Actually that's not quite accurate. It's certainly one aspect of it, but the ban actually forbade the use of federal funds for research that would involve destroying human embryos. This is known as the Dickey Amendment. It stated:
None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for
(1) the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes; or
(2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater than that allowed for research on fetuses in utero under 45 CFR 46.204 and 46.207, and subsection 498(b) of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 289g(b)).
(b) For purposes of this section, the term human embryo or embryos includes any organism, not protected as a human subject under 45 CFR 46 as of the date of the enactment of the governing appropriations act, that is derived by fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means from one or more human gametes or human diploid cells.
for the current policy, see:
http://www.bioethics.gov/reports/stemcell/fulldoc.html for
Some points:
The law effectively prohibits the use of federal funds to support any research that destroys human embryos or puts them at serious risk of destruction. It does not prohibit the conduct of such research using private funding. From a federal perspective research that involves the destruction of embryos is neither prohibited nor supported and encouraged, it's merely not funded
· Scientists may receive federal funding for using or deriving new animal embryonic stem cell lines, to assess the potential of these cells for treatment of animal models of human disease.
· Researchers can use federal funds for work involving human embryonic germ cells, obtained from aborted fetuses.
· Researchers can receive federal funds for work conducted on human adult (non-embryonic) stem cells.
· There are no restrictions regarding what American scientists can do with regard to adult stem cells using taxpayer funds, other than those requiring them to honor the usual human subject protections and clinical research requirements (if they are to be transplanted into human patients).
- The National Health Institute allocated over $170 million in fiscal year 2002, and approximately $181.5 million in fiscal year 2003 to the study of human adult stem cell reserach.
· Researchers remain free to pursue work (including the derivation of new lines of embryonic stem cells) in the private sector, without government funding.
· Under present law, work supported by private funds can proceed without restriction.
