Stem cell issues not resolved yet
The decision at the end of July by US president George W. Bush on the conditions under which stem cell research could be federally funded in the USA has not clarified issues sufficiently for US scientists, according to the AAAS (American association for the advancement of science). In his decision, which could have a significant bearing on whether US scientists chose to pursue their research in Europe rather than the USA, Bush said that research could be carried out on the existing 60 embryonic cell lines which already existed. But the AAAS has cast doubt over the both the number and the accessibility of these lines. Firstly it has questioned whether 60 cell lines exist, pointing out that the figure had originally been arrived at by the US National institutes of health (NIH). But the same organisation said as recently as July that the number is in fact only 30. Secondly, the availability of these cells is in doubt, as they have probably been developed by private sector firms. This means that they will either not be available for public research due to patent protection, or will be provided payment is made, which could be beyond the means of scientists. While this uncertainty persists, there is the possibility that more scientists will follow in the footsteps of university of California's stem cell researcher Roger Pederson, who this year transferred to the UK's university of Cambridge to continue his work.