Last month, Obama lifted regulations on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research and outsourced the decision on new guidelines to the NIH. The initial guidelines were just released on the NIH website:
Human embryonic stem cells may be used in research using NIH funds, if the cells were derived from human embryos that were created for reproductive purposes, were no longer needed for this purpose, were donated for research purposes …
The Washington Post notes the NIH decided for “political reasons” current guidelines “stop short of allowing scientists to create human embryos for research purposes or pursuing cloning techniques.” As Ryan T. Anderson has written, embryonic stem-cell research is being left behind by research on superior “induced pluripotent stem-cells” which are derived without killing human embryos.
