Stem Cells

NIH has just authorized the use of human embryonic stem cells under a new policy implemented by the Obama Administration.

The move was hailed by supporters of the research as a long-awaited watershed that would finally allow scientists to start to use millions of dollars in taxpayer money to study hundreds of lines of cells that had been put off-limits by President Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, on moral grounds.

I was never clear on what those moral grounds might have been, apart from a mystical appeal to the uniqueness of human DNA coupled with abortion politics. This is, I think, a good move. Hopefully it provides the long-hoped-for traction that it has been promising.