but I did have quality of life. Running and jumping, playing baseball and riding a bike are all activities enjoyed by children. Fortunately, with the breakthrough surgeries that were performed on my eye in the late 1950's, I also was able to enjoy these pleasant activities of youth. This is not to say life was...

Illinois moved to the forefront of controversial stem cell research Monday, handing out $10 million to 10 research groups studying heart disease, cancer and other serious diseases. But continued funding is in doubt. Opponents say they have the votes to block Gov. Blagojevich's proposal to spend an additional $100 million over five years, beginning with $15 million in 2007. Stem cells are immature cells that, it's hoped, could be coaxed into becoming specialized cells to produce insulin for diabetics, regenerate heart muscle for cardiac patients and repair spinal cord injuries for paraplegics, among other treatments. Embryonic research included Some researchers...

TRENTON - A New Jersey panel on Friday awarded $5 million in grants for stem cell research, including what is expected to be the first disbursements from a state for experiments on human embryonic stem cells. Three of the 17 awards involve human embryonic cells, a controversial area of an emerging science, although existing "lines" of human embryonic stem cells would be utilized by the three recipients.  All 17 projects were approved for about $300,000 over the next two years by the New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology.Supporters believe stem cell research could bring cures for a variety of...

“Intermediate” or “Special Status” for the human embryo is invalid I. Introduction This essay addresses the moral status of the human embryo. It asserts that on the basis of biology and metaphysics, the human embryo should be accorded full moral status, that is, inviolability. While this is also the position afforded it by the Catholic Church on the basis of divine revelation and elsewhere, the case will not be argued on that basis in this brief. Instead it will provide a critique of the so-called “intermediate” or “special status” which has been proposed by some ethicists including several of the...

Cloned early-stage human embryos—and human embryos generated only from eggs, in a process called parthenogenesis—now put therapeutic cloning within reach THEY WERE SUCH TINY DOTS, YET THEY HELD SUCH immense promise. After months of trying, on October 13, 2001, we came into our laboratory at Advanced Cell Technology to see under the microscope what we’d been striving for—little balls of dividing cells not even visible to the naked eye. Insignificant as they appeared, the specks were precious because they were, to our knowledge, the first human embryos produced using the technique of nuclear transplantation, otherwise known as cloning. With ...