NIH Draft Guidelines for Human Stem Cell Research: one more week to comment

There’s only one week left for the public to comment on the NIH Draft Guidelines for Human Stem Cell Research. The deadline is May 26th. Having worked with embryonic stem cells (albeit mouse, not human) as part of my doctoral research, I support stem cell research. Even though the guidelines are a huge step forward compared with policies from the Bush administration, the New York Times has reported that some scientists are worried that the guidelines may be too restrictive and quotes George Daley, a scientist at Children’s Hospital who was on my thesis committee:

Dr. George Q. Daley, the director of the stem cell transplantation program at Children’s Hospital Boston, said his team had used private financing to create 15 stem cell lines from poor-quality embryos that clinicians had told couples they should discard. Not all couples may have been told that they could donate the weakened embryos to other couples, a requirement under the new guidelines.

“My major concern,” Dr. Daley said, “is grandfathering all those medically important lines” made under less stringent consent policies, including some approved by Mr. Bush.

In addition to concerns that the guidelines may be too restrictive, some scientists (such as Dr. Wise Young, a leading researcher in spinal cord injury) are worried that the public comment site may be being disproportionately flooded with anti-stem-cell views that are not representative of the population. Even Neil Gaiman’s gotten involved.

Submit your comments on the NIH draft guidelines here:
http://nihoerextra.nih.gov/stem_cells/add.htm

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2. Dec 3rd: The Social Responsibility of the Scientist